I bought this scale several years ago because I wanted to keep track of different measurements as I lost weight. So far the only problem I have with it is that if I move too much on it, it doesn't read all the measurements right (it will just read the weight). The insructions do state that, and when I first got it I didn't have that problem. I can't exactly attribute that to the scale, though. My floors now aren't exactly level in places so I have to move it around whereas before they were. Overall, I'm happy with it and would get it again.

Be wary of Tanita and their warranty claims. The product itself was decent, and fairly accurate, however Tanita is not a company that prides itself in customer service and product support. I used my scale in a normal bathroom environment, and after just 3 months you could see evaporation underneath the screen. I don't know if a gasket had a crack in it, or what the issue might have been, but the unit couldn't withstand the normal humidity of a bathroom. In fact, the unit was a good 20 feet from any active water, like a shower and tub.

I shipped the unit in, and without even so much as a courtesy call, the "customer service manager" returned my unit with a note that my warranty claim was refused, even though I had spoken to someone before about the issue, and said it would be replaced no problem. The customer service manager was nice enough, but said that even though it was well within the boundaries of his discretion, he was going to refuse the claim, because they refuse all like claims regarding evaporation. He even admitted that it happens fairly often.

Stay away.

His recommendation? Buy another Tanita, and not place it in the bathroom. Right.

I just got my scale and tried it out, and I have to say it really makes me mad that the designers of this scale see no reason to give anyone over 50 a metabolic age rating. To them, I guess a 50-year-old and a 90-year-old are both over the hill, so why bother making distinctions?

I spent the extra money primarily because this scale has been reported as being very accurate (repeatable) in the weight measurement, but since I spent so much money on the other features, I expect to receive them. I'm 60. As far as I can tell, I could be 10 years healthier than average, or 10 years less healthy than average, and I was looking forward to seeing what the scale said. But now I'll never know. I'm not sure if I'm more unhappy because I didn't get the information I expected, or because I feel that I've been treated with contempt because I'm at an age where they feel we can just all be lumped together. Either way, I'm disappointed.

Works great. It's a lot of fun to use. I haven't lost any weight since owning it, however. Oh yeah, if you buy this, you will need at least a modicrum of intelligence because body fat and hydration are inversely related. If you do not get this, then you will be mislead by the readings you get from the scale. Still, it totally beats going to the gym and having someone pinch your fat with calipers in front of God and everyone else there! So glad I will never have to do that because I have this nice scale.

I am sure once i figure out how it works, it will be fine. the problem the items ships with out a maunual. emails to yahoo resulted in them telling me to look in the manual for the manufacture to then ask for the maunual. maybe it was the night shift.

The only method to measure body fat reliably is hydrodensitometry weighing. However, there exist two kinds of accurate devices that are capable to estimate this measure and offer reliable results, bioimpedence and skinfold calipers. In order for them to provide with repeatable and dependable measurements, skinfold calipers ought to be used by professionals while bioimpedenzometric scales do not.

The science behind the Tanita BC533 scale is bioimpedence, which allows for a body composition estimate by sending a brief pulse of low voltage electricity through your body. The electricity that leaves your body at your feet is then read by the scale and your body composition is calculated and displayed for your convenience.

Because the estimate is done through electricity everything impacting on electricity and its conduction also has an impact on the results you get. For this reason, you need not to use the scale while your feet and/or your body are wearing isolating materials (shoes - especially plastic, and socks and sweaters - especially in wool), when your skin is wet (ie: after a bath or shower, when you have recently sweat), and when you have eaten or drank in the previous 3 hours. On top of that, because of circadian hormonal rhythms, weight changes within the day. My suggestion is to pick up a time of the day and stick with it. For even more dependable measurements, use the scale in the same conditions every day so that you can compare successive measurements and hopefully track your progresses.

This scale isn't any more difficult to use than other bioimpedenzometric device is, but you need to know the technology and its limitations in order to exploit it to your own advantage.

Pros: it looks stylish, it's very dependable

Cons: it needs to be set up, it requires a flat surface

Tanita BC533 Glass Innerscan Body Composition Monitor

The accuracy of fat percentages and other metrics that are provided (except weight)on this scale should be looked upon as rough estimates only. The algorithms to provide the various read outs uses not only the bioimpedence data but also age and level of activity that the user enters. Case in point, I input my correct age of 55 and got a fat percentage of 18.9 %. Stepped off the scale , changed my age to 35 years (without changing other input parameters) and got a body fat read out of 16.5%. A 2.5 % difference. The measured muscle mass, bone and water percentage also changed significantly.

The scale can be useful if following large changes in body composition where the precision of the numbers is not that critical. However, if you need to measure fat percentages with an accuracy of lets say, +/- 1% or so, you will need to look elsewhere.

If you want too much info, buy this scale. Might be motivating for some people. I go my what I look like in the mirroror how my clothes fit.

This scale is terrific. Why go pay for all the body fat composition testing at my local health center when I have this?

Excellent product!

Wow, according to the scale, my visceral fat (gut) has gone up since I last checked two weeks ago--I need to work on that. This scale has helped me a lot to track my progress against what I eat and what exercise I take up. Fat percentages, bone mass, and other stats help me understand what changes my body goes through depending on how I treat it, so it inspires me to want to improve the numbers that are going the wrong way. It's money well spent, considering it could be blown otherwise on a couple of dinners out.

This scale probably does more than we need it to do. It gives us our weight and body fat percentage. The other readings are of curiosity but no real value to us. I don't really care what my muscle mass is, etc. For that reason, it's probably more expensive than we would have been willing to spend. But our doctor felt it was one of the most accurate out there on body fat and that was one our interests. If you really have to know how much your viscera weighs, this is probably of interest to you. If you need multiple people and want an accurate measure of body fat, this scale is probably for you. If all you want to do is find out how much you weigh, a $15 dial scale will do the trick and you can spend the other $100 on your choice of weight reduction plans.

If you are looking for a great bathroom scale that is really easy to use this is the one. You can use it up to four people to monitor your fat percentage and water percentage. The scale is really accurate. If you weigh yourself and add a half pound of water it will register that. The only inconvenience is that we lazy people have to bend over to press your number or a seperate one if you just want to weigh yourself without the body monitor feature. You must wet your feet for proper analsys.

Does not have a memory feature to track weight over a period of time.

This is one heckuva scale. It does everything. It looks fabulous and actually stays clean in our bathroom. Other scales are hard to clean, have you noticed? Not this baby! Just wipe and shine! It is notoriously too accurate to please most members of my household! The display is large and easy to read, and placed far enough toward the outer perimeter that those of us that must peer over some unwanted personal girth, can actually read the sad results without falling headfirst into a bath, sink or toilet bowl. Actually, by monitoring my weight carefully with this scale and making notes of the mass ratios, I have been able to take my belt in by two notches (that's quite a reduction folks!) and lose at least fifteen pounds since we got it two months ago.

So, it's not just a beautiful decor item for m'ladies bath, it is also a very useful, beautifully made precision device that works exactly as advertised and should give years of good service. The only detail I would comment on is the tiny ON button that is labled "OFF" (???!) that one must try and push with a toe, before the scale will read your weight.

If you just stand on it, it remains silent, mute, sans display readout.

They could have either made a larger ON button that says "ON" or better yet, like one of the other Tanita models I own or the Taylor that my daughter has, simply stand on it! Small issue, really. We love it!

Complicated my son doesn't have it programmed yet & he is a computor science major.

I have found my measurements with the caliper highly inaccurate (from one reading to the other) this scale removes the guess work and lets me know exactly how I am doing on my plan. The scale is great. A friend picked up a lower end Tanita scale and found it equally useful/high quality. On his scale he has to compute many of the numbers this model comes with. I think either way, if you go with Tanita, you'll be happy. I sure am.

This scale and body composition monitor is a great buy and a useful tool for anyone who wants to monitor their progress as they improve their fitness. The body fat and muscle mass readings are extremely useful and encouraging, and allow you to see results quickly, even if you don't see immediate results in weight loss or don't need to lose weight and just want to become fitter. I would recommend this scale to anyone!!

The weight seems to be very accurate. The scale looks great. It has a lot of other measurements/features that are nice. You enter your age, height, gender, and activity level. The activity level is defined in the owner's manaul-- 1 is sedentary, 2 is moderate activity of lower intensity workout and 3 is athlete/active. They define athlete as someone who excerices 10 hours per week and has a resting heart rate of 60 bpm or less. I wish they had a broader spectrum of selection. I would say that I am a 2.75 if it were a continuous scale. The problem is you have to select, in my case, 2 or 3. I select 2 and I get a 18.4% body fat. I select 3 and I am at 11.4%. I think I am much closer to 11.4%-- probaly 13% or so. I suppose I could do some linear interpolation, but that is a pain. It is very important to compare the numbers from the same time of day (I do it after I wake up, relieve myself and drink a glass of water). In the end it is all relative, so if you compare apples to apples you should get solid feedback on your diet/excercise efforts.

I bought this scale to help me track my overall fitness. I was very surprised at the accuracy of the body fat content. I workout pretty regularly so I set it up for the athletic setting and the first time I checked it I also compared it to a body caliper measurement and they were very close.

The key though for accurate measuring is to follow the instruction manual. There can be a lot of variation within a single day if you take a measurement at the wrong time of day. You're not supposed to use the scale to measure body fat, etc. within 3 hours of eating, excercise, sleep, etc. It can be hard to find a time to get a reading, but if you follow the guidelines, it's pretty accurate.

Just a word of caution, a female friend of mine tried it once and it wasn't very accurate for her compared to caliper measurement. It may not work for everyone, but it's been a good tool for me.

When I received the item I inmediately tried it on several friends. Most of them were shocked to weight more then they thought. Later we guessed it must be the graduation of the scale (about 2 kg more). One women 174 cm tall very slim turned out to have hidden obese muscle mass (1) and we were surprised as she had done for 3 year spinning and had dropped it a year ago.... I wrote about it to tanika but got just an e-email to phone, I just don't live next door and don't have internacional service call with my phone (colombia) and asked them to write, but never heard anything again. So we are left to our own conclusions. One other girl very small 148 cm is now 42 years old has a fat percentage of 18,4 far below and turned out with a metabolic age of 12 the minimum....
Who knows what interpretation we can give it. Deffinitly she does`nt look 12. One male friend 166 cm high turned out to be obese but doesn`t look fat at all. He like just has wide shoulders: so with this measurements I am not sure and there is noone to ask about.
Otherwise it works very well it is easy to handle and has specially great fluctuations during the day in the metabolic age. I start at 42 years the day and end with 37 years the day. That is wonderful.

I am a Shaklee Distributor. With this scale, I can easily determine my customer's health situation and provide nessesary health product intake advice. Personally, I believe all health product distributors who wish to establish a professional and effective service to their customers should have a scale like this!
It easily lets you know whether your customer has heart problems through it's Visceral Fat Rate. Also lets you know whether protien intake is not enough through it's Muscle Mass. Also the Metabolic Rate lets you know whether your customer is in need for a metabolic boost!
It is a great help towards my career!
I totally promote it to all of you (although Tanita won't pay me for it) haha :P!

I got this around new years when Amazon had it on sale for a killer price -- I couldn't pass it up.

The weight is very accurate, it closely matches the doctors scales. No more getting on an off three times to get an average weight!

It looks great. Much fancier and nicer looking than your average boring, square scale.

The bodyfat and other calculations are handy though I wouldn't count on them being very accurate. Still gives you a general idea of where you are.

Having four profiles for up to four users is great. Need more than that? There's always the guest mode. Or if you don't need the bodyfat percentages just press the Off button and you get a plane-Jane scale.

Also, I found that a digital scale was a MUCH better motivator than an analog one. Seeing the needle move a hair is nothing like seeing the .2's come down slowly each day.

A very good buy. =)

This monitor is an excellent way to measure how your body rates. It tells you your body fat percentage, muscle weight, fitness level, metabolic age, daily calorie requirement for your activity level, bone mass, and visceral fat percentage. This is a must for all those fitness enthusiasts who focus on the bottom line - how much does the scale say I weigh? Well, fitness is measured in many other ways and this monitor has changed my focus to muscle weight and physique rating over the total weight readout. You'll love it! Tanita BC533 Glass Innerscan Body Composition Monitor

I always wonder how accurate the BMI method of calculating body fat is but as a relative indication (probably not to far off the actual percentage) it is an excellent tool to measure progress on fittness, weight loss or gain, and body fat. The scale sends an electrical pulse (undetectable to you) through one foot and measures the return signal in the other foot. The measured decrease in the signal is used to calculate body fat based on statistics of the general population. This scale also calculates muscle mass, visceral fat (fat around the belly organs)and a few other useful measures but the thing to keep in mind is the readings are all calculations using your weight and the electrical signal passing through your body. Again the calculations are based on statistics and studies of the general population that have been conducted. But my reasearch indicates that a great deal of effort has been put into these studies and I personally am comfortable with what the results indicate. Another improvement over my first scale is the literature and owners manual that comes with this scale. It explains the BMI method and other features of this scale in excellent detail and it also spells out the impact of the water content of your body which affects the signal passing through your body. This product is great and should be used by anyone who is an athlete, working on gaining muscle mass or trying to lose body fat weight. This is the second Tanita scale I own and this one comes with lots of bells and whistles. I am very pleased and recommend this product without hesitation.

After much online research, I decided to purchase the Tanita brand, mainly based on reviews by others who have used their products. I'm very satisfied with this purchase, and the price on Amazon was better than anywhere else I searched.

The product looks great, and has great features that seem to be accurate.

I would definitely recommend this product to others looking for a scale that does more than just tell you your weight.

... having to track your weight, body fat, etc. add to that a scale with feature buttons that don't work when you want them to (like during initial set-up)- frustrating!
i just sent mine back to amazon (for free- yay!) for an exchange; hopefully i will get one that works this time and monitoring my diet/fitness success will be much more enjoyable.
as i haven't gotten a chance to fully explore this product, i'll keep you posted. yikes - those % body fat numbers can't be right! let's go for a run, dog :)

Overall I am happy with the Tanita BC533 because I found it at such a great price. The weight option is accurate and easy to read, and I like that I can set it for up to four people. I do have to say that my husband and I find the other options on the scale unreliable because the results fluctuate so much, more than humanly possible. I would not recommend paying the $120 retail price, but for $39.99 it's much better than the others in that price range.

I need to know more than just how much I weigh. I do weight training, so judging what is going on by just the pounds does not tell me the whole story. This scale tells me what I need to know to get the big picture. It is probably more important that I know my lean body mass than my weight. I get the other measures that are of interest to health conscience people as well as lean body mass.

The scale works great, took only a few minutes to set up profile for me and my wife. Wish it kept more than a day history , but solve the issue with note pad. I would buy this product again!

This is an awesome scale that is easy to program and use. Our last scale (which was also a Tanita) quit working. We went to several local stores and tried several scales, but they were either difficult to program or some readings appeared to be way off. I finally searched online for a Tanita scale & noticed this was was a top pick in US News & World Reports, so I decided to give it a try. We loved our other Tanita scale & love this one even more. The only thing missing is the ability to store readings, but I can always save them myself in an Excel file. The ability to see an accurate weight, hydration level, body fat percentage, muscle mass, bone density, calories to maintain current weight, and metabolic age lets me know exactly where I am & helps give more motivation to stick with my exercise plan.

Tanita BC-533 gives a good "ballpark" reflection of your current state of fitness and anyone working out regularly will benefit from this product.

this scale is very accurate, however the fat % measurement device is quite inaccurate.
i think it depends on where you step on the scale to read the electrical impulse.

Otherwise, this is a great scale and for the price i paid on amazon clearance (34.99) the body fat measurement device was just a bonus.

I bought this scale for very basic purpose just to measure weight. And it seems to be very accurate so far. One thing I would complain about is the metal plate that is used to scan the body fat is coming off. For such an advance machine I think it is advisable to manufacturer to put a better glue..:-) Other than that it is a good machine.

You get exactly what it says. 99% satisfied. Very consistent, accurate, and stylish. Be sure to read the manual to make sense of all the different numbers it reports.

The only minor drawback is a balance issue. The glass overhands the base enough that if you stand too far out on the edges, the scale tips. Be careful the first few times, and you'll quickly learn where to stand.

Must read the entire booklet to understand how to set and read your Tanita BC533 innerscan body composition monitor. Follow it precisely and it will give you accurate readings

I have recently bought one of these. I feel like an idiot. I should have checked it out more and I hope I can get my money back. The weight seems accurate but everything else is a nonsense. No-one else has mentioned, in the reviews, the following: if you do the maths you will find that your bone weight, muscle mass, and body fat ( calculate it's weight from the percentage of your actual weight ) come to 100% of your total weight. Well what about your intestines, which probably make up about a quarter of your body weight, your lungs, which are quite heavy, your brain, which weighs about 8 lbs ?!!
Apart from this, I work out and am quite muscular and have negligible body fat, yet I get a bodyfat percentage of 23 to 24; a friend who has just won a body building competition and has a professionally-taken bodyfat percentage of 11 gets a 21% reading on my Tanita scales plus an average physique rating, and my husband, who does not do a great deal of exercise and has quite a bit more body fat than either of us ( by appearance ), gets a better bodyfat percentage and physique rating than either of us. This machine is nothing but a big con I'm afraid.