A review on a new gadget I got over the Christmas period.
I purchased a Fitbit Aria, for those not au fait with the latest and greatest in the Fitbit universe, this is a “smart” scale. It is wifi-enabled and every time you (or up to 8 guests) stands on your scales, it measures your weight, and your body fat percentage and uploads that information to fitbit where you can see it on graphs alongside any other fitbit data you may be recording.
It identifies who is standing on the scales based on your past weight, which is kind of neat. I do not know how it differentiates between two similarly weighted people but given the fact my wife is half my weight, this is not an immediate concern for us
Its got a friendly enough screen which displays the minimum it needs to only when it needs to.
Once it has recorded your weight, it sends that data to fitbit, which you can keep a record of on your smartphone or on the web.
All in all, this data is a little underwhelming as its a data point usually per day. I think it will be interesting over time (i.e how does my weight respond to a time of heavy eating (christmas) or when exercise increases, what is the effect on my weight).
Despite initial concerns about what effect weighing myself every day would have on my mind, I’ve found that I now barely take it in at all. Its become just something I do every morning. However, I can see how weighing yourself every day could lead to problems such as obsession with your weight or other similar ailments.
Why did I get one of these?
There is a few reasons:
-
Impulse buy. It was reduced and we needed a scales, so I decided to pay a little extra for something that is smart, but not too smart.
-
Data, I’ve started the new year with a focus on trying to get more info on myself. I don’t necessarily have the money to buy all the smart things straight off, but this presented itself and I decided to go for it.
- Its quite a closed ecosystem for my data, but the data is exportable from Fitbit (and syncable to other services).
-
I like the look of it, it looks like a simple bathroom scales, but has some nice tech lurking under the surface.
-
Its easier than a pen and paper. Maybe its just because I shelled out some £’s for it, but I find myself in a routine and the data does get recorded with little effort from me. I really like the idea of near automatic data entry. I could do this with paper and pen every morning, but I feel that would last a day or two maximum.
Final Verdict:
If you need a scales and you can find one of these at a cut price, I would recommend it.
It looks nice, it works great (once you have it synced), and adds a tiny bit of smart to your home.
As I begin to collect more of my biological/exercise data, I think this just becomes one vector of that data.
If you are currently tracking your weight by some other means (i.e pen and paper or recording it on your phone) stick with that. If you are disciplined enough to do that, you don’t need this.
