Customer Reviews

Tanita 2202 Duo Scale Plus Body Fat Monitor

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I bought this scale eight months ago, switching from a medium-priced digital model available at many department stores. To fully explain why I love this scale, I have to explain the old scale. Every morning, I would step on the old scale at least three times, and then take the weight I got most often. Sometimes, it took six or seven readings, to get the same weight twice, and the number would vary by up to four pounds! I got fed up and bought my Tanita.

Whew! What a relief! I can step on it twenty-seven times in a row (okay, I haven't done it that many times, but I have stepped on and off up to five times), and get the exact same weight, down to the decimal point! That alone is worth the price.

Then, there's the body fat monitor. I've found it extremely accurate for me (unfortunately, the reading is higher than I'd like, but...). Be SURE to read and follow the directions, which call for taking the bf% reading in the evening, when you're fully hydrated. There is fat, and then lean body mass (LBM), which is made up of your bones, organs, muscle, and water, so if you're slightly dehydrated, as we usually are in the morning, the reading will be off, making your fat percentage higher than it really is. Yet another incentive to drink that water!

I keep charts for my weight and my bf%, so I weigh once in the morning for my weight chart, and once in the evening for the bf%. Of course, my evening weight is slightly higher as well, due to food and water intake, but I can at least see the lovely downward trend of my fat weight, and the relatively steady number of my LBM.

This scale is easy to use, has a nice memory feature, plus one for guests, which is nice. The memory feature means you don't have to enter your height, gender and age every time you step on it, and the guest feature is nice for very occassional users, so they won't have to take up a spot in the memory.

It takes easy to find AA batteries, and let's you know when their getting low, but I pushed mine to the limit, to see how long they would go once the "LO" started flashing, and I've been pleasantly surprised.

This scale is leaps and bounds better than its predecessor in my home. Previously I had a digital model by Thinner, and I was hard-pressed to get the same reading twice: step on it once and it said what is probably close to my actual weight. Step on it again and it shows about 40 pounds lighter, step again and it's about 5 over my actual weight.
I'd been wanting to replace this scale for a very long time, and I'd been eyeing the Tanita for most of that time, but I wanted to wait until they came down in price a bit. For me, the price now is appropriate. So I ordered the scale and it came to my doorstep within about 4 business days (thanks again for speedy service, Amazon!)
It does take a couple of minutes to get your statistics entered into the scale, but with easy-to-use up/down arrow buttons you get to your age/height/sex statistics rather quickly.
Once the scale is set up with your preferences, load up either slot 1 or 2, depending on which slot you inhabit, wait for the scale to go to zero, and step on with bare feet. Wait a couple of seconds and your weight is shown; wait about 5 more seconds and your body fat percentage is shown, complete with the range your percentage puts you in (ie "-" for underweight, "0" for "just right," "+" for overweight and "++" for very overweight). I find this to be a lot more helpful than using my height and weight to determine BMI, since I think the BMI only factors weight based on sedentary people or something. I work out a lot, and although I am still a smidge overweight, my BMI says I'm borderline obese, but the body fat percentage (and the "caliper test" by my personal trainer) shows that I'm just barely in the overweight range.
Whether a morale booster or a bad surprise, the body fat monitor is extremely helpful in letting you see a real picture of your current physical condition.
The weight portion of the scale is extremely accurate, which I greatly appreciate after my previous scale experience. Step on it once, get my actual weight; step on it again, get either my actual weight, or with a .2 pound variance either way. I also like the fact that the scale measures in increments of .2 pounds; this is far more accurate than I would expect for the low price.
Two important caveats, however: do NOT use if you have a pacemaker or other such device, as the body fat monitor does some electromagnetic thing to measure your body fat. Also, the common thinking (at least among myself and most women I know) is weigh yourself first thing in the morning, after going to the bathroom, and preferably after a grueling workout to get the lowest possible reading. This will work for the weight reading, but due to water retention this will get the highest body fat reading: for a more accurate body fat reading wait until you get home in the evening!
Whether you are trying to lose weight, trying to get in prime physical condition for a marathon, or just trying to make sure that you maintain a healthy weight, the Tanita Duo Scale is a great machine to help you in whichever goal you have in mind. A great scale for a great price.

This scale is good. Weight is accurate, Body fat % is accurate, easy to use. You can store two peoples profiles and it has a guest option if other want to use it.

The only downside is that it does not start up automatically when you step on it. But it is fast, easy and accurate to use. The packaging and product quality are far superior to similar priced models from Taylor.

I bought this scale a year ago and was very happy with the accuracy and the body fat measurement feature. Unfortunately I can't recommend it because it is not durable under real world conditions. I was cleaning my shower one day and accidentally left the glass door open a crack and a fine spray of water landed on it. Of course I wiped it off and then turned it on to make sure it was ok, but one of the buttons wouldn't work. I thought "no big deal", I'll just let it dry out and it will work again. That never happened, it's permanently broken. Since you need to use the buttons in order to activate it, I can't use it properly anymore. I called Tanita to see about getting it fixed under warranty, but they say that it's not a defect because I let it get wet. Well I checked the manual, and it doesn't say that the scale should not be exposed to water, somehow I was supposed to magically infer this. Obviously it's electronic and you don't want to submerge or drown it, but it seems to me that an appliance which lives in the bathroom should be able to handle the occasional splash of water.

According to the Tanita rep I spoke with, the scale should not be exposed to water in any way, even when you wipe it to clean it (I asked how you are supposed to clean it without getting it wet, I was being difficult). I don't know how they realistically expect anyone to achieve 100% dryness in a bathroom setting, where every activity you do involves water. Their recommendation was to move it to another room with no water - not exactly practical for most people. Needless to say, if you are considering this scale for your bathroom I highly recommend you make sure you have a location that you can guarantee will not be exposed to water. If, like me, you don't have a spot in your bathroom that is 100% water-free, then maybe you should pass on this scale (and presumably Tanita's other electronic scales, they didn't seem to think this was an unreasonable expectation on their part).

I bought this scale recently for the list price at a department store. It's very accurate and a good deal even at the list price, much less below. If you step off the scale before it calculates the body fat, it gives you a weight only reading.

I bought this scale for the whole family to weight themselves, and thought it would be nice to have body fat monitoring capability for two people. It turns out this scale is not designed for that purpose. The reasons are

1. Turning on the scale is not intuitive.
There is no on/off button. Without instrution, it's hard to figure out how to turn on the scale.

2. Each time one weights oneself, he/she has to go through the turning on process.
If two people want to weight themselves right after each other, or if one person wants to weight oneself again right after the last use, they will have to go through the process of turning it on again, which takes time.

Other than that, the scale is accurate and Tanita do have great customer service.

Excellent scale and highly recommended. The scale is accurate, easy to use, and reasonably priced. Better than any other scale I've tried!

We just received the "Tanita 2202 Duo Scale Plus Body Fat Monitor"scale we ordered and were thrilled to see how well it worked. Easy directions and batteries included made it easy to program our personal data into the scale.Neat machine for the money!

This scale is quite accurate in calculating weight, but I'm not as sure about the fat monitor feature. It's a good scale once you initiate and become accustomed to the digital programming feature. The scale allows you to digitally program height, age and then weight for 2 main users, and up to three guests or other family members.
It's a good weight scale for the price.

This is a great scale for a great price. It's amazingly accurate. I've weighed myself on previous scales that I've owned and would get different readings every time (depending on how/where I stood on it). This scale is not a all tempramental. Any scale by this manufacturer is a must have.