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Calibrate body composition?

Withings App
Answered
Written by Dylan R

16 comments

I recently got a DEXA body scan and it reported my body fat around 32% and yet my Body+ scale and the Withings app report more like 23%. The DEXA operator said most electroconductive body composition scales tend to report 5% or more too lean. This was similar to the difference I saw with my last DEXA scan around when I first started using the Withings scale. I can enter in a manual measurement to show the DEXA scan data in the Withings app, but then it just shows as a one time spike in the data. There really should be a way to use this body scan data to calibrate the Withings scale and app data! Can the devs for the app consider a calibration multiplier or allow verified data from more scientific source like a DEXA scan to correct the rudimentary values the scale gives? This is a rather HUGE difference in measurements, almost 10% in fat percent and about 50% too low in comparison!!! I wish I could believe the values Withings gives as it's more encouraging, but it's simply false hope! A more realistic measurement might be sobering, but that's the reality of it, and there should be a way to correct for this very optimistic, unrealistic inaccuracy. I don't have much hope this will be implemented, the app devs seem to spend all their time dumbing down and messing up the weight and body composition graphs and making ludicrous excuses for why the graphs can't go back to the much better way they used to be. But I have to bring up the subject.
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Comments

Date Votes
  • Official comments from Withings
    Lyn

    Hello everyone, 

     

    Thank you for sharing your feedback and concerns about our Body Scan scale. 

     

    Firstly, it's important to note that our scale and the Dexa Scan work on two different algorithms, which makes direct comparison challenging. However, we assure you that our scale, utilizing impedance technology, is designed to provide sufficiently accurate data for personal use.

     

    We also have guidelines available on our Help Center page via this link, which can help you achieve the most accurate results from our scale. Please ensure that these guidelines are followed correctly.

     

    We acknowledge the discrepancy in accuracy when compared to medical equipment, which may not be as accurate as the fat mass measurements taken with medical equipment such as a DEXA Scan or Hydrostatic Weighing. Rest assured that these measurements are, however, very useful for monitoring trends over time. If you have followed our guidelines and still find the results to be inaccurate, we invite you to contact our customer service team at https://bit.ly/3Lg5tPL, who will be happy to assist you further.

     

    Regarding your suggestion to add an option to calibrate our scales or to allow data verification from scientific sources like Dexa scan, we value your recommendation and can see how this functionality could benefit our users. We are always looking to improve, and your feedback is important to that process. Thus, I've shared your suggestions with our product specialists. 

      

    Cheers, 

     

    Lyn

  • James B
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    This would be a great feature add and seems like it would help Withings make their scales more accurate for everyone with a large enough corpus of data.

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  • SP P
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    Please! Please! Please! I just had a DEXA scan and your scale was off by almost 65%!!! (Dexa 23% vs Withings 13%). I don’t expect a $400 scale to be as accurate but I do expect the ability to calibrate for that price. I am not confident I can even trust the Withings trending.

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  • Nilesh A
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    I am seeing a similar error. I had a DEXA scan done last year in May and the Withings Body Cardio scale was 5.6% lower.

    I upgraded to the Withings Body Scan scale thinking it would be better. But my cousin just had a DEXA scan yesterday and his Withings Body Scan scale was lower by 5.5%. I’m going to get another DEXA scan done next month to do another comparison.

    But it looks like the Withings algorithm for calculating body fat percentage is flawed. User calibration would be a nice feature, but why wouldn’t they just fix the algorithm if everyone knows it is wrong?

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  • Joshua H
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    Huge plus one on this. Just had a DEXA scan and there was an error of nearly 100% for fat mass. My Withings body scan reports 26lbs and the DEXA scan reports 42lbs. I believe the measurements have been relatively accurate in terms of change so it would be great to add a manual calibration offset/scalar based on DEXA scan(s).

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  • Brett S
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    Even the ability to select from a drop down menu what type of manual measurement you are adding eg calipers, dexa etc. would be helpful.
    I saw somewhere an option to select normal person or athlete in the scale software - maybe extending that range or the scale doing a calculation of its data compared to the Dexa etc could work out where someone better fits on the scale between athlete and normal or whatever that scale is. Bottom line is that if the variation is too large between scale and Dexa then people lose faith in the scale and stop using it.

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  • Mike A
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    +1 on being able to tune the scale on a dexa scan. This would convince me to buy one of your new scales.

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  • Justin T
    • Edited
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    I am also a bit annoyed that a scale this pricey doesn’t offer a sync to a DEXA scan. I think I might skip my next DEXA scan (every 6 months right now while making big health changes) and use that money to buy a Garmin Index S2 scale that does allow for calibration to a DEXA. Of course, Withings could keep this customer with a simple firmware update in the next 6 months. We’ll see how much they care to keep customers that care about tracking their health and accuracy.  The fact is, it isn’t that far off and there is already an “Athlete Mode” that does this.  The problem is the standard mode and Athlete mode are 10% apart from each other and I’m right in the middle.  Doesn’t seem like it would be that hard to insert a value that would find where you lie between the two.  I’m not a professional athlete, but I’m active enough that the standard model doesn’t quite match and the athlete doesn’t quite match.  It really shouldn’t be a hard firmware update.

    I wish this would have shown up in my pre purchase research.  I’d recommend everyone here putting this information out there on Reddit and other forums so people can know this isn’t possible before they make their purchase. 

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  • Nilesh A
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    Justin, thanks for the heads up on the Garmin scale.

    I might try it out. If it is good, I’ll probably sell my Withings scale on EBay.

    It’s so stupid that Withings hasn’t added this feature in any of their scales when they have known about this issue for a decade.

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  • Travis L
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    Plus one for this. My scale is saying i have 5% bf, and I think im closer to 7-8. We need to be able to calibrate this scale to more accurate (and expensive) techniques. Garmin scales allow for this.

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  • Daniel W
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    I would love to see this feature. I am endurance athlete with around 12% body fat. Whitings Body Scan reads 8% in normal mode (technically not applicable to me) and 3% in athlete mode (which I meet all of the criteria for in terms of resting heart rate and work out times). I suspect these big discrepancies are because I am an endurance athlete and not a power athlete. The two fixes for me would be for either (a) Whitings to introduce two athlete modes, one for power athletes and one for endurance athletes, or (b) for Whitings to let users calibrate their readings against a known "trusted" value. I don't think either would be that difficult to do (Garmin already allow you to calibrate against a known value) so I don't know why this has been on the form for so long. 

    Whitings, if you have decided not to implement this, can you please reply so that we know to stop wishing?

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  • Dylan R
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    I gave up waiting for this feature to be added and a while back got an Garmin Index S2 which has exactly this feature, allows you to enter in your test results, specifically mentions DEXA scans as an example, and it uses those as reference points to calibrate the scale's body comp measurements to. 

    "Manually Updating Body Composition Data In The Garmin Connect App

    If you recently had a highly reputable body composition analysis done, you can manually enter this data in the Garmin Connect app. Manually setting your body composition gives you a more accurate and customized view of the measurements. Once you enter new values for these body composition metrics and save your changes, they will be used as reference points for estimating new metrics each time you weigh yourself with your Index S2 Smart Scale. Metrics that can be manually updated are body fat percentage and skeletal muscle mass.

    • We recommend entering recent body fat percentage values from a trusted source, such as a DEXA scan or another reputable body composition measurement"
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  • Wolfgang S
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    Could you please give an update on this situation?

    For me the Withings scale is more than 50% off compared to the dexa scan.
    Sorry, but this is shocking.
    So please give advice how to calibrate the scale to the correct results.

    But I guess I also have to move to Garmin.

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  • Nilesh A
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    Withings has known about this issue for a decade and have done nothing to address it.

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  • Travis L
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    Why doesn’t Withings implement this? Might as well go to a competitor who listens to their customers.

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  • John P
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    I own both the Body Comp and the Body Scan, follow all the recommended guidelines, and have validated against both a Styku 3D scan and a DEXA. Despite this, the Body Scan’s lean mass estimates are inflated enough that I’ve reverted to using the Body Comp as my primary scale. The “useful for monitoring trends over time” response misses the core issue, which is that body fat percentage feeds directly into derived metrics like Resting Energy. If the lean mass figure is systematically overstated, the Resting Energy output is wrong, and that error compounds across every downstream calculation. A consistent-but-wrong trend is only acceptable if the derived outputs aren’t being used for anything, but that’s exactly what they’re designed for

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