Tanita BC554 Ironman Glass InnerScan Body Composition Monitor Elite Series
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List Price: Our Price: $129.99 Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Category: Health Care See more product details |
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Customer Reviews of Tanita BC554 Ironman Glass InnerScan Body Composition Monitor Elite Series
Customer Review: additional features not included in the manual
Summary: 5 Stars
After recieving this scale I got answers to a few questions I had wanted to know before I ordered it that I couldnt find in the online manual (from tanita's website) or from the reviews that I did read. First of all, I was disappointed from what I read that the recall was only for some readings not all. HOWEVER, what no one mentions is that you can (once off the scale) scroll thru ALL the readings using the arrows keys as long as the scale hasn't turned off. You WILL have plenty of time to record your readings...all of them.. one by one. Don't worry about the limited recall. Secondly, the scale will beep twice to let you know when it's done recording and when you can step off. These are petty, but since I can't see anything while I am on the scale, these two features make this scale simple to use and important to me. Don't listen to people complaining about the small icons. Just step on, wait for the double beep, step off and record.
I know a lot of people worry about the acurracy. It is clearly stated in the manual that it is more accurate to take the average number of all the readings. I personally use a spreadsheet and have it average the numbers every time I add in a new days worth of numbers.
I am using this scale to track weigh loss and I tend to get hooked on a number even though I know I shouldn't (it's easier said then done). This scale keeps me focused on the overall picture. Also, once I started to exercise my weight didn't seem to change for the better which is descouraging. I found it helpful to see the muscle mass increase while my weight sometimes increased!
Customer Review: Great product. Read the owners manual.
Summary: 4 Stars
This is a great scale if you're obsessive about tracking your progress. For the basic layman, the numbers are all relative. As it says in the owners manual (downloadable from the Tanita website) you'll want to take the measurement at the same time each day and under the same conditions. They suggest late afternoon before dinner. I do it each morning when I get up. The book says that most are somewhat dehydrated after sleeping all night and that makes sense but as I said, the measurements are all relative. If you have seriously dry skin on your feet(heels) then the readings will be off a bit. If you step out of the shower, dry off and step onto the scale, you get the best conduction. Remember, it works via a small electrical signal passed through your body. Don't worry, it's too small to notice. Read the manual!
Also important is the initial setting. I don't consider myself to be Bruce Jenner but I'm not Jabba the Hut either. If you exercize regularly and intensely and your resting heart rate is 60 bpm or less, then you are an athlete by Tanita's standards. Once I reset my profile on the scale to reflect this, I was much more satisfied with the scale's readings.
Overall, I'm glad I made the purchase. A friend of mine who suggested it to me gave me an Excel spreadsheet and accompanying graphs that he uses with it to track his progress and together they're a great team... but, read the manual and follow Tanitas recommendations. They're WAY smarter than I am when it comes to this scale and how it was meant to be used. Good Luck.
Customer Review: A Good Source of Inspration
Summary: 4 Stars
As long as you realize that this is not a precision measuring instrument, you'll be happy with this scale. What it is good for is monitoring trends in your weight and body fat.
There are about 10 functions on this scale. Two, maybe three are useful. Your weight. That's a good one to have. Body fat %. This number will fluctuate considerably depending on many factors. Perspiration is one. So you have to get into the habit of taking readings in consistent environments, like the same time of day, x hours after eating or exercising, etc. Again, you're not getting an exact number, you're tracking trends. There are numbers for bone mass, body moisture %, calories required (BMI I think), visceral fat (or something like that. The fat around your organs), age (or what age your body's shape is in) and a physique index. My physique is up to 2 (I started at 1 having done little exercising lately). My age reading was 50 (being 54 I thought I was doing good till I read that the scale doesn't go over 50).
So I check my weight, body fat, age, and physique rating, and pretty much ignore the others. Although some of the other readings can indicate that your environment is uniform. So I don't really need to know that I have 7lbs of bones, but that if that number changes, maybe some other factor has changed, too.
I'm pleased with this scale. I've had it about 4 months now, and all is well. I just need to get that physique rating up, and body fat % down. The scale won't make you exercise, but it will make you glad you did.
Customer Review: Great for weight, good for tracking trends.
Summary: 4 Stars
This scale measures weight very accurately. As far as that goes, it's the most accurate (consistent) scale I've ever owned. You can get on and off over and over, and it will give you the exact same weight every time. Be sure to put on a hard, flat surface. If you put it on a bathroom rug, the scale will be way off for some reason.
All the other measurements are fun to look at, but I have no way to verify if they are accurate or not. The readings can vary wildly depending on time of day and what you have been doing. I've found if you go out the night before and drink a little bit too much alcohol, the scale thinks you are in fantastic shape. On the other hand, if I have a long run (15 to 20 miles), the next day the scale thinks I'm fat and lazy. Obviously, the more you mess with your body, the more it messes with the scales readings (This is informative in its own way, and as I mentioned earlier, pretty entertaining).
In order to overcome the daily fluctuations, I weigh myself first thing in the morning before eating or drinking anything. I also created a spread sheet in Excel to track my readings. That way I can average the numbers over a month and then track my changes from month to month. This is much better than trying to compare these numbers day to day anyway. Realistically, your muscle mass or your bone density is not going to change at all on a day to day basis.
Hope this helps.
Customer Review: Accurate
Summary: 5 Stars
I have only used the weight feature of this scale so far. For many years I had another scale of the same brand and I decided to get a new one because the other one was so old and I was starting to assume that the weight was getting less accurate. But since I'd been happy with the accuracy till then, I stuck to the same brand and bought this model. I was astonished that when it arrived and I weighed myself on both scales, they each gave me the exact same weight. I was impressed. Over the next month or so the readings sometimes differed by as much as .4 lbs. But that's not a big deal, I don't think. I'd once bought an expensive black scale at Sharper Image that really angered me when I realized they'd "tricked" the mechanism to make it appear consistent. This meant that if you were to weight yourself 10 times in a row, it would give you exactly the same weight each time, but only because the mechanism "locked" the weight in. I was able to verify this by stepping on the scale holding a glass of water. It would still give me the same weight. And it wasnt' until I stepped on the scale holding something much heavier that it would "unlock" the weight and give me a more accurate reading. The Tanita brand does not do that at all. I welcome variations of .2 or even .4 lbs when I weigh myself a few times in a row, because at least I know it's real.