Tanita BC550 InnerScan Body Composition Monitor

Reviews of Tanita BC550 InnerScan Body Composition Monitor

1.) Very good scale
Reviewed by: Craig E. Slone
Rating:

I've owned this scale for about 3 years and have been very happy with it. There are 4 people in our family, so the memory buttons (there are 4 with 1 guest spot) make it very handy since each person's vital stats are recorded on the scale (i.e. male/female, age, activity level). I've noticed some reviews have negative comments about the consistency of the body fat readings, but this may be due to not following the instructions carefully? The instructions state that it is important to weigh yourself in consistent conditions each time to obtain the best results, i.e., I always weigh in the morning, with an empty bladder, etc. Also note that your state of hydration can make the body fat measurement vary widely because the scale is using electrical impedance (resistance) to measure body fat. A dehydrated body will have a different fat percentage reading than a hydrated body, all other things being equal. If you weigh immediately after intense exercise in hot weather, your dehydrated state will affect the body fat measurement. One additional note...I had my body fat measured in the immersion tank at the Cooper Institute in Dallas. Immersion is recognized as one of the most accurate measures of body fat available. Within an hour of the immersion test, I measured myself on the Tanita scale and found it was within 1% of the measurement I obtained at Cooper's clinic.

2.) AMAZING INFORMATION FOR YOUR HEALTH !
Reviewed by: Gail Cooke TX, USA
Rating:

It's incredible! About the only thing this mighty mite of a scale can't do is serve your morning coffee. If you're serious about maintaining or reaching an appropriate weight and taking good care of your health, this is a must-have.

Tanita Innerscan Body Composition Monitor is a long name - the short of it is this scale provides vital information about your body to you in your home. The Innerscan, Tanita's latest innovation, not only offers weight, body fat percentage and body water percentage, but also:

Daily caloric intake, that is the estimated number of calories that can be consumed within the next 24 hours in order to maintain your current weight.

Your metabolic age rating, meaning it compares your basal metabolic rate to the average age associated with that level of metabolism.

Visceral fat, the fat in your abdominal cavity surrounding vital organs.

Muscle mass, the weight of muscle in your body.

Bone mass or the weight of bone in your body.

All of this was absolutely amazing to me. The information is determined by the level of resistance, and the user's height, weight and gender. Even more amazing is the fact that the price of this scale is decidedly accessible.

Everyone knows the importance of drinking enough water. I thought I was until I saw my body water percentage. I immediately began drinking more water - it does make a difference. The scale has memory for four, so it can be used by an entire family.

Here's to good health!

- Gail Cooke

3.) As Expected
Reviewed by: TWE Ohio
Rating:

This Tanita home scale with body composition capablity works as expected. After purchase I took it to a facility that has a commercial body composition test device, also manufactured by Tanita, to compare the results. The results were essentially identical. I do not get a print-out with this device that is available with the commercial device, but the weight and percent body fat were the same.

Excellent!

4.) Great scale!
Reviewed by: MRT NJ
Rating:

This is a great scale from Tanita. It is easy to use and very accurate. Only downfall is the display shuts off quickly after giving you your results, so if you are recording all of the info you need to be ready.

5.) Accurate? Maybe. Consistent? Sort of
Reviewed by: M. Cheah
Rating:

I got this scale to monitor my body fat percentage to see if I was gaining muscle mass from weight training. To set it up, you feed it all sorts of information, including your age, height, gender, and activity level. It uses this information to poll a pool of statistical data from thousands of people who are weighed and have their body fat measured, which is then correlated to their resistivity. By measuring your resistivity and weight, it guesses where you would fit in this pool of data. So by lying about your height, or activity level, you can get a different reading. For example, if I set it to athlete mode, I get about 7%, active mode, it's about 11%, and sedentary mode, it's like 17%. So there's quite a range of variability there. In reality, I'd like to think I'm closer to the 11% number, but I've never had calipers done.
As to the repeatability of the measurement, I'm more sure of that than the overall accuracy. Like all resistivity fat monitors, hydration plays a big part in the variability of the measurement. So unless you measure yourself under the same hydration state every time, you'll get wild crazy results. I measure myself before I go to bed and immediately when I get up in the morning. From morning to morning, my fat % is generally within 0.1% of the previous day. If I eat a lot the night before, work out extremely hard, or starve myself, I can generally predict the reading it will show. Another weird effect is that if you measure yourself immediately after a hard workout, you will end up with 1-2% less than what you would expect. I assume this is because the sweat on your body causes less resistivity, which fools the scale into thinking you are more fit than normal.
It has some other features like measuring water%, daily caloric intake, or bone mass, but I feel like there is no way these functions can really be accurate to use as a daily metric. Maybe it could provide some approximation, but I would not build my diet around the scale.
You can set up 3 different profiles for body fat %, as well as guest mode, which solely does weight.

6.) Overall a really good scale!
Reviewed by: Joseph Howdeshell
Rating:

Upon the reading of some reviews about this item, claiming that it had a lot of features, I was really excited to see what this scale could do. When I recieved this item, I was dissapointed to find that it didn't have all of the features that it claimed it did.

These are the only things that the scale does:

Weight: Whenever I weigh myself on this scale, it seems like it gives me a different weight every time, but this is only due to the fact that this scale is really sensitive (in a good way), and that I do it at differnt conditions (which the manual tells you not to). If I start weighing myself the way it says in the manual, I bet that the results will be consistent. As far as acuracy goes, this scale is deffinately accurate; this morning I put two of my mom's 8 pound dumbells on the scale and it said 16.0 lbs which means that it is accurate!

BIA: This feature tells you your body fat percentage by sending a small, harmless electric current through your feet. So far, it seems like this feature is the farthest from accurate. Considering that I haven't taken the readings under the same conditions every time, I am going to give the scale the benifit of the doubt and say that the innacurate readings are my fault.

Body Water: This feature will not work if you are under 18! This feature is a nice tool to have, but I am sad that it isn't able to work for me (I'm 16)!

Muscle Mass: This feature will not work if you are under 18! This is also a very nice thing to have, but once again I am dissapointed that it doesn't work on me!

Daily Calorie Intake: This feature will not work if you are under 18! If I am not mistaken, I think that this feature tells you how many calories you need to eat in a day to maintain your current weight. I am also sad that I can't use this feature!

Overall I am very pleased with this scale: it was cheap, and it is very accurate!
I would deffinately recommend it!

7.) Doesn't give a consistent reading
Reviewed by: William Burney Apex, NC
Rating:

I purchased this scale specifically for the ability to measure fat percentage. I realized after reading lots of reviews on the web that the fat percentage would not be too terribly accurate, but my hopes were that the delta of the fat percentage would be. In other words, I wasn't so concerned with the actual percentage, but how the percentage changed over time. As long as the scale was consistent, it would provide a good benchmark that my workouts and diet were working towards my goal. When I got the scale, I started weighing every day to track the readings to see how consistent they were. Basically, over the three weeks that I used the scale, my weight dropped 6 lbs. However, my fat percentage swung wildly over a percentage change of almost 7%. The change between two consecutive days may be as much as 3%. I am not sure if this is a flaw in the method used by the scale or if the variables that affect the technique used make it unreliable. Either way, in my opinion, this brings the other measurements on the scale into question except perhaps the actual weight measurement which did seem to closely follow the weight which appeared on my old analog scales day by day.

8.) TEMPERAMENTAL SCALE
Reviewed by: James J. Gerchow
Rating:

Had it in use for only 3 weeks! It suddendly started turning on & off for no apparent reason. It is now officially dead!
Quite displeasing as this is my second Tanita (first one lasted 10+ years). I'll post my venture with Customer Service...trust the novel will have a happy ending.
Jim

Features of Tanita BC550 InnerScan Body Composition Monitor

Tanita, the technology leader in scales now introduces Innerscan. Tanita's body composition analyzers monitor your body composition with Bioelectric Impedance Analysis, or BIA, the same advanced technology used by doctors. Foot pads send a low-level electrical signal. The BC 550 Innerscan Body Composition Monitor is a unique and highly accurate body composition monitor. This scale not only reads your body weight and fat %, it also gives measurements for body water%, bone mass and daily caloric intake. The Body Water % is the total amount of fluid in the body expressed as a percentage of total weight. The bone mass feature indicates the weight of bone (bone mineral level, including calcium or other minerals) in the body. The Daily Caloric Intake indicates the amount of calories you can consume within the next 24 hours to maintain the current weight. BC-550 is made of white plastic with gray accents and has a 4 person memory. The display is an easy to read 2.25" LCD display. The scale allows previous reading of weight and body fat % measurement to monitor the change. The weight capacity is 330 lb with the weight increment of 0.2 lb. The body fat and body water increments are 0.1%. The scale has a healthy range indicator, in which the indicator bar shows where body fat % fits into the healthy body fat range. In addition to Child and Adult Mode, the scale has an Athlete mode for frequent exercisers. The scale has 4 AA batteries included. Monitor your health and fitness with a Tanita Innerscan Body Composition Monitor!

The Tanita BC550 InnerScan Body Composition Monitor provides information never before available from a consumer scale. Anyone who is serious about improving his or her total health and fitness will grow to love this monitor. The Tanita BC550 provides Bioelectric Impedance Analysis (BIA) to monitor multiple components of overall health.

The Tanita BC550 InnerScan delivers advanced body monitoring technology with a sleek, stylish design.
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Comprehensive body monitors for total health and fitness.

The results are analyzed along with gender, age, height and weight for the most accurate and comprehensive at-home reading ever available. Other measurements include weight, body fat percentage, body water percentage, and bone mass.

Why You Should Monitor Body Water and Fat Percentage
If you're like most people, you're not drinking enough water. If you wait until you feel thirsty, your body is already suffering from the effects of mild dehydration. You continually lose water during the day through sweat, urine and breathing. The amount varies due to several reasons, including your physical activity level, illness, medications, poor nutrition, or even climatic conditions. Monitoring your body water percentage allows you to quickly compensate if your levels are low, allowing your body to function more efficiently. Having the right amount of water in your body will not only make you feel healthier, but you'll also reduce your risk of developing serious health problems in the longer term.

High body fat levels can reduce your endurance and have been linked to heart disease cancer and diabetes. Tanita's body composition analyzers monitor your body fat and body water levels with BIA, the same advanced technology used by doctors. Foot pads send a low-level electrical signal. Then BIA measures the resistance to this signal as it travels through the body.

With the Tanita BC550 up to four unique users can benefit. Simply supply your gender, age, height and weight into the memory, step on the scale, and the monitor does the rest. The results are analyzed according to each user's information, and the result -- displayed in the monitor's easy-to-read 2.25-inch LCD screen -- is the one of the most comprehensive at-home readings you can get.

Operating on four AA batteries (included), the Tanita BC552 is intended for use by persons up to 330 pounds and is backed by Tanita's 10-year warranty.

Body fat percentages are important indicators of good health. View larger.
Note: Pregnant women should not use this monitor, and if you have a pacemaker or other internal electronic medical device, you should not use the body fat reading feature.

1.) Easy-to-Read;
2.) 2.25", 2 line display;
3.) 4 person memory;
4.) Athletic Mode - special calibration for extremely fit adults to ensure the most reliable results;
5.) Highly accurate;

Package Height x Length x Width: 14.1 in. x 14.1 in. x 13.9 in.
Package Weight: 6.05 lbs.