A good scale

What matters for weight loss most is the trend - it may very well be that your scale at home puts you at a lower weight than the one at the doctor's office, but is it by a consistent amount? Are you accounting for the different time of day, having eaten or not, having clothes on, etc? How often do you weigh yourself at home vs. the doctor's office?

If your scale is acting up it might just need fresh batteries, or to be put in a different place (hard level floor).

I generally think pretty much any scale is going to be fine if you're consistent about how you weigh yourself.

What the above folks said, plus:

Those fancier scales don't *measure* anything they put on the readout, other than bodyweight. Everything else is an estimate. The body composition estimates from scales - where you stand on a metal surface (2 point) or maybe that plus hold something in your hands (4 point) are sending a weak electrical current through your body and making estimates based on that of how much fat, lean mass, water weight, etc., you have.

They're not completely valueless, in that if you have one at home to use routinely, you can probably get a reasonable trendline over time, and recognize when you get a random outlier reading on a particular day(s). That is, if the numbers are consistently going up or down over long time period (ignoring outlier days), that's probably the direction of change that's actually happening. But the absolute value of the numbers they give you, for (say) body fat percent? Those should be taken with a very large grain of salt.

Also, this may not apply to you, but sometimes people are confused because these scales often give the body composition estimates in percents. Sometimes one sees people post here distressed when they're losing pounds, but their bodyfat percent is staying the same (or some variation on that theme). In that case, if bodyweight is declining, and bodyfat percent staying the same, they'd have fewer pounds of body fat, y'know? (Whether that's the proportion of fat loss to other weight loss they seek is a whole more complicated discussion; I'm just making a point here about interpreting the math. The more important point is that the percents in the readout can be imprecise in the first place, not worth stressing over!)

Since weight naturally fluctuates daily, and can change wildly over the course of a day with eating, drinking, sweating, and more . . . I wouldn't read too much into your scale differing from your doctor's. For most of us, we want to lose fat, over time. If the trend of the number on your scale is gradually dropping over multi-weeks, and the trend of your weights at the doctor's office is doing the same . . . you're losing weight, and most of it is probably fat weight. Does the precise number really matter?

If your scale is inconsistent, like stepping on & off it as it sits in the same place gives significantly different readings, then try replacing the battery and verifying that it's sitting level on a hard surface. If it still gives significantly varied readings moments apart, it may be worth replacing it. (Personally, I wouldn't worry about a tenth or so variation under those circumstances, even. But it shouldn't be *pounds* of difference from one moment to the next.)

It would help if you clearly stated your budget and how high you need the scale to read. “Not break the bank” may mean $20 to some and $500 to others.

I’m happy with my Omron Fatloss Monitor with Scale. I don’t trust the fat-loss portion (none of the bio electric body fat measurement devises are accurate). But the scale is precise. Up to 330 pounds. If I center it in the same tile of my bathroom and weigh myself at the same point in my routine every day.

Scale precision is important if you are using the same scale every day or week, such as the scale in your home. Precision is how consistently the scale will weigh the same mass (you) with the same output (number you see on the scale). A precise scale will give you a trustworthy output for weight loss and maintenance. Stepping on a different scale during that time might give you a different number though.

Accuracy is different. Accuracy is how well a scale weighs a pound as a pound. Your doctor’s scale might not be accurate. If your doctor’s office has more than one scale, go from scale to scale in the building on the same day, in the same clothes, without eating or drinking or voiding, and see how wildly different your “weight” will be. It’s because the individual scales are not accurate. Neither is any individual bathroom scale, over time, and with placement in the bathroom depending upon the variability of your tile or flooring surface.

If you want to check accuracy, you have to weigh a known weight, like a one-pound or 5-pound dumbbell. Or a 50-pound plate, or a 200-pound stack of weights. Scale accuracy can be off by a percentage, so a small weight might seem accurate but a large body weight might be off.