RENPHO Bluetooth Body Fat Smart Scale

The good: My friend sent me a screenshot of all his measurements, and I was like WOW, I’ve got to have that! And for $30 it seems to be an amazing product (if it worked right). It arrived in a couple of days. Opened the box, and it feels quite well built, and has a nice corresponding app that displays all the person’s stats, including body water percentage, bone mass, muscle mass, body fat, etc. All of this would be awesome information, if it were accurate! This is the whole purpose of the scale & measurement system in the first place. So here’s the bad: The “weight” is accurate, but NOT the bodyfat percentage — not even by a long shot. This makes me wonder if all the rest of the measurements are just as far off as the body fat? I am 5’11”, @ 220 lbs. I have a small amount of fat around my belley & some small love handles. But I am no where near fat. If you saw me, you’d say “That guy is quite fit, lean, and healthy. He’s also quite muscular.” The app bodyfat section has a left to right, low to high body fat color coordinated section when you click on your bodyfat percentage. It goes like this (left to right): Essential fat | Athlete | Fitness | Acceptable | Obesity. I would fall into between Athlete & Fitness, which displays 13% bodyfat as the divider between them My weight is mostly muscle mass that I have put on working out with weights for the past 31 years — started at 18 — I’m now 49 years old. The app literally has me in the OBESE category! The app does have an “Athlete” mode, which is supposed to mathmatically recalculate the height/weight ratios with a different algorithm to accommodate for muscular types. With the athlete mode OFF, I am way off the charts into the obese area, with 30% bodyfat. But even with the athlete mode ON, it still says I’m obese, with 20% bodyfat. By means of comparison, my friend who recommended the Renpho scale/app, is 6’1” and is a fairly tall, lean guy, at 187 lbs. He works out, so has a medium amount of muscle. With a shirt on, you can’t see his belley fat or love handles, if that paints a helpful visual. He’s my same age, but has quite a bit more love handles and belley fat than I do, probably 30% more than me. BUT.... the scale says he’s 14.4% bodyfat! I’m noticably leaner, yet mine says I’m around 20% bodyfat. I literally had to tell the app I’m one inch taller to put me at 6’0”, so that my height/weight ratio doesn’t throw it off so much. But even then, it still has me at 18% bodyfat! As I said, I’m probably around 12 or13% bodyfat in reality. The scale and electrical measuring system with its mathematical algorithm, is just that far off. Interestingly, there is a section where the user can input all of their body’s curcumference measurements (neck, shoulders, arms, chest, waist, hips, legs, calves) However, it is EVIDENT that it does NOT reference these measurements in the mathematical algorithm to provide a closer bodyfat percentage — but it should. I know this, because I initially did not manually input my measurements. But after seeing how far off the app was, I asked my wife to take my measurements, hoping it would append the algorithm. But it didn’t. Apparently the measurements are only there for you to look back at your progress, the next time you have your measurements taken. Just a simple height/weight ratio, calculated with chest/waist ratio added into the algorithm, would straighten out about 75% of the problem. Adding other measurement ratios, such as neck vs arm vs thigh, would really dial it in accurately (probably 95% fix the issue). But apparently, the app makers do not want to trouble themselves to program it (which would take a couple days, including testing it on different individuals). IF Renpho were to act on my recommendation, their product would be really amazing. But as it stands, it is a great piece of hardware, that has horrible software, displayed on a very nice UI (user interface) app screen. So for now, even though the measurements are off, I can still use it to observe up or down trends. Hoping Renpho will someday get their act together and provide a much needed update to its software. Come on, Renpho!!! Please get to it!!! Make your customer’s readings accurate, and you’d have a five star phenomenal product!