Its digital Bluetooth Smart Scale (also sometimes called the Body Fat Scale) looks a lot like Fitbit’s Aria Scales… a lot like it. Fitbit is used to cheaper copies on the market, but do these scales measure up? The Bluetooth Smart Scale measures weight, body fat, muscle mass, water level, bone mass, BMR, BMI and visceral fat, where the Fitbit Aria 2 sticks to weight, BMI, lean mass and body fat percentage. The Hamswan Smart Scale data can be synchronized to Fitbit app, but the sync connection with Fitbit isn’t obvious and is badly worded in English, so that part confused me and I never got it to work properly. If syncing with Fitbit is your aim, then we’d recommend sticking with the Fitbit scales – or manually logging your weight to the Fitbit app. It’s a good-looking scale with a large, clear red display. It measures 30cm-by-30cm and is 3cm deep. It’s certainly great value at under £25 or around US$25. (Since the time of writing the original review, the price has curiously gone up by about £10/$10.) It supports up to 10 users, so can be used by the whole family, although we have issues with its language that could cause unnecessary body-perception issues in children.
Multiple measurements
The scale measures body fat percentage by using a body impedance method. When you stand barefoot on scale, a very small current flows from the scale through your body, and a chip in the scale can then measure your body’s resistance via the current and therefore measure your body fat percentage. Do you need all those measurements? We explain them all in our Best digital scales roundup feature. Most are quite insightful, but we suspect most users just want to see their weight and maybe their BMI and body fat percentage. And we can’t be sure of their accuracy (and online user reviews suggest unrealistic fluctuations), so the readings could be misleading and overly concerning to even quite healthy people. Using the special app you can set a target weight and daily track your progress for fat loss or muscle gain. The app can’t match Fitbit’s for overall fitness measurements, as of course that includes all your exercise data, but for weight and all the other body metrics it offers decent historical graphs to show your progress. There are also insights into what all the metrics mean, but I was shocked at the language it uses to convey this. Aside from its over-the-top sensationalist warnings – eg. “your body fat is in the dangerous level”, “your bone mass level is low, this can cause backache, hunchback and easy fracture” – its description of a body 1% over “healthy” as “chubby” is not what parents would want their body-conscious children reading, especially with eating disorders on the rise.
Verdict
Inexpensive and decent-looking, the Hamswan Smart Scale works well enough as a weighing device for the whole family. We were not confident of the accuracy of all the other metrics (such as body fat, muscle mass, water level, and bone mass) and downright alarmed at the use of the worrying language in the app. If you just need a cheap digital wireless scale this is fine, but if you desire accurate readings for multiple body measurements we’d recommend other scales, such as the Withings Body Cardio or the Fitbit Aria 2. Simon was Editor of Macworld from the dark days of 1995 to the triumphant return of Steve Jobs and the launch of the iPhone. His desk is a test bench for tech accessories, from USB-C and Thunderbolt docks to chargers, batteries, Powerline adaptors and Fitbits.
