STACK #246 April 2025

TECH FEATURE

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SMART SCALES FOR SMARTER HEALTH

Measuring your weight is a good way of tracking progress while on a new diet or exercise routine, but the number on your standard bathroom scale can be a notoriously unreliable indicator of your actual health and wellbeing. So if you're looking for a bathroom scale that will give you more than just that single number, and which will actually track your overall health rather than just your weight, it's worth investing in a smart scale. Words James O’Connor

What are smart scales? A smart scale is any scale that connects to the internet or your phone via an app. They are generally designed to measure not just your weight but also the distribution of fat and muscle across your body, along with other health metrics. This means that you can see if your lifestyle and exercise routines are cultivating muscle and reducing body fat in the ways you intend. If you want to maintain your current level of fitness and health, they're excellent for tracking any and all changes in your body.

A typical smart scale doesn’t take up any more space than a regular scale, so will fit easily in the bathroom. How do they work? Smart scales connect via Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, or both, and you can track your progress through the brand's app. Smart scales automatically update and track your stats, so you can follow your progress in real-time without needing to input any data yourself. Typically these scales have sensors in them that are able to run a small, undetectable electrical current through your body to track resistance and create a map of your body. You can use the results from a smart scale to view a map of your segmental fat and muscle, which means that the changes that happen to your body can be tracked in real-time as part of a daily weigh-in. It's a safe and easy way to get a complete picture of your body. A smart scale allows for multiple user profiles, so your whole family can use it, with each person tracking their stats separately.

even more granular ways – in some cases, you can use one to keep track of heart health. More premium scales can give you a sense of your vascular age – the approximate health of your heart – and monitor for changes or irregularities. Apps for most scales will take other health

metrics into account too, such as daily steps and standing heart rate. Some models can even track things like air pollution levels and give you a

What other features do they have?

weather forecast as they measure your body in the morning, which is handy if you're about to get dressed for the day.

The exact feature set depends on the model, but many smart scales can track your health in

40 APRIL 2025

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