Gone are the days when you just step on the scales and find out how much you weigh. Now the numbers promise to tell you a lot more about your physical health.
The Withings Body Cardio promises to track your standing heart rate and blood pressure and use its tech to help you understand your cardio health. You can buy it at Apple stores and use it on carpet or tiles.
The Withings was confusing to set up (took me 30 mins), and confusing to get started daily. Despite its Apple link, its app is complicated to read and connect to the scales. It told me that my blood pressure was 120/80 and my heart rate was 60 bpm (great, says Google). But I don't want to be Googling, I'd prefer the scales to tell me directly.
After five weigh-ins I do get a Pulse Wave Velocity (aka arterial stiffness) score of "normal".
The Tanita worked best for me, letting me know where I was in terms of body fat, muscle mass, visc. fat, BMR muscle quality and metabolic age using green, amber and red, and smiley faces. It was easier to set up and the HealthPlanet app seems good. If the idea is to get you healthier, the Tanita may work wonders. Already I want to get smiley faces next to all my stats. Inspiring.
THE VERDICT
The Tanita is the winner, it's easy to use with useful data presentation.
Withings Body Cardio RRP $289.95
One thing that raises my blood pressure is downloading an app then having trouble syncing it with the product. This was super time consuming, and even then the data that showed up clearly on the scales didn't present itself easily on the app. Still, great if you get that sorted and want to monitor your blood pressure and heart rate.
Tanita RD-953 RRP $499
I love being told that my metabolic age is younger than my real age (by six years!), and seeing a little smiling face. I must be doing something right! Has colour-coded indicators of body fat, muscle mass, visc. fat, muscle quality, and so on. If you can work out how to add another person (tricky!) the metabolic age reader is a great party trick.
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