TANITA BC-558 -Japan Technology - Ironman Segmental Body Composition Monitor – Smart Digital InBody Scale with 8-Electrode Technology

This is a really awesome machine! It does everything. In fact, it may do a little bit too much for my purposes. As I used it the first time, I was a little overwhelmed. All sorts of numbers and graphs blipped by, leaving me dizzy. I had no idea what I was doing. I know from past experience with several other Tanita models that I've owned, given away, or worn out, although I'm not sure they ever really wear out, it is a solid machine. I may like it once I have the time to spend learning how to use it. Everything works well. It does exactly what it is supposed to do. Does it provide more information than I actually need? Probably, although others may want or need to be that specific. I don't really need to compare progress of my left arm to my right arm, left leg to my right leg, so I can adjust my workouts, etc., but it will be ideal for someone who needs to be that specific. It's just a fun idea for me, not a necessity. One reason I bought this one, upgrading from another Tanita model that is in perfectly good shape, is to re-motivate myself. I had some time on a Saturday morning and read the instruction manual still one more time. I did discover some things I had overlooked. There is a way to slow down those numbers that blip by so fast. You press your personal key and then press the Graph. I'm going to pick it up off the floor and put it up on a table so I can see what I'm doing. I may even take notes. You can also see the Daily Graph, the Weekly Graph, and the Monthly Graph. However, I prefer my old model. I really didn't want to commit this much time and effort to know quite that much detail, but if I did, this would be a great model to have. My dilemma was whether to give 5 stars, because the machine is everything it is advertised to be, or 4 stars, because I didn't know I would have to devote so much time and effort to get the benefit of all that it does. I went with the 4 stars since I am not 100% thrilled with the purchase for my purposes, but realize that it may be perfect for someone else. I changed it back to 5 stars after reading the description again. It is very clear. I bought over my needs, but the description told me exactly what I was getting. You just need to know that you don't just hop on the scale with this one. If you have the time and patience for it, and the need to know all this information, this is the machine for you!

Excelente equipo muy preciso

The body fat percentages fluctuate too much from one day to another, yet the weight scale seems to be very accurate

It works perfectely!!, great quality materials and the measurements offered are amazing

It -is- cool to see how much muscle mass and so on are in your arms, legs, and trunk. But what you really want to know is how much visceral fat you have. It's the clinically significant measurement. Several cheaper Tanita scales make that crucial measurement. That being said this model does do the visceral fat measurement you need, but it's really a gadget with a lot of superflous features. Tanita BC-350 will get the job done for $100 less, it's easier to use, and smaller.

Great scale and very good quality, It really works and it is easy to use. I highly recommend it not only for professionals

Updated Review March 12, 2013 Do not buy this machine. It is expensive junk. It broke after less than a months use. Handles no longer retract and I get an error message every time. Paid $350 that is down the drain. I will try and return but I have no idea if they will take it back or not. If you read my initial reviews shown below, you will see that I thought the machines body composition analyzer might not be accurate. I bought a $25 hand held body fat analyzer from another company (Omron Fat Loss Monitor HBF-306C) to use as a comparison. I also had my body fat analyzed at a doctors office to give me three comparison points. This machine had my body fat percentage drop from 26% to 21% over a month where I lost about 20 pounds and worked out heavily with free weights. The hand held machine showed my body fat percentage dropping from 30.5% to 28.2% over the same time period. The doctors office showed me dropping from 28.7% to 27.5% over the same time period. As you can see, none of them gave the same reading but the cheaper one tracked better with the one from the doctors office so I am inclined to believe it more. The worst thing about this machine though is how cheaply it is made. It LOOKS well made but after a month of using it about twice a day, it has broken and cannot be used. The hand sensors have wires that connect them to the internals of the machine. You bend down, grab the handles and straighten up. When done, the handles retract back into the machine and are held in place on the side of the machine. One of the handles no longer retracts and the other one feels like it is about to go too. Unfortunately, besides leaving wires out for you to trip over, the machine no longer works like this. Completely unacceptable that such an expensive piece of equipment cannot last 30 days in mild use. 1 STAR -- This is a piece of junk. Stay away! ---Initial Review---- I have had this about a week and the scale part works great. I have another scale that I know is accurate and this one consistently gives me the same readings within 2 ounces. However the body fat analyzer is still being judged. My initial impression is that these electronic analyzers are just not very accurate and that it may be years before they are. For example, my doctor had a professional model Tanita machine that gave me a body fat percentage of 28%. I bought this machine because it was one of the top end Tanita models for consumers and expected to get the same results. My first reading came in at about 26% body fat which is in the same range as the doctors. Since then, my body fat percentage has dropped to 22% on my scale. I bought a much cheaper but highly rated analyzer (Omron Fat Loss Monitor HBF-306C), It was a less than a tenth the price of the Tanita BC-558 but only gives a body fat percentage and nothing else. On it, my initial reading was 30% body fat and has dropped to 28% body fat over the same time period. Changed my rating from 3 to 4 stars since I can bypass all of the time consuming readings if I want to. If doctor shows similar drop in fat percentage, I will upgrade to 5 stars. If not close then I will downgrade. I just don't know which machine to believe or if any of them are to be believed. Even just using the machine as a guide to determine how fast you are losing body fat is problematic. Have I lost 4% of fat in absolute terms or is it just 2%? Granted, both of my machines show me losing body fat but one shows more than twice as much loss as the other. I am leaning towards believing the Tanita scale because nobody I know thinks I a have been close to 30% body fat in a long time. I am quite muscular though I do have a layer of fat over some of it. As far as the rest of the features for this machine, I will go over them quickly. You cannot just get on this machine and see how much you weigh. You have to always grab the hand handles and stand still for about 30 seconds while your statistics are gathered. If you wobble a little bit, you often get an error message and have to start all over. Because of this, I keep two scales in my bathroom. This one for a complete body composition analysis and the other one just for getting my weight. The information about how much fat or muscle you have in each major body part is kind of cool but after a few times, you really could care less. It is annoying that you cannot short circuit some of the testing and just get weight and body fat percentage but that is the way it is. If I had designed this product, there would be a button you could press with your toe to toggle between weight only, weight and total body fat percentage, and all functions available. Maybe Tanita will read this and take notice. Updated review March 9, 2013 ----- Turns out there IS a way to put this machine into weight only mode. The instructions were not clear about it. To turn the machine on, you normally press a button to identify the user and the machine turns on and recognizes who you are. To just get your weight without all the other readings, all you have to do is push the Off button. Then it turns into a regular scale and only takes a weight reading. Still not sure how accurate the fat percentage is. After few weeks, I have dropped from 260 to 250 and the fat percentage has gone from 26% to 21.4% and my body type reading has gone from overweight and muscular (#3 on their chart) to normal weight and muscular (athlete #6 on their chart). I don't know if I believe it though. That seems like a pretty large drop in total fat percentage for just a couple of weeks. I have been doing a lot more cardio than usual and less resistance training but still....seems like a big drop. I will get a reading at my doctors office next week and compare the too and see if he shows me dropping as much as this scale does.

excellent choice for measure your progress , it wil give you water, muscle, fat and bones mesaure