Customer Reviews

Omron Body Composition Monitor With Scale

5 star:		(24)
4 star:		(11)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

This product has a lot of neat (if not entirely useful) features that are fun to play with. It tracks weight, body fat, muscle, visceral fat and what age it thinks your body is (as opposed to pure biological age). Additionally, it stores the highest value for each of those items over time, so you can see how you are trending; which is exceptionally useful.

The reason I took a star away from a perfect score, is a small detail about the body fat calculations. Typical BIA devices generally modify the calculation for how much body fat you have, based on if you meet the guidelines they typically call "athlete" (meaning that you exercise more than 5 hours a week at a fairly intense level). This BIA device does NOT provide that functionality. If you fit the category of a regular intense exerciser and are female, you will find that it estimates a body fat percentage up to 5% more on this device than other BIA devices which have the athlete calculation (such as the Omron hand held BIA or the Tanita scale BIA).

Go with the 510 if you don't want resting metabolism (or estimated age). Go with the 500 if you want resting metabolism (and NOT estimated age). Go with the 516 if you want resting metabolism AND estimated body age. HOWEVER, IN MY EXPERIENCE I would caution you that I have both 510 and 516 and learned in comparing the two scales that the 516 does NOT give ANY parameters besides weight (like percent body fat) if your ESTIMATED body age is greater than 80 (probably is over 80 if you actually are over 60 and out of shape or actually over 40 and really out of shape). Tried my mom (62) on both and the HBF-516 kept giving error code "ERR 4", parameters out of range or something like that. BUT the HBF-510 didn't error out and gave her percent body fat and other things (except estimated body age and resting metabolism of course). I tried both scales myself immediately after her and the 510 and 516 worked just fine and yielded all expected variables for each model, go figure.

This scale is very accurate. It's important to read the instructions--it will pay off to do so--but once you've read the directions, it's very easy to use. It's lightweight. The functions help you monitor your body composition and make adjustments in your diet to increase muscle mass and decrease body fat by monitoring your Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR) and helps you determine the number of calories your body requires to maintain a healthy weight. The visceral fat measurement is a bonus to help you determine your risk of serious health issues.

We own this scale for a month. It was purchased to replace the German made Soehnle model Gamma. It was very attractive; however, it was not that accurate, because the weight depended on where the feet were placed on the scale. We also used another Soehnle model Piano, with four sensors instead of one. It suffered from the same problems of poor reproducibility.

Professional fitness evaluation at a Fitness Center focused our interest on body fat, body muscle, and on visceral fat. After asking around and searching the Internet we decided to purchase the Omron HBF-516. Programming the scale was easy as the instructions were clearly written. We were pleasantly surprised that the body fat, body muscle, and visceral fat results on the Omron scale matched the results of the professional evaluation.

After one month of use we are very satisfied with this scale. It's easy to use and gives a self-esteem boost when following the results of our low carb diet.

This scale is really great if you are serious about keeping track of your weight for health reasons. When you diet, most of the time, you are losing water or muscle, not fat. This type of scale shows you weight, BMI, Body fat (%), Muscle (%), estimate of calories burned in a day, visceral fat (around the belly) and an estimate of your body age based on those figures. This is a lot better than a normal scale because it helps you target fat, not water or muscle.

The scale is a little complicated to set up when compared to normal scales that you just step on. You actually have to open the manual to figure it out. But after the initial 5 minute set up, it is a piece of cake to use. Just tap the on button on the bottom, lift the handle, tap the user number and step on the scale. First it takes your weight, then it does the other measurements. It has a memory to show you where you started and where you are now for each measurement, but, even better is the template weight diary worksheet that included to help you keep track of your progress on paper.

The only thing that could make this better would be to have some kind of PC/Mac connection so you didn't have to write everything down.

If you can get over the high price, you'll love this scale.

If the product page doesn't mention this, the scale is the Omron HBF 516B.

I've been using this scale since Feb. 2011 and I'm overall satisfied with it. Pros:

* Appears very accurate for weight: within 1% of what the scale at the gym showed last night, but that can be easily accounted for by garments or how much I had eaten.

* Appears very accurate for body fat - within 3.5% of two Dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry body composition scans I did two weeks ago. Note that a deviation of 3.5% means that for body fat in the 20% area, a $60 DXA scan will give you a result of +/- 0.7% of body fat, vs. the scale. Also, I had the DXA tests two weeks ago, and variations may well have occurred within that time. I think the scale is again very accurate on measuring body fat.

After using this scale for two months, I can say that its accuracy is OK, but it won't help you in the short term. It's quite common for the scale to indicate 18% body fat in the morning and 20% in the afternoon. The point is you should use it under controlled conditions, at the same time of the day, a constant number of hours before/after a meal etc.. Also, expect changes in your body composition to develop over months, rather than weeks.

* I weighed myself 4 times, and got the same result 3 times, and 0.2lbs less one time. Therefore the scale appears to be highly consistent as well. After weighing myself while holding a 10lb dumbbell plate, the scale showed 10.2 more pounds. Who is right, the scale or the dumbbell plate manufacturer? It doesn't really matter. The scale's precision is around 0.1% (0.2lbs/160lbs).

* Calculates BMI (don't mind it much), body fat (the manual doesn't mention if this includes bone marrow, which can account for +0.8%), muscle percentage, visceral fat, Resting Metabolic rate, and body age. It got my age within 10% of the real age.

* Solid construction. No tilt whatsoever when you step with only one foot on it.

* Matte surface. Doesn't show fingerprints or foot marks. The monitor, though, is shiny and will show fingerprints. It also takes a few seconds to clean it.

* Easy to use once you've spent 10 minutes reading the instruction manual. The "On" switch can easily be pressed with your toe.

* Uses 4 standard AA batteries and comes with them included.

* Supports both metric and the idiosyncratic US measurement system.


Cons:

* Minus one star for not getting on the computer-integration bandwagon and providing a USB slot or wireless data upload feature like the famous Withings scale. However, if you don't obsess about your body composition, measuring it once a week makes recording data manually acceptable enough.

* The memory function is pretty primitive. For instance, if you weighed yourself but didn't get a chance to record the results, you can't view your last weight and body composition (!).

The problem with the Withings scale is that it doesn't use a full-body scan (it has no hand grips), and foot-to-foot scans are necessarily less accurate than the foot-to-palm scans in this Omron model.

I looked into purchasing a similar scale several years ago, but I couldn't justify the cost then ($300-$500). This scale is a great bargain. It seems very accurate for weight and BMI, but what I really like is the body fat percentage and the memory function. It gives me a method to compare what exercises and foods are really working for me. My wife loves the calculated body age. It says she's 24. It tells me I'm 63. That's just rude.

I'm also using an Omron HEM-719IT blood pressure monitor and an HR-100C pulse monitor. It would be nice to be able to download all the data together into the Omron Health Management software that comes with the HEM-719IT to track progress.

Boring personal background:
I'm 41 and my wife is 38. We were married 6 years ago and she/we had a baby 1.5 years ago. Our long working hours and commutes and being up all night with baby left us with zero energy and no desire to prepare proper food. We would skip breakfast, eat fast junk at lunch and pick up fast food on the way home or order pizza. With our aging metabolism and our sedentary home life with baby, we both packed on the weight. Five months ago we decided enough is enough. She started back to jogging and I started back to the gym and cycling. She's lost 25lbs and is back to her pre-baby weight. I've dropped 30lbs and have another 20 to go. Sound familiar?

I recently purchased this scale and find that my body fat measurement is high by 8% versus the tape measure and caliper methods. I am more athletic than most and this is probably due to that fact.

The inaccuracy does not concern me as long as it is linear and I can use a correction factor to get the true value. I am in the process of losing fat (from 24% to about 10%) and do not have enough data points to know if this is true.

The scale is very easy to use and I really hope its BIA measurements can be trusted, lots easier than calipers that's for sure.

I rated it 4 stars on the assumption that it is a linear error and thus easily corrected for. I didn't give it 5 stars because the manual should have discussed the methods it uses to arrive at it's findings in more detail (some detail?, any detail?). I would like to know the method behind the skeletal muscle, visceral fat, and metabolic rate analysis.

Plus it tells me that my physical age is 80 years old (I'm 53)and that's just insulting.

EDITED later to say that I still like this model, even though I just purchased another model, just because it has more bells and whistles. The other one is very complicated and actually overwhelms me as the information flashes past way too fast. It also does too much. I don't need to know the numbers on my right arm vs. my left, my left leg vs. my right, etc. That's just way more than I needed, and not as practical as this one.

This machine is enough unless you have a need to have very specific information and have the patience to catch that information as it flies by on the monitor. In fact, I still appreciate the fact that I can compare today's results with yesterday's, last week, last month, and 3 months ago. Excellent machine! I wish I hadn't bought another one just because I thought newer had to be better.

EDITED still later to say that I REALLY like this one much better than the one with all the bells and whistles, and much, much more expensive than this one. I really appreciate being able to go back and history and see the numbers, when on the other more expensive Tanita I bought recently, the bells and whistles work fine, but the numbers go by so fast I can't read them and their meaning is also very confusing. I have to have the user manual with me months after I've been using it, and that's just ridiculous. This one is a better choice for me and it still works beautifully after years of heavy use.

Earlier I wrote:

I use this one and another excellent set of scales. There is probably .5 lb difference between the two, but they have different advantages. This one may be my favorite, because I can compare my results with 1 day, 1 week, 1 month, 3 months, etc.

I'm particularly interested in building muscle and of course when you do that, your weight goes up, you may panic and think things are going poorly, when they aren't. I don't pay as much attention to the weight as I do the other factors. Am I building more muscle? Is my fat % going up, down, or staying the same? Some of that 'weight gain' may be muscle, which is heavier than fat.

Scales that show me more than just weight keep me accountable and don't make me crazy when I gain a pound or two, as long as one of the more important indicators are improving, fat%, muscle growth, etc.

I recommend this scale. I use it every day. It helps me reach my fitness goals.

This scale calculates so many things - it really is incredible! It helps my son and I stay on track and know when we're building muscle and losing fat. This is especially helpful when pounds don't go down, but the ratio's change. We love this scale!!! And, it was shipped promptly and was packed well.