Review: realme Smart Scale – Your Fitness Monitor

Have you ever stepped on a weighing scale and did not know what to do with the result? We often check our weight and complain how we may be overweight, underweight, or just plateauing. Whatever our result may be, most of us wouldn’t know what to do with it whether we should gain muscle, lose fat, or do both. There’s a lot of technicalities when it comes to fitness especially if you have specific goals to attain.

realme Philippines has broadened their AIoT product line with their realme Smart Scale and this might just answer all the questions mentioned.

Design and build

the realme Smart Scale comes in two colors: Minimalist White and Deep Blue. It’s impressively designed with a hidden LED display and ultra-slim profile depth of just 23.3mm with a length and width of 300mm. For durability, the realme Smart Scale has a 6mm Enhanced Tempered Glass Cover and a weight capacity of up to 350kg.

Smart features

This Smart Scale offers various features, primarily its 360-day long standby feature, 50g high-precision BIA sensor, and a Real-Time Heart Rate Monitor. This monitor will automatically provide static heart rate information whenever you weigh yourself. Meanwhile, the BIA sensor is capable of providing body fat content, muscle content, and other bio-current information. These sensors can monitor a total of 16 types of health measurement.

1. Weight
2. Fat rate
3. Body shape
4. BMI
5. Muscle mass
6. Body age
7. Basal metabolism
8. Lean body weight
9. Moisture rate
10. Muscle rate
11. Visceral fat
12. Skeletal muscle
13. Bone mass
14. Protein
15. Fat mass
16. Heart rate

realme Link app: Needs improvement / bug fixing

The Smart Scale automatically turns on when stepped on and a weight result comes out in about 3-5 seconds. Make sure not to move right after stepping on the scale because it will measure your heart rate as well which will take around 10 seconds. To be able to see one’s weight analysis, you’ll need to download the realme Link app on Google PlayStore or Apple AppStore. Connecting your phone to the Smart Scale should be easy as it supports Bluetooth 5.0. However, I had issues connecting some Android phones and my Apple phone because the realme Link app had some bugs early on and only offered a few smart devices that can be connected (see image for reference). There was some lag as well and the app can be unresponsive at times.

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I was not able to connect my Apple iPhone because it didn’t show the “Health” device option to connect to and only had “Watch” and “Security”. I was only able to connect my Samsung S20 FE. I am constantly on the lookout to see if the app has an update available for the Apple AppStore. However, today on November 20, I opened my AppStore and could not find the realmeLink App anymore perhaps indicating an update is coming soon (see image for reference).

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Fitness partner

Despite the issues I encountered on the realme Link app, I can’t deny the fact that the Smart Scale offers a wide range of health data. As soon as I step on the Smart Scale and get my weight and heart rate, it automatically saves all other statistics and transfers them to your phone right away for further analysis. A neat thing about the realme Smart Scale is that it can be used by multiple people, or “profiles”, so that every member of the household can measure their health and fitness.

As of last November 14, 2020, the Smart Scale revealed I had a “standard” result meaning that I have average levels of both body fat and muscle mass. Each statistic when clicked, reveals different ways on how to improve or maintain fitness.

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Today, November 20, I had a different weight and it claims that I’m under-exercised. Sadly, it’s true. I haven’t been exercising regularly. I try to workout 3-5 days a week but lately I’ve been snowed under with work and haven’t exercised for a week now. This inconsistency definitely shows how much it can affect my overall performance.

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Verdict

The realme Smart Scale retails for P1,590 and has been impressively helpful when it comes to monitoring and analyzing my overall fitness. It provides a wide array of data that I never paid attention to before and made me realize how these specific details may have been affecting my overall fitness. The realme Link app could use some improvement and it would have been better if it was available to Apple users as well. If a user does not have access to the app then all of the detailed data the Smart Scale offers won’t be accessible to them.