iHealth Digital Scale Review

The iHealth Digital Scale is a great scale, first and foremost. It came out of the box ready to use and showed the same weight for myself and my pugs that the other scales in the house do. This is a good thing. The scale is a solid-feeling glass and metal affair, with a large-enough LCD display at the top that shows the weight of whatever is atop it with an accuracy to the first decimal place. Which is all we really need, right?

Connecting the iHealth scale to my iPhone and iPad via Bluetooth was an easy affair, though I have had to re-pair them a couple of times to get a consistent response. Having to spend even a couple of minutes tapping through menus doesn't inspire me to hop on the scale regularly, and I end up just using the scale as a, well, scale. I'm not sure if it's a Bluetooth specification, an iOS issue, or the scale itself, but it would be helpful to have a connection that doesn't expire.

Once in the (recently updated) app, the image of the scale pops up and it "spins" like an old school spring scale, which is a nice touch. The app stores the weight, though there is an Upload button, which can be kind of confusing. Tapping through the various options is easy, and there are tabs to track food and exercise as well. These additions aren't as comprehensive as other stand alone apps that do the same thing, but I can see some users appreciating one place to track it all.

There is some sort of glitch in the My Plan section, a place to put in a goal weight and a length of time to spend dropping weight to reach that goal. The first time I set up a plan, it started my weight at 503.3 pounds. I may not be svelte, but I know I'm not that heavy. There is no way to edit that weight, either, so I had to create a new Plan profile. It's also too easy to accidentally tap out of the Plan creation window, dismissing it. Starting over is kind of a pain, especially if users are in a hurry.

Overall, the iHealth Digital Scale, weighing in at $69.95, is a good bit of hardware with a useful wireless Bluetooth connection to the iPad or iPhone. It's a nice way to track weight over time, and the universal app it works with is free to use, though it could stand some improvement.

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