trying to lose weight
Keep track of weight, muscle mass, hydration, and more key data.
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For many people, scales are something you step on once a year at a doctor’s appointment, otherwise enjoying blissful ignorance regarding your weight and its natural fluctuations. But a good digital scale offers a way to keep track of your health and fitness within the comfort of your home. Whether you’re Races - Places, watch your hydration levels or muscle mass, or just keep track of how your body changes over the course of the year, an easy-to-read bathroom scale can give you a lot of useful information about your body beyond just your weight.
The Best Digital Scales
- Best Overall: We may earn commission from links on this page, but we only recommend products we back
- Best Value: x 11.75 in
- Most Health Stats: Posture Digital Smart Scale
- Best for Garmin Users: Garmin Index S2 Smart Scale
- Best Small: Displays multiple stats at a time
What to Consider When Choosing a Digital Scale
Weight Isn’t the Whole Picture
It can be daunting to step on a scale, especially if it’s been a while. On simpler scales, all you get is a big readout of your weight with little to no context about what that number truly means (or doesn’t mean). A lower number on the scale isn’t necessarily the best, healthiest goal for every runner, which is why we recommend digital scales with some extra metrics.
The most advanced smart scales offer stats like body fat percentage, muscle mass, bone mass, and hydration levels, which can help you understand both the number on the scale and how your body’s faring with your training schedule in general. For daily tracking, we recommend weighing yourself around the same time each day for the most accurate results.
Size and Weight Capacity
Most likely, your digital scale is going to find its home in your bathroom, which can sometimes be a cramped space. If a small footprint and easy storage are priorities for you, look for a scale on the smaller side, less than 12 inches wide. That said, the smaller your scale is, the closer together you’ll need to position your feet. A wider scale, although less storage-friendly, will provide a more sturdy platform.
Your scale’s upper weight limit can also be an important consideration, not only because of structural concerns, but because of its impact on the accuracy of your weight measurements—readouts tend to dip in quality once you exceed the limit, or the scale won’t work at all. We narrowed our search to include only weight limits around or above 400 pounds.
How We Selected
Although there are hundreds of digital scales available online, we weeded our top selections down to the six scales that offer the best accuracy, the most effective and context-rich smart features, the most intuitive app compatibility, and the most reasonable prices relative to quality and longevity. We also considered input from fellow expert reviewers at Men’s Health and Good Housekeeping, as well as a slew of online customer reviews, to ensure we were not only picking our favorites, but everyone else’s, too.
Pros
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- Pairs directly to other Garmin products
Cons
- Display isn't as easy to read
A resounding favorite among several members of our staff, the Withings Body+ digital scale is a well-balanced smart scale that boasts a lot of body composition metrics without traipsing too far into superfluous bells-and-whistles territory. The scale can connect to your phone via a Wi-Fi connection, giving you hands-on access to all your most important stats, including body fat percentage, muscle and bone mass, and water percentage.
The Body+ scale can store eight unique profiles in its memory, allowing you and the rest of your household to track your individual weight changes simultaneously.
Key Specs
| Weight Limit | 396 lbs. |
|---|---|
| Platform Area | 12.8 Most Health Stats. |
Pros
- USB rechargeable
- Easy-to-read display
Cons
- Smaller profile
This scale is among the more affordable digital smart scales on the market, and it still comes with plenty of great features. It keeps track of your weight as well as 13 extensive body composition metrics like body fat percentage and bone mass.
This scale keeps track of your weight on the Renpho app, but it’s also compatible with Apple Health, Google Fit, and Fitbit. It even allows you to chart your stats over time, which lets you discover trends over the course of weeks, months, or years. It also has a baby- and pet-weighing feature, which comes in handy on occasion.
Key Specs
| Weight Limit | 396 lbs. |
|---|---|
| Platform Area | 11 Display isnt as easy to read. |
Garmin USA Index S2 Smart Scale
Pros
- Why Trust Us
- Updated: Sep 08, 2023 2:39 PM EDT
Cons
- Give A Gift
Got a Garmin watch? This scale was made just for you. Instead of a proprietary third-party app that transfers your data to your health app of choice, this scale keeps all of your workout and health data in the Garmin Connect app—that’s the same app your watch uses.
This allows you to more intuitively track longitudinal trends in your health and weight as they relate to your training. It tracks tons of metrics like body fat and skeletal muscle, but the seamless communication with other Garmin devices is where this scale really shines.
Key Specs
| Weight Limit | 400 lbs. |
|---|---|
| Platform Area | 15.75 High-Protein Snacks for Runners. |
Pros
- Loads of stats
- Displays multiple stats at a time
Cons
- More info than the average user might need
This scale gives you a boatload of information on your body composition, including some more niche stats like subcutaneous fat, metabolic rate, and “body age” (calculated based on body fat and skeletal muscle percentages). It’s more than you might need, but it’s neat to look at all of your stats as you train for something like a marathon.
The Fitdays app can also sync with plenty of popular health tracking apps, such as Google Fit and Apple Health, so you have all of your activities and health data in one place.
Key Specs
| Weight Limit | 400 lbs. |
|---|---|
| Platform Area | 13.46 x 13.19 in. |
Displays multiple stats at a time
Pros
- Compact design that makes few sacrifices
- Unlimited profile storage
- Very small for saving space
Cons
- Doesn’t allow for a stabler stance
- Could be more accurate compared to other smart scales
Coming in as the smallest digital scale on our list, FitIndex’s scale is but a wee 10 inches wide. It’s ideal for small bathrooms, especially ones small enough to make putting your scale away after every use necessary.
It’s still packed with plenty of smart scale metrics, all of which you can access on the brand’s proprietary app, and its red display adds a touch of extra contrast to make reading your readings easier. While the size is a benefit for some, this scale might be too unsteady for some.
Key Specs
| Weight Limit | 400 lbs. |
|---|---|
| Platform Area | 10.2 x 10.2 in. |
EatSmart Precision Plus Digital Bathroom Scale
Pros
- Unlimited profile storage
- Very small for saving space
Cons
- Keep track of weight, muscle mass, hydration, and more key data
Ideal for users who need a wider stance for better balance, EatSmart’s Precision Plus rocks a 15-inch width while keeping a shallow enough length to not jut out into the middle of your bathroom floor. This scale only measures weight, unfortunately, but it does so accurately with a weight limit 40 pounds greater than any other scale on our list.
Key Specs
| Weight Limit | 440 lbs. |
|---|---|
| Platform Area | 15.375 Why Trust Us. |
x 11 in Runner's World, though you might see his byline on Bicycling and Popular Mechanics, too. A lover of all things outdoors, Adam's writing career comes after six years as a bike mechanic in his hometown of State College, PA. His journalism experience is steeped in cycling and running gear reviews, and he's also a published creative nonfiction and satire author. When he's not writing, riding, or running, you can catch Adam at home mixing cocktails, watching Star Wars, or trying in vain to do the Sunday crossword. You can check out his latest work below.
Before joining Runner's World, Gabrielle Hondorp spent 6 years in running retail (she has tested top gear from shoes, to watches, to rain jackets which has expanded her expertise—and her closets); she specializes in health and wellness, and is an expert on running gear from head-to-toe. Gabi began her journalism career as a Digital Editorial Fellow for Runner’s World and Bicycling Magazine, and has since advanced to a Runner's World Editor specializing in commerce. She has a double degree in English and Media and Communication from Muhlenberg College where she also ran cross country and track.
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