My love-hate relationship with my Aria scale
khhregister
Posts: 229 Member
I love how the Aria can send my weight electronically to my computer so I don't have to do it. It's been so helpful for me to weigh myself every morning - and I use Trend Weight to smooth out the daily fluctuations. It's another way I can be accountable for the choices I make. It also helps me put things in perspective - I feel huge when I'm retaining water during my period, but I can see on the scale it's just a few pounds, and it goes away within a few days. Not the disaster that I think it is when my jeans won't button.
The body fat function, on the other hand, I hate. Oooo I hate it. I had a funny Aria scale experience this morning. I've been ignoring the fat % since I got the scale, since it is so laughably wrong. It consistently says I have ~ 43-44% body fat, and occasionally will give me a 50% body fat. Based on picture comparisons, it looks like I am ~ 20-25% body fat. Caliper measurements at the gym put me at 22%.
Today, the Aria scale accidentally thought I was my husband. It told me I was 25% body fat. I weighed myself again and chose my profile, and it told me I was 44% body fat. It's ridiculous. I'm (at least visually) leaner than my husband, btw, who consistently measures around 23% body fat on the Aria. I wish I could just turn the body fat % feature off, because it's a little bit of a disincentive. Maybe I should change my profile on the scale to make it think I'm a man.
I love my little Aria scale. But I don't like how it lies to me!
The body fat function, on the other hand, I hate. Oooo I hate it. I had a funny Aria scale experience this morning. I've been ignoring the fat % since I got the scale, since it is so laughably wrong. It consistently says I have ~ 43-44% body fat, and occasionally will give me a 50% body fat. Based on picture comparisons, it looks like I am ~ 20-25% body fat. Caliper measurements at the gym put me at 22%.
Today, the Aria scale accidentally thought I was my husband. It told me I was 25% body fat. I weighed myself again and chose my profile, and it told me I was 44% body fat. It's ridiculous. I'm (at least visually) leaner than my husband, btw, who consistently measures around 23% body fat on the Aria. I wish I could just turn the body fat % feature off, because it's a little bit of a disincentive. Maybe I should change my profile on the scale to make it think I'm a man.
I love my little Aria scale. But I don't like how it lies to me!
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Replies
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Being male, I've not had that experience, but I'm interested to see if others also experience something similar. It would definitely influence who and how I make recommendations regarding scales.0
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Mine gives me the same janky bf reading, but since I'm overweight I have accepted it! I got suspicious when it went randomly up and down by 5 or 6 percentage points, though, because it looks like that could be linked to how much water I had the day before. I am going to create a male user profile with my same stats & see what happens!! (Hell, my body is a little mannish anyway considering I carry extra weight above the hipline LOL)...
Overall I still love aria because it is so much better than my old scale at tracking weight. My old scale used to boomerang around 5 lbs up 6 lbs down etc which I believed was just due to body fluid mysteries. But since I got Aria if I leave the scale in the same place & weigh right upon waking and using the restroom each day, it only varies by 12-18 ounces in any 24 hour period. That seems a lot more plausible. Now off to think of a name for my alter ego! Hahaha0 -
I went in & just changed my gender to male... Let's see what their algorhythm does with that! Bwaaa ha ha!0
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Yes, I changed my profile to male & my bf reading is a closer match to how my body actually looks if you use those bf comparison charts. I will get a real bf test done when I get to my goal weight. misogynistic algos strike again! Hahaha0
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I have a love-hate with my Aria too. Since it weighs both my husband and me, and we are within a few pounds of each other, it gets us mixed up. I haven't quite figured out how to say "yes" and "no" to the Aria so I end up jumping on and off. Half the time hubby gets credited with my weigh-in.0
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Oh wow. I wonder why it's doing that. Mine estimates right around 23% for me currently which doesn't seem to horribly out of the ball park.
What happens if you switch your profile to lean instead of regular?0 -
I like the bmi and automatic uploading functions, which is why I got the Aria scale. It says currently, I am 159.7 lbs with 37 percent body fat. At my height and weight, I kind of believe it because I am barely in the overweight range. I'll see what happens as I lose weight. FWIW, my body fat readings have been pretty consistent, it doesn't seem to really fluctuate a lot like yours does.0
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I have a love-hate with my Aria too. Since it weighs both my husband and me, and we are within a few pounds of each other, it gets us mixed up. I haven't quite figured out how to say "yes" and "no" to the Aria so I end up jumping on and off. Half the time hubby gets credited with my weigh-in.
I watched the YouTube on this: if the initials it is displaying aren't yours, get off the scale & press firmly on the two lower corners with your two hands - each time you press it will bump to a new user. When you see the initials you want, get back on...
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So I'm superficially happier with my bf reading now, but I should probably continue to just ignore it! heh heh0
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my home bodyfat scale has always told me I'm around 40% bodyfat (no matter what I weighed)...had bodyfat measured at my gym (hand held device - not the most accurate, but better than scales) and was THRILLED that I came up at 30% (the trainer thought I was a bit odd for being thrilled with 30%, but when I had always thought I was 40%+ it seemed like a good thing). Lost some weight/fat over the next year and now I routinely register between 22% and 25% on the handheld devices - I'll take that over 40% anyday!
although now I am tempted to adjust my home scale to male and see what it says!0 -
What confuses me is the fact that scales such as the Tanita brand, which uses the same concept to measure body fat (an electrical signal), supposedly ARE accurate and are used in professional settings. I do love my Aria, but I'm skeptical of the body fat percentage accuracy. I had a handheld Omron body composition analyzer I considered accurate (they are around $40.00). I really wish I still had it to compare to the Aria, but I got rid of it when I Kondo-ed my house.0
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The Aria electronic sensors only measure the lower half of your body mass I read. The extrapolation metric that accounts for the unmeasured balance could very easily be thrown off by body type. I am one of those women who has very broad shoulders, long arms and a wide rib cage. If the Aria infers a body type with small narrow shoulders & rib cage it makes sense it could guesstimate that everything over its predetermined ratio is fat. So I would say pear & hourglass ladies should leave their settings alone, whilst apple and inverted triangle ladies might want to explore the lean or even male setting. A caveat: setting your profile to male will wreak havoc with your calorie allotments. I don't care; I use MFP for all that. I really only use the Fitbit interface to move my weight data across to MFP without having to manually log. But you should know this before you try it!0
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Muscleflex79 wrote: »my home bodyfat scale has always told me I'm around 40% bodyfat (no matter what I weighed)...had bodyfat measured at my gym (hand held device - not the most accurate, but better than scales) and was THRILLED that I came up at 30% (the trainer thought I was a bit odd for being thrilled with 30%, but when I had always thought I was 40%+ it seemed like a good thing). Lost some weight/fat over the next year and now I routinely register between 22% and 25% on the handheld devices - I'll take that over 40% anyday!
although now I am tempted to adjust my home scale to male and see what it says!
Part of the difference you are seeing here is that impedance scales measure mostly lower body, while handhelds measure mostly upper body. But definite congratulations on the loss!0 -
The Aria electronic sensors only measure the lower half of your body mass I read. The extrapolation metric that accounts for the unmeasured balance could very easily be thrown off by body type. I am one of those women who has very broad shoulders, long arms and a wide rib cage. If the Aria infers a body type with small narrow shoulders & rib cage it makes sense it could guesstimate that everything over its predetermined ratio is fat. So I would say pear & hourglass ladies should leave their settings alone, whilst apple and inverted triangle ladies might want to explore the lean or even male setting. A caveat: setting your profile to male will wreak havoc with your calorie allotments. I don't care; I use MFP for all that. I really only use the Fitbit interface to move my weight data across to MFP without having to manually log. But you should know this before you try it!
Doesn't the Aria emit a small electric current that goes through the whole body, though? That's what Fitbit says, anyway.0 -
I have a love-hate with my Aria too. Since it weighs both my husband and me, and we are within a few pounds of each other, it gets us mixed up. I haven't quite figured out how to say "yes" and "no" to the Aria so I end up jumping on and off. Half the time hubby gets credited with my weigh-in.
When you are done weighing in, it'll show initials. Hop off the scale and if they aren't yours, tap it once with your foot and it should switch to your initials. Leave it alone and it'll register as you. Same thing with my husband and I, and usually his initials pop up first so I always have to change it to me lol.0 -
Mine gives me the same janky bf reading, but since I'm overweight I have accepted it! I got suspicious when it went randomly up and down by 5 or 6 percentage points, though, because it looks like that could be linked to how much water I had the day before. I am going to create a male user profile with my same stats & see what happens!! (Hell, my body is a little mannish anyway considering I carry extra weight above the hipline LOL)...
Overall I still love aria because it is so much better than my old scale at tracking weight. My old scale used to boomerang around 5 lbs up 6 lbs down etc which I believed was just due to body fluid mysteries. But since I got Aria if I leave the scale in the same place & weigh right upon waking and using the restroom each day, it only varies by 12-18 ounces in any 24 hour period. That seems a lot more plausible. Now off to think of a name for my alter ego! Hahaha
I'm going to try this tomorrow. I'm apple-shaped, like you mentioned, so that may have something to do with it!
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Okay, reporting back on the Aria experiment! Last night I set my Aria profile to "male, lean." This morning I weighed myself 5 times in a row. 6, if you count the first one where I used my husband's profile:
1) as my husband: 176.1, 21.5%
2) as "male me": 177.4 32.2%
3) as "male me": 177.4 32.0%
4) as "male me": 177.4 31.5%
5) as "male me": 177.4 31.6%
6) as "male me": 176.8 31.4%
Closer to where it should be, I think, compared to 43-44% I get as a female. Still very interesting that when I use my husband's profile, it calculates a leaner bf. He is 4 inches taller than me - that's the only thing I think would change the calculation (we're the same age).
Makes me think that when you are setting up the scale, they should ask you for your body type (pear, apple, etc) or use actual measurements with a tape measure to pick a setting rather than male/female (or in addition to).
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Ha! See??? I have to look up the sensor info again. I read these stop at the midline...0
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just changed mine to male and it reads 25% - much closer to what I think I am based on picture comparisons and the hand-held devices! the scale as female has always had me right around 40%. Any idea what it is about the formula that would change so much when weight and height are kept the same and the only thing that changes is body fat reading?????0
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Muscleflex79 wrote: »just changed mine to male and it reads 25% - much closer to what I think I am based on picture comparisons and the hand-held devices! the scale as female has always had me right around 40%. Any idea what it is about the formula that would change so much when weight and height are kept the same and the only thing that changes is body fat reading?????
YAY! I'm so glad we've figured this out. I have no idea why this works - they must have a different equation that they use for men and women, based on average fat distributions in the two genders. But for crying out loud, it is SO wrong for us and I don't imagine "apples" are that rare in the population.0 -
realityfades wrote: »Doesn't the Aria emit a small electric current that goes through the whole body, though? That's what Fitbit says, anyway.
The current takes the shortest path from left foot to right foot, so most of it goes just up to your pelvis and then back down. To get the whole body (except the head), you need electrodes for hands as well as feet. Professional Tanita scales have hand grips next to the display. The Tanita BC-1500 home scale has retractable hand electrodes. It also costs over $600!0 -
realityfades wrote: »Doesn't the Aria emit a small electric current that goes through the whole body, though? That's what Fitbit says, anyway.
The current takes the shortest path from left foot to right foot, so most of it goes just up to your pelvis and then back down. To get the whole body (except the head), you need electrodes for hands as well as feet. Professional Tanita scales have hand grips next to the display. The Tanita BC-1500 home scale has retractable hand electrodes. It also costs over $600!
Ahhhhh, okay. I was under the impression the current goes through the whole body. That said, I take the body fat percentage as a guide and not exactly a definitive number. Since I am 5'7" and 158 lbs, I have no problem believing my body fat percentage is around 37. I'll see how it changes as I lose weight.0 -
Hahahaha... Yeah, I was always the girl using the men's room at concerts & bars too when there was a line for the ladies'... This was at least good for a laugh.0
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Well I switched my profile to lean and it changed my reading from around 23% to around 20%.
I don't seem to be getting the huge BF% discrepancy. I did however have something interesting with my actual weight. The readings were fluctuating 2 lbs in the short time between weigh ins. Now isn't that just strange. I'm going to just keep going with my first step on the and hope it's right.0 -
I should say - my scale isn't aria (not sure of the brand off hand), but seems to be the same problem as the aria one! wish i found this male/female discrepancy years ago!0
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I use the lower end Withings because it has no body fat percent.
I also sometimes will weigh myself and not look at the display, just check Trendweight later on. That's another way you could ignore the BF%.
I think the electrical impedence measures are known to be pretty inaccurate, aren't they?0 -
I just was weighed and measured with an Inbody which I've read is more accurate than hydrostatic. My BF measured 50.8 at 204.7. This morning before breakfast, lots of coffee (and of course naked and now I'm wearing a sweater with 4 heavy zippers), my Aria read 51.8 at 201.9. My confidence in the Aria increased greatly.0
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I just was weighed and measured with an Inbody which I've read is more accurate than hydrostatic. My BF measured 50.8 at 204.7. This morning before breakfast, lots of coffee (and of course naked and now I'm wearing a sweater with 4 heavy zippers), my Aria read 51.8 at 201.9. My confidence in the Aria increased greatly.
Sorry had to look that up
It's still bio impedance
I wouldn't trust it personally0 -
Then which way do you think it is inaccurate - too low or too high?
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