TANITA's BC-554 Ironman, FDA Cleared, World's Only Consumer Multi-Frequency, Full Body Composition Scale

Sometimes you don't know what your missing until you see a better product. The batteries in my previous scale died, and they were odd-sized coin batteries loosely positioned on top of delicate circuitry. I damaged the electronics in my old scale while replacing the batteries, and although I probably should have been more careful during that process, the result was that I needed a new scale. It may sound trivial, but one of the things I like about this Tanita scale is it uses common AA batteries, located in a normal battery housing.Next up on my priotity list for a replacement scale was accurate body fat measurements. As I understand it, bioelectric impedance measurements (i.e. the method used by scales) are not very accurate for measuring body fat, and the inaccuracy can be pretty high for people with excessive body fat, or with very little body fat. But, Tanita has improved the body fat measurement accuracy of this scale by adding an "athletic" mode to increase accuracy for people with low body fat. And, Tanita also provides a somewhat quantitative standard based on resting heart rate and weekly exercise level to help you determine if you should be using this mode. My experience so far indicates this mode is probably a few percentage points more accurate for athletic people. But, I have not yet compared it to a measurement made with hydrostatic weighing, so I can't confirm that with numerical data.This scale also measures weight to the nearest 0.2 pounds, which is an improvement over my previous scale, which rounded to the nearest 0.5 pounds.When you first get this scale, you program it with your gender, age, and height. To measure yourself with the scale, you press a button with your toe and wait about 2 or 3 seconds for a short beep, telling you the scale is ready. Then you step on the scale, and wait 3 or 4 seconds for the scale to take it's measurements. The scale then sequentially displays nine measurements, staring with weight, then body fat %, etc. Some of the measurements have the same untis, so at first I wasn't completely sure how to interpret some of the numbers displayed by the scale. Tanita thought of this, and provided small back-lit icons on the scale to help you identify each measurement as it's displayed. But, the icons are too small to see when you're standing, so you really need to memorize the order in which the measurements are displayed.Overall, this is a great product, and if you fall into the athletic category, the athletic mode makes it better than any other scale I saw for measuring body fat.

I purchased this over 10 years ago, and it's still going strong. As a scale, it's 100% reliable and accurate. The whole family uses it, and it's used multiple times each day. Batteries seem to last forever, as in years. It beeps when its done measuring your weight if you use it as just a scale. This is handy for measuring how much your luggage or boxes weigh when you can't see the read-out (of course, it's not a legal scale for measuring weights for selling or shipping things). The low profile, big numbers, and glass surface make it attractive. It stopped working in its first few months, and it was promptly replaced under warranty by the manufacturer without any hassle. In the decade since it was replaced, it has performed flawlessly. It does not work on soft surfaces like carpets or rugs - it needs to rest on a hard surface. That's its only quirk.The body scan is only meaningful to track changes - I wouldn't trust it for actual measurements of body fat, hydration, BMR, biological age, etc. But you can see how those measurements change from day to day and over the years - and that is meaningful. More importantly, the scale is consistent so long as you use it under the same conditions. For example, it's sensitive to foot moisture (makes sense, skin conductivity), so before and after a shower will give slightly different results. I would purchase this again in a heartbeat, and hope Tanita has a comparable scale come the day this scale ever fails.

This BC-554 Ironman scale is great and repeats well. It has high weight sensitivity at ± 0.2 lb and repeats. I now wish I had bought the even better and more expensive BC-568 that has hand and foot electrodes, for even better fat, muscle, and bone measurements. I use the weight measurement daily and the record the full set of values once per month. As expected, I actually Gained weight for the first month of diet and fairly intense exercise even though I lost fat, because of increased muscle mass. I like the "Metabolic Age" value on the BC-554. It says I was 93 years old before I started exercising and losing weight, lol! Now I am down to 73 years MA (actual age = 68), so I can track my overall physical fitness improvement.

This is my 3rd Tanita Ironman scale. I had 2 exact same one before and the last one broke after 7+ years (class shattered - luckily it was tempered glass). So I decided to get another exact same one (even they don't sell in Canada, I ordered from US and willing to pay shipping and import duty etc). Unfortunately this one is defective. I can't ask for replacement, Amazon said just return and buy another one. I really love this scale (when it works). Very disappointed that this one is defective, it showed (and hung there) 00000 and didn't proceed to perform body analysis after showing the weight. When it did (1 out of many many times), the reading was all over the place, differ a lot even within few minutes.

Why did you pick this product vs others?:I love these scales. They are sturdy and give you so much more information than just your weight. I've actually had this set for awhile. I didn't want to give a review until I had used them regularly. Really like these scales.