You can hear about new smart scales being released every now and then. It has suddenly become so popular that every fitness enthusiast has one lying in their bathroom.
Although they offer a similar set of features, one thing that is not so similar in them is compatibility. We live in a world where companies like to lock their customers down in an ecosystem of their own.
If you are to buy a smart scale and use it with a specific app, you should do your research first. it might be that the one you liked the most is unsupported by your current fitness app.
We will make your life a little bit easier. We have done thorough research and narrowed the whole thing down to one smart scale for each popular platform.
Before we do so, let’s give you a quick rundown of why compatibility is so important.
1. Why Compatibility Is Important for Smart Scales
Smart scales are a great tool for measuring body composition. We cannot talk about the advantages enough. From weight and BMI to bone mass, muscle mass, and body fat percentage, it can track whatnot.
Tracking is only half of the puzzle. You also need a proper way to connect them to your favorite health dashboard. Sadly there is no one-size-fits-all solution when it comes to compatibility.
Don’t make a mistake. We are talking about app compatibility here, not smartphones. Almost every smart scale works with Android and iOS, no questions there. But not every one of them will work with, let’s say, Google Fit or Apple Health.
Why use yours and why not just use the companion app they come with?
Well, many people don’t like changes. Even if they do, the fact of not having other health data such as sleep, and workouts side by side won’t help you create a good action plan.
Some people might have years of data in one place collected from different fitness devices. These bathroom scales might not be the strongest reason to switch.
2. App Compatibility of Smart Scales at a Glance
| Scale | Works Best With | Syncs Data With | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Apple Health | Samsung Health | Huawei Health | Fitbit | Garmin Connect | Google Fit | MyFitnessPal | Noom | Apple Watch | ||
| Withings Body+ | Apple Health | ✅ | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Renpho ES-CS20M | Samsung Health | ✅ | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| HUAWEI Scale 3 | Huawei Health | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ |
| Fitbit Aria Air | Fitbit | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ |
| Garmin Index S2 | Garmin Connect | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ |
| Yunmai Premium | Google Fit | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ |
| QardioBase2 | MyFitnessPal | ✅ | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ✅ | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ |
| FITINDEX | Noom | ✅ | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ | ✅ |
3. Withings Body+ – Works Best With Apple Health and Apple Watch
Withings Body+ is the best overall package for a smart scale that uses the combination of Bluetooth and Wi-Fi to stay connected. Meaning that in absence of Wi-Fi (it is mainly a wi-fi scale), you can fall back to good old Bluetooth for synchronizing data.
This body weight scale doesn’t stop at tracking weight. It goes an extra mile to check your BMI, fat mass, body water, muscle mass, and so on. It prioritizes quality over quantity and doesn’t do like 10 or 15 body composition measurements, unlike its competitors. Multiple users can use it making it suitable for a whole family.
It syncs to over a hundred health apps including Apple Health, Google Fit, and Fitbit (full list of partners). It does also work with fitness and nutrition apps like MyFitnessPal, Lose It!, and Runkeeper. We had the smoothest experience pairing and using it with Apple Health. If you are in the Apple ecosystem, it will sync like a charm every time. No wonder why Apple itself is promoting it on its online store.
The Withings Health Mate app is available not only on the app stores of iPhone and iPad but also on Apple Watch. So, you can directly download the Health Mate app on Apple Watch and have your measurements sent there. Of course, to harness the power of a nice ecosystem, you will have to allow sharing of data with Apple Health.
Sadly this Withings scale lacks a Heart Rate sensor on this model. If this is something that comes in your way of considering this scale, have a look at their other model Withings Body Cardio (Body+ vs. Body Cardio Full Comparison). It does everything like Body+, plus, the heart rate feature you are looking for.
4. Renpho ES-CS20M – Works Best With Samsung Health
On the list now we have the Renpho scale which is probably the most budget-friendly smart scale on the market as we talk. It is a Bluetooth scale and is the only way to keep it connected to its companion mobile app.
Step on the scale and it will present you with a picture of your health including 13 key weight and body composition metrics. It does some exclusive checkups such as visceral fat, fat-free body weight, and subcutaneous fat. Oh, it only takes a matter of seconds to do so and transfer the data to everywhere it is connected.
Renpho ES-CS20M primarily supports sharing of data with the Fitbit app, Apple Health, Google Fit, and Samsung Health. MyFitnessPal is the only food tracking app it supports out of the box. So no luck for Lose It!, Lifesum, and the same holds for Runkeeper and MapMyFitness.
If you are questioning the accuracy of ten-thousand things this composition scale offers, we have a review breaking down each feature and sharing what we found after using it as a daily driver. One interesting fact is that it allows an unlimited number of user profiles compared to the market standard of 8 or 10.
5. HUAWEI Scale 3 – Works Best With Huawei Health
huawei.com
Huawei Health not being as popular as its contenders, certainly makes it difficult to find a matching scale, let alone the ban in the United States. If you reside outside the US and use a Huawei/Honor device, the Huawei Scale 3 might be your best bet.
Even though Huawei’s health app is not so popular, the body composition scale we are talking about here is not bad at all. It uses dual connections (Bluetooth and Wi-Fi) to keep your data up to date and synchronize it with the devices you use. So you can track your progress without needing your phone to be around. It does heart rate too on top of what a typical smart scale measures.
The apps you can connect it to are very limited. Apple Health, Huawei Health, and Google Fit are the only supported apps as of now. It used to work with MyFitnessPal but due to the ban on the US, they couldn’t just keep up in this department. They had to stop sharing data with almost all third-party health apps.
6. Fitbit Aria Air – Works Best With Fitbit
Fitbit is a stubborn child who syncs with the Fitbit app but nothing else. So if you were wanting to get this bathroom scale because you own a Fitbit fitness tracker and have the data shared with apps like Apple Health, you should look into something else.
But I know quite a few people who are very much into Fitbits just because of the quality they get in return. I cannot disagree there either. So if you are one of them, the Fitbit Aria Air could be a good fit for you. The seamless integration between the scale and the cloud is something you will fancy.
But things you should know about the Aria Air smart scale are that it can only track weight and BMI, more like a digital scale. It does not have a full body composition analysis like the other scales on this list. The only app it can sync with other than the official Fitbit app is MyFitnessPal.
If you are not completely into the Fitbit ecosystem, it might be worthwhile to compare Fitbit and Withings side by side and see if you would need a Fitbit scale.
7. Garmin Index S2 – Works Best With Garmin Connect
Garmin Index S2 is a Wi-Fi smart scale that despite having Bluetooth doesn’t use it for anything except the initial pairing. It’s good on the one hand that it is not dependent on a smartphone. But on the other hand, disruption in the wi-fi network can be problematic for the scale.
This body fat scale allows you to check weight trends over 30-day period which can be helpful if you are on a long weight loss goal. It also reveals weight patterns if you take multiple weights on a single day. On top of that, you also have access to body mass index, BMI, and some more.
Like Fitbit, Garmin is also a bit strict about which third-party apps it allows sharing data with. The scale syncs with Garmin Connect, MyFitnessPal, Apple Health and Google Fit out of the box. Anything other than that is currently not possible unless you set MyFitnessPal as a middle-man.
8. Yunmai Premium – Works Best With Google Fit
Yunmai Premium has a large user base. By large I mean it is more than 5 million! The name “Premium” doesn’t refer to the number of users, but the outer glass with ITO coating. It just feels nice and sturdy.
This Bluetooth body fat scale is not the cheapest in this batch but it is FDA-approved. Where the convention is to use a 12-bit unit for conversion, Yunmai purposely used a 24-bit unit to make the conversion better.
Coming back to apps, it works with Google Fit, Apple Health, and Fitbit. Connecting it to MyFitnessPal is a bit complicated as you have to send it through Apple Health first and only works when you are on iOS (not android).
9. QardioBase2 – Works Best With MyFitnessPal
QardioBase 2 is a rechargeable scale (yes, USB-charged, no batteries) that tracks weight and body composition. The scale automatically syncs data with MyFitnessPal, Apple Health, Google Fit, and Samsung Health through its companion app called Qardio.
What we like about the Qardio app is that it is available on Apple Watch, as well as on Wear OS. Your smartwatch or fitness tracker can greatly benefit from it having the data sent directly to the wrist. It uses dual connectivity (Bluetooth and Wi-Fi) like many smart scales we discussed in this post.
We tested the Qardio app with QardioArm before as well and it worked fantastically as it did now. The app is very polished and easy to use even if it is on a small smartwatch.
10. FITINDEX – Works Best With Noom
FITINDEX is our budget smart scale pick which performed just as good as the other scales we tested so far. It integrates with Noom very effortlessly, and so does it with the others such as Google Fit, Apple Health and so. They also made the FITINDEX app available for Apple Watch.
There are two things that are worth highlighting. The first one is an unlimited number of user profiles so no matter how big your family is, it has you covered. And the second one is specialized weight modes. For example, the baby mode allows more precision tracking of weights to see the growth in numbers.
11. Is There Any Smart Scale that Syncs Data With All Apps?
No. There is no such smart scale that works with all apps you can name. We have reviewed a whole bunch of smart scales outside the ones mentioned here and the closest to what you are looking for might be the Withings scale which has support for over 100 third-party apps. Chances are that the app you use is already enlisted there.
If app compatibility is blocking you from selecting a smart scale (a particular one), you can check two things:
- Does it work with MyFitnessPal?
- Does it work with IFTTT?
In case you didn’t know this already: MyFitnessPal allows sharing data with a bunch of partner apps (full list here), and most smart scales nowadays support MyFitnessPal at the least. Indirectly so, there is a good chance you will be able to sync data between two unsupported apps having MyFitnessPal as the middle-man.
The same goes for IFTTT which is a service that might allow you to sync data between your two desired platforms, alongside a few smart home connectivity features as a bonus.
There are also third-party apps available for syncing data between incompatible platforms (do a quick search in your phone’s app store) but I wouldn’t trust them too much with personal data, to be honest.
