Tanita BC533 Glass Innerscan Body Composition Monitor
|
List Price: Our Price: $89.99 Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Category: Health Care See more product details |
|---|
Customer Reviews of Tanita BC533 Glass Innerscan Body Composition Monitor
Customer Review: Be wary about using your Tanita in a bathroom.
Summary: 1 Stars
Be wary of Tanita and their warranty claims. The product itself was decent, and fairly accurate, however Tanita is not a company that prides itself in customer service and product support. I used my scale in a normal bathroom environment, and after just 3 months you could see evaporation underneath the screen. I don't know if a gasket had a crack in it, or what the issue might have been, but the unit couldn't withstand the normal humidity of a bathroom. In fact, the unit was a good 20 feet from any active water, like a shower and tub.
I shipped the unit in, and without even so much as a courtesy call, the "customer service manager" returned my unit with a note that my warranty claim was refused, even though I had spoken to someone before about the issue, and said it would be replaced no problem. The customer service manager was nice enough, but said that even though it was well within the boundaries of his discretion, he was going to refuse the claim, because they refuse all like claims regarding evaporation. He even admitted that it happens fairly often.
Stay away.
His recommendation? Buy another Tanita, and not place it in the bathroom. Right.
Customer Review: A waste of money
Summary: 3 Stars
I think for some people these might be fine. But in my case they're worthless. They do no more than some math. You can get that information free on the web if that's all you want. It considers your age, height and weight and then simply uses math and statistics. In addition, it takes into account only the fat in the lower body. What woman over 40 isn't mostly butt and thighs where fat is concerned? And a man who carries fat in the gut would show low bodyfat when he really is a ball of blubber.
I'm athletic so I put it in athletic mode. It puts my bodyfat far higher than it is. I use calipers to make sure what is really is. So I have to put the Tanita in "male" mode to get everything right.
In addition, the weight does not agree with my older Tanita or my standard scales. It's off about 1 or 2 pounds. I put a 5 pound weight on all three of my scales including this one and all weighed 5 lbs. Then I get on and I'm one pound more. How I gained one pound from the bedroom to the next room I'll never know!
I trust the calipers and the bathroom scale but above all the measuring tape. Just my experience for what it's worth.
Customer Review: Tanita Innerscan Monitor
Summary: 1 Stars
I have recently bought one of these. I feel like an idiot. I should have checked it out more and I hope I can get my money back. The weight seems accurate but everything else is a nonsense. No-one else has mentioned, in the reviews, the following: if you do the maths you will find that your bone weight, muscle mass, and body fat ( calculate it's weight from the percentage of your actual weight ) come to 100% of your total weight. Well what about your intestines, which probably make up about a quarter of your body weight, your lungs, which are quite heavy, your brain, which weighs about 8 lbs ?!!
Apart from this, I work out and am quite muscular and have negligible body fat, yet I get a bodyfat percentage of 23 to 24; a friend who has just won a body building competition and has a professionally-taken bodyfat percentage of 11 gets a 21% reading on my Tanita scales plus an average physique rating, and my husband, who does not do a great deal of exercise and has quite a bit more body fat than either of us ( by appearance ), gets a better bodyfat percentage and physique rating than either of us. This machine is nothing but a big con I'm afraid.
Customer Review: It's ok
Summary: 3 Stars
I was fairly disappointed in the scale. The body fat % is pretty far off from a caliper test. If you just want to know if you are losing body fat it's ok, but if you want to actually know your correct body fat it's off by a few degrees. Also, there are so many restrictions as to when you can weigh in if you want an accurate measurement. Not until after 3 hours after waking, 3 hours after eating, 3 hours after exercise. Since I eat every 3 hours and exercise often it's almost impossible for me to find a time. I am using their suggestion of right before my evening meal which does seem to give me a body fat % close to my caliper measurement but it gives me a higher weight total because I have been eating during the day.
Overall it looks nice and the weight itself seems to be right on compared to my other scale. I don't use the other buttons much because they always read the same thing. And I wouldn't trust the calorie counter that lets you know how much you can eat in calories to maintain your current weight - mine was off by 500 calories per day!! With that I would have been gaining a pound a week.
Customer Review: Not as Reliable as Calipers, Save Your Money!
Summary: 2 Stars
I have been using this scale for the past several months and it just reinforces the fact that the use of elecrticity to calculate body fat is unreliable at best. Because using body fat calipers yields much more accurate and consistent results I would recommend using those and saving your money on a regular digital scale to track your weight separately.
For example, my current body fat percentage is 21, using the calipers. Using the scale, I get a different result based on the time of day I take a measurement. In the morning, when one has little body water, the percentage reading I get can be anywhere from 25% to 28%!! If I take a measurement later in the day (i.e. the afternoon) when more water is stored in the body, I get a lower reading - anywhere from 21% to 23%. Meanwhile with the calipers I get a consistent result of 21% any time of the day.
This wide variation of body fat measurement based on how much water you have in your body does not yield consistent enough measurements to warrant spending so much money. Save your $$$ and get a caliper and measure your body fat separately.