For tech stuff, I’m going to talk about the Withings Smart Body Analyzer Scale. I got one last month, but I haven’t been here to use it except for the first three days.\u00a0 Even so, I have some fascinating things to report about this nifty tool (if you don’t mind spending $150 for a bathroom scale — most of you will).<\/p>\n
I’ve had a Tanita Body Fat scale for a number of years.\u00a0 Frankly, a body fat scale is not even remotely accurate and the numbers should just be used for fun.\u00a0 Seriously.\u00a0 My body fat does not vary by 10% on any given day, so it’s really measuring a level of hydration (or lack thereof).\u00a0 As long as you understand that critical point, you won’t freak out, too much.\u00a0 I do believe over time, you can gather a general idea of what your general ballpark body fat measurement might be for general ballpark health purposes.\u00a0 Do not stake your life on it.<\/p>\n
Also do not use EITHER of these scales if you have a pacemaker. <\/strong>If you have a pacemaker, use the general wireless body scale without body fat measurement capability.\u00a0 Also, you must have a Bluetooth capable smartphone with either Android or IOS to get the maximum benefit with this scale.\u00a0 It’s also helpful if you have a wireless network in your home.\u00a0 But you need the smartphone to set up your scale to store your readings where they can be accessed.\u00a0 And this scale has some nifty features.<\/p>\n The one feature I was able to use on this scale while I was 150 miles away was the Indoor Air Quality feature.\u00a0 Twice a day, the scale communicated with my account on the Withings website and recorded the CO2 reading and temperature in my bedroom.\u00a0 We set the thermostat in the house for 50 degrees before we left, and the thermostat is right outside the bedroom door.\u00a0 The scale was by the window, so it was probably a little cooler than the hallway.\u00a0 The indoor temperature varied from 40 – 70F degrees while we were gone.\u00a0 CO2 readings were pretty steady.<\/p>\n When I step on the scale, it will read my weight.\u00a0 If more than one person uses the scale, it will determine who is on the scale by matching the weight of the person standing on the scale with the weight of the closest account.\u00a0 If nobody matches up, it will assume a guest is checking their weight.\u00a0 The value in this is you have no buttons to push, and you don’t need to “bump” the scale to zeroize it — one of the things many people find annoying about digital scales, and something I have to do with the Tanita. Once Withings finishes with the weight, it will compute body fat, then it computes heart rate.\u00a0 After that, it checks air quality and temperature.\u00a0 Then it sends everything to the smartphone app and the website to update the charts there and compare how you’re doing against your goals.<\/p>\n I may have mentioned I use a few apps for tracking my body composition goals.\u00a0 I’ve talked about the Fitbit and it’s app before.\u00a0 It’s great for tracking steps, water consumption, and sleep quality.\u00a0 The Lose It! app is wonderful for logging what I eat and what exercise I perform.\u00a0 I let the Fitbit feed my step count to it.\u00a0 When I had to enter weight manually, I was entering it in the Fitbit app, and it would feed it to Lose It!.\u00a0 Now, I either let the Withings scale do it automatically to the Withings app or manually update the app with the information if I’m not near the scale, and it will feed the information to the other two (curiously deducting .1 pound when it does — at least on manual entries). I took the Tanita to San Antonio and use it down there, manually updating the app.<\/p>\n So far, I like the Withings, but I haven’t had a solid chance to really put it through it’s paces.\u00a0 I was mildly disturbed to note that after a warm shower, my heart rate seems much higher than I would want it to be, so I need to remember to wait a few minutes before stepping on the scale\u00a0 to get that reading!<\/p>\n Do you use any nifty tech tools to track your health status?\u00a0 If so, tell us in comments.\u00a0 Do old-fashioned non-tech tools work better for you?\u00a0 Tell us about those too.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" For tech stuff, I’m going to talk about the Withings Smart Body Analyzer Scale. I got one last month, but I haven’t been here to use it except for the first three days.\u00a0 Even so, I have some fascinating things to report about this nifty tool (if you don’t mind …<\/span> Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[64],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6996","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tech-stuff"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jeanschara.com\/pmtoo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6996","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jeanschara.com\/pmtoo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jeanschara.com\/pmtoo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeanschara.com\/pmtoo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeanschara.com\/pmtoo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6996"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jeanschara.com\/pmtoo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6996\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15146,"href":"https:\/\/jeanschara.com\/pmtoo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6996\/revisions\/15146"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jeanschara.com\/pmtoo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6996"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeanschara.com\/pmtoo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6996"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeanschara.com\/pmtoo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6996"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}