And yup, even the weather, showing the slated high/low for the day as well as the current temperature. The idea here simply being that if you’re getting ready in the morning and just going in or out of the shower, this could guide your clothing choices for the day. If like me, you are vested in the Garmin ecosystem then the Index Scale makes sense for you. However, one of the reasons you bought it is perhaps to let your nearest and dearest share its features and they may well not even have a Garmin account. Here’s how you give them access.

However, we’re big fans of the heart rate monitor feature which works with a smartphone. Put your fingertip on the rear camera lens of your phone and within a few seconds you can see your resting heart rate. This can help give an indication of cardiovascular fitness and a good place to start if you want to know how to get fit. A lower RHR can be a sign of a strong cardiovascular system. The Withings Body smart scale is well designed, but it only measures weight and BMI so some might see it as no different to a digital scale. Easy to set up with convenient WiFi and Bluetooth connection, the Garmin Index S2 is a decent but expensive smart scale suitable for lots of people. Once you’ve hit ‘reset’ the scale will prompt you to pair with the Garmin Connect app. It uses Bluetooth for this bit, but then the rest of the updates happen via WiFi. Input your gender, height, weight and date of birth, then your activity level (low, medium or high) and name or initials (to identify which user you are) and you should be good to go. Tip: Your Garmin Connect account can be a dormant one that you only use for the purpose of sending the data somewhere else.However, there's a couple of small design issues here that stop it from being a must-buy. For one thing, the in-app presentation of these metrics can get a bit confusing. There's only a couple of ways the information is presented, and most of these use a green sliding scale without offering too much information about your results. Are they good? Bad? Average for your sex, height and weight? Sometimes, it's hard to tell, especially with the more esoteric metrics. And believe us when we say, there's nothing quite like taking a look at your BMI and body fitness age to motivate you to work harder in the iron jungle. These smart scales are an underrated and versatile tool in any fitness fiend's arsenal, so long as you take advantage of the stats they give you. The electrical charge is safe for most people, but if you have a pacemaker, medical implant or are pregnant, it’s best to speak to your doctor before you use one. Are smart scales accurate? There was a software update that took several minutes to complete. But once this was done, the scales were ready to use.

As we mentioned earlier, the scales connect to the Garmin Connect app. We’re big fans of the app in general, and it works fantastically well with the brand’s smartwatches, as we mentioned in our Garmin Venu 2 review. When used alongside the Index S2 smart scales however, the results are underwhelming.Smart scales are a relatively new way of looking at a person’s weight, by looking at a lot more,” Ramsay said. “The reason why someone may want to know a bit more about their metrics is because there are some limitations to just measuring weight when on a weight loss programme that includes exercise. Muscle weighs more than fat, so an exercise program — with a healthy diet — may elicit an increase in lean muscle mass and a reduction in body fat. However, if you are looking at just your overall weight, you may not see the reductions that you expect. This can lead to inaccurate reporting of progress and a drop in motivation.” For body fat and the other impedance-based metrics, there’s been some under-the-hood changes including tweaks to the algorithms. The tweaks were to allow for more accuracy and more sensitivity in the measurements. There will almost certainly be some noticeable differences between readings on the original and the S2. With more sensitivity, the S2 will allow for more fluctuations and movement over time in those metrics compared to the original.”

The other major upgrade for me from the Fitbit to the Garmin Index S2 was just how many modes and metrics the Index S2 could measure. The scale lets you monitor not only your weight and BMI but also your body fat percentage, body water percentage, skeletal muscle mass, bone mass, and your weight trends over time. The colorized display is capable of showing you multiple metrics at once, as well as the weather (so you know what to wear for the day!). Your partner has to create a Garmin Account and FIRST get connected to you. Only then can you give your partner permission to use the scale in the scale settings under ‘Manage People’. Adding that body composition analysis along with weight data can give you a more comprehensive view of your overall health, helping to shape the type of exercise, nutrition and hydration decisions you make based on those insights. Measuring body fat and seeing it drop while your overall weight remains the same, for example, shows that you're putting on muscle while reducing your fat mass — something a traditional scale would never be able to show you. Do smart scales work with apps from Fitbit and Apple Health? Garmin was always either 2.8kg or 2.9kg and Tanita RD953 was always 4.1kg. Each seemed confident they were correct with repeated measurements. At least one of them wasn’t. Consecutive Body Water ReadingsI'm a long time Garmin user, ever since my time in the infantry and overseas; all my GPS' are Garmin, I have a Tactix Charlie and love it, which is why this post breaks my heart a little.

But there are some limitations to measuring body fat via bioelectrical impedance,” he said. “If you are dehydrated, this method will overestimate body fat. Also, these smart scales aren’t calibrated on a regular basis for accuracy, so they may get less accurate over time.” Now within the Index scales you can tweak your profiles Activity Class (seen above), which in theory improves accuracy for body fat measurements on more athletic people. Though, in my case it made no difference. Typically this would be for people closer to single-digit body fat %’s. There’s been too many late night Stroopwafels for me lately for that to impact my testing. From here the scales can indicate things like body mass index (BMI), muscle mass, body fat percentage and bone density. They can even tell you how much visceral fat you have - the kind of dangerous fat that clings to vital organs and puts you more at risk of chronic diseases including heart disease, diabetes and obesity. And they’ll reveal if you need to eat more protein or up your water levels. How hard can this be? I know it’s probably not a big money spinner but realistically the things that were wrong with wifi scales 5 years ago are still wrong and yet they’re all easy to fix, with the major one being a simple open API in both directions. The Garmin Index 2 uses bioelectrical impedance to measure tissue types. Essentially, it runs a small current through your body (hence the need for bare feet), and different types of tissue cause different degrees of resistance. The scale measures weight and BMI, body fat percentage, skeletal muscle mass, bone mass, and body water. Skeletal muscle doesn't include the muscle in your heart, or the muscles that apply pressure to your organs and blood vessels.In any event, after it’s done showing you that trendline, it’ll iterate through the following metrics: Body Mass Index (BMI), Body Fat Percentage, Body Water Percentage, Skeletal Muscle Mass, Bone Mass, and Weather. Another new feature with the Index S2 scale is the ability to customize which of these metrics it’ll show each time you step on it. So if you don’t want to see a particular metric you can disable it within the settings on the smartphone app: I didn’t specifically test that each user’s screen preferences are separately saved, I assume they are. Garmin Index Scale 2 – Getting your data elsewhere I do in general find WiFi scales a far better option than Bluetooth only scales. WiFi scales tend to be ‘set it and forget it’, versus a Bluetooth scale usually has dependencies on having your phone nearby, the app opened, Apple or Google not having broken something in the recent update, etc… Whereas a WiFi scale doesn’t care about your phone and does it all behind the scenes. But within that ecosystem it’s pretty good. For example, your Garmin watch will automatically update your weight anytime it syncs with your phone, which, is basically 24×7: