Review of Renpho Body scales
Recently I bought the Renpho USB Rechargeable Bluetooth Body Fat Scales from Amazon. Ideally I would not buy from Amazon with their lack of playing tax but they sell everything and at good price. Bought the scales after my gym announced they were getting rid of the Boditrax machines. If you did not know, the scales, as well as measuring your weight, also measure things such as body fat, body water and muscle mass.
I managed to get it for £24 – it was about £26 but then had some extra 10% discount for some reason. Just checked the price now and it went down from £33 to £24 just today.
Here is the price history for the last 120 days and you can see it goes up and down quite a bit. So if you are planning on buying it, keep an eye on the price.
I have been going to the gym a lot recently and have been regularly tracking all the different body composition stuff.
I did a bunch of research on the different body scales which were available. Mostly looking at ones on Amazon but also checked out places like Argos. Went through all the reviews and realised that no body scale was “perfect”. Did see some recommendations for Renpho so went for one by them. Renpho seem to be a pretty big, “proper” company (decent looking site) so went with them rather than one from a generic company.
Most of the body scales on Amazon look pretty similar. Maybe they’re all made in same factory?? I spent a bit more to get the USB version of the Renpho scales so its got rechargeable battery – so no need to worry about replacing batteries and spending money on that. Although doubt it takes that much power.
When I first used the scales, I thought it was rubbish and was immediately thinking of returning it. I had weighed myself on the gym’s Boditrax machine so knew what the values should be – although I had eaten dinner in-between. The main standout one which was massively different was the body fat. It said I was 27% when Boditrax says around 17%. Now even if 17% is not accurate, I am definitely not 27% body fat! Maybe my dinner confused it?
I thought I would give it another go so the next day after going to gym and after using the Boditrax machines. So I had eaten nothing in-between weighing. The values were the same as the previous day.
I then changed the settings and set myself up as “Athlete” mode. Now I am not an athlete of course. It says its for people who work out for about 2 hours at a time, something like that. I don’t work out that long but I go to gym recently at least 5 times a week.
I then tried scales again and it was all close to the Boditrax machine. Weight was 0.3kg more, body fat was 16.5% (compared to Boditrax saying 16.7%). All the other things like muscle, water were close. The only thing off was the Metabolic Age and Visceral Fat rating. Must be just how it calculates the age?? According to Renpho scales, my metabolic age is actually same age as I actually am. Boditrax puts me about 14 years younger!! LOL. The Visceral Fat rating on Renpho is 9 compared to 7 on Boditrax. (Its still all in the healthy range :))