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The same is true of digital bathroom scales. In fact almost all consumer grade digital scales have “fake accuracy” built into the firmware that ensures the same
by hammock 3y ago
The same is true of digital bathroom scales. In fact almost all consumer grade digital scales have “fake accuracy” built into the firmware that ensures the same exact weight shows up when you step on the scale twice in a row, even if you pick up e.g a quarter-pound weight in your hand the second time
- xmdx 3y agoSurprisingly my random scales off of Amazon do not do this. Accurate both times.
- ilyt 3y agoSource on that ? Never saw that and just checked my cheapo, it doesn't do it
- neogodless 3y agoMy Bowflex scale does this. I tend to switch modes / user profiles if I care about accuracy.
- ilyt 3y agoSee mine is too cheap to have any logic or memory in it
- neogodless 3y agoshrug I bought it for $39 about 11 years ago.
- ilyt 3y agoI paid $8 at least decade+ ago. I'm actually surprised it haven't fallen apart by now, it was "designed" by local company and of course made in china.
- RicoElectrico 3y agoI can recommend Xiaomi Smart Scale 2 (not the body composition one, it's nonsense). It is very accurate and repeatable. So much so, that you can see your weight drop after you go to the toilet. It is fascinating how much one's weight fluctuates during the day (or night which is even weirder if you don't eat/drink anything!)
- glauber 3y agoCan confirm that! My morning routine includes “removing” any extra weight before weighting myself. It is very accurate.
- LazyMans 3y agoIt's like a game comparing the measurements
- justsomehnguy 3y ago> So much so, that you can see your weight drop after you go to the toilet. That works with my NoName NoSmart TwentyBucks Scale scales too.
- stonemetal12 3y agoAt night you still sweat and breathe. In fact weight loss in general occurs by breathing. Your body gets energy by breaking carbon bonds, then disposes of the carbon via breathing out CO2.
- whamlastxmas 3y agoThere is zero way your body is losing a quarter pound at night through either process in a room at 70 degrees
- Cthulhu_ 3y agoA quarter pound is only just over 100 grams, or about two shot glasses; you'll just breathe that out as water vapor, and then some. Plus sweating happens even when you're not feeling moist.
- michaelcampbell 3y agoThe one I have at least registers ~1 or 1.5#, uhmmm, shall we say "sudden losses of weight".
- rrrrrrrrrrrryan 3y agoMy bathroom scale shows tenths of a pound, but I think it's just because it's actually measuring some other unit (tenths of a kilo, maybe?), then converting that to pounds. I say that because it seems like certain tenths of a pound are outright impossible to achieve.
- sidmitra 3y agoYes, but do you(or someone else) have a recommendation of which scale does not do this? Something that's not consumer grade, but not "enterprise cost"
- criddell 3y agoThe Nintendo Wii balance board is the only good scale you can get and it isn't expensive. A balance board, Wii, and small TV is probably around $500.
- gsliepen 3y agoYou don't even need the Wii itself! You can connect to the balance board via Bluetooth, and there are several libraries out there that can read out its data (and that of the Wiimotes as well).
- criddell 3y agoDo they give you the same feedback about shifting your weight so that you get an acceptably small deviation between the four sensors?
- gsliepen 3y agoYes, you get all the data. Sometimes you can see even more than what the Wii shows you. For example, with the Wiimotes, it actually shows you the position and brightness of the top 3 or 4 infrared light sources in its field of view (from that it can derive the position of the "sensor" bar).
- criddell 3y agoIf you have a link, it would be much appreciated. When I looked I didn’t see anything that came close to the functionality that the Balance Board had when attached to the Wii. It’s nice that the raw data is available, but unless it’s presented in a way that’s useful, it’s not that interesting. The only project I found was FitScales and it has been dead for a long time now because Android Bluetooth changes made it incompatible with newer devices.
- ignite 3y agoI just pick up a five pound weight and step on the scale, then put it down and step off. Step on again, and get he correct weight. Annoying, but it works.
- MaxikCZ 3y agoThats like having a car that always drives me somewhere I don't want before it drives me where I want. What the actual f*ck. How are people okay with having such garbage in their homes. Why not just buy an analog spring scale...
- rocketbop 3y agoI suspect the scale being accurate +-30g is sufficient for personal weight management unless you’re a professional boxer or need it to be exact for some reason.
- rootusrootus 3y ago> Why not just buy an analog spring scale... Because digital scales have features that analog ones do not. And contrary to an earlier assertion that 'almost all' scales lie to get consistent results, this is very much not true. There are reputable digital scales that do not behave that way.
- drukenemo 3y agoBecause like anything analog these days, they are hard to find?
- cinntaile 3y agoNo they're not.
- chronogram 3y agoI can find mechanical scales very easily in the Netherlands, but they're more expensive. On Alibaba I see that digital bathroom scales are about $2.50 and with WiFi/Bluetooth it's $6, mechanical scales are double that at $12 while also taking up more volume (more pallets and containers). With volume scale and unique designs, your own skin on the apps, and market specific packaging the margins are only going to get better for the (connected) digital scales.
- aulin 3y agoI wouldn't say it's the same. Low cost air quality measurement is difficult. PM is tricky but almost manageable with laser scattering, toxic gases at typical inquinant concentrations are almost impossible to get right with electrochemical sensors, no matter how much money you throw at them. Weight measurement is easy, they could give you precise and accurate results but most customer base doesn't understand anything of physical quantities measurement and would panic they gained 50g in a minute if they showed up the real fluctuating values by stepping on the scale twice.
- q87b 3y agoEasy solution though, just limit the scale's display to a magnitude that it can accurately measure reproducible.
- riskable 3y agoThis is how the market for scales works: You buy a scale for the weight class you're planning on measuring. For example, you can't buy a scale made for weighing humans and expect it to be useful for weighing herbs or jewelry. It's because of how load cells (and scales) are manufactured. They're made for weight classes like 100g, 1kg, 2kg, 3kg, 5kg, 10kg, etc. So to make a scale for a particular weight you pick the load cells you'll need for the range you want. Higher quality scales don't select higher quality load cells; they're all the same (reasonable quality) for the most part! Instead they just use more load cells and just take an average of all their values, multiplied by the number of cells, to measure weight. So if you want a damned accurate industrial scale for measuring weights around 1kg you'd use like twelve 100g load cells rather than a single 2kg load cell or two 1kg load cells. Of course, then the hard part becomes, "how do I distribute this weight perfectly evenly across all of them?" so you have to take tolerances into account to make sure that at no point can weighing part of your scale rub against the side of its container or accidentally get something wedged between the scale part and the case. There's loads of other things to consider as well but for the most part the accuracy of the scale is a factor of how many load cells its using, not the quality/manufacturing tolerances of the load cells themselves. Because even with the most precise manufacturing methods load cells will still drift and be impacted by temperature. All you can do is calibrate regularly, test them, and hope for the best (or use a completely different technology).
- Al-Khwarizmi 3y agoThat should be outright illegal... Why do they allow equipment that deliberately lies to the user?
- varjag 3y agoBecause the user otherwise will spot the discrepancy and pronounce "these scales are rubbish" (which in a way they are).
- lo_zamoyski 3y agoSo why not fix the scale so it isn't rubbish?
- whamlastxmas 3y agoWhy are pharmaceutical companies allowed to sell medicine that has no improvement over placebo? See phenlyephrine which is in every single OTC decongestant/cold medication