We Tried The RENPHO Smart Scale, And This Is What We Learned About Body Composition

Stepping on the scale at the doctor's office almost always punctures my self-esteem, especially when my weight is calculated with my height to tell me that my body mass index (BMI) is considered "overweight." Nothing like seeing those red flags on your medical stats to boost your confidence (eye roll). Thankfully, more and more health professionals are poo-pooing the idea of BMI in favor of other health measures like visceral fat, muscle mass, and body composition.

That's why I've been much more in favor of body composition scales. They provide a lot more information about your health than what the scale in the doctor's office shows (and I'm always convinced it's at least 3 or 4 pounds more than my scale at home).

So when RENPHO asked Health Digest to review one of its body composition scales, I was the first to volunteer. RENPHO has several other health and wellness products such as massagers, exercise bikes, and blood pressure monitors, but it offers a dozen smart body scales (like the Elis 2X) that integrate with an app on your phone. RENPHO sent me its Elis Chroma body scale to try.

The RENPHO Elis Chroma came with the scale itself plus a charging cord. Older body composition scales used to need batteries, but this one comes with a rechargeable lithium battery. I didn't know if the scale came fully charged, so I let it charge overnight just to be sure. The next day I had to initialize the scale to ensure it still had its default settings. That was just a matter of sticking a pin into a small button near the charger. Not a big deal.

I also needed to download the RENPHO Health App on my phone and add my device. Pairing the scale with my phone was just a matter of stepping onto the scale with the app open and following the prompts. I also added personal details such as my birthdate, sex, height, and exercise amount, and I set a target weight and body composition goals. The RENPHO Health App also connects with Apple Health, MyFitnessPal, Google Fit, Samsung Health, and Fitbit. If there are other people in your household, you can have them create separate profiles.

I also chose "Athlete Mode," which means you do intense exercise for at least 6 hours each week and have a resting heart rate below 60 beats per minute. RENPHO says it considers that you probably have more muscle mass and different hydration levels than regular users.

The "Chroma" in this body scale means that it lights up like crazy when you use it, which I found to be a fun feature. You can choose and customize the color themes, and there's a color mode that corresponds to whether you're underweight, normal, overweight, or obese. Another feature plays chimes and lights up when the scale detects sound between 6 p.m. and 6 a.m. Because I kept the scale in my guest bedroom, my friend who was visiting laughed every time she would go near the bathroom.

If you want to set a reminder to weigh yourself every day, the scale will light up at the time you choose. There's an ambient light feature so the scale can serve as a nightlight. However, you have to keep the scale plugged into the wall because it requires more battery power. I chose not to have this mode on because I don't have an outlet near the floor. I've been using the scale just on battery power every day for two weeks, and the battery is still at 84%.

Older body composition scales provided stats like body fat, hydration levels, and bone mass. This scale provides 13 different measures, including visceral fat, which is the unhealthy fat around your organs. I'm not exactly sure how it differentiates visceral fat from subcutaneous fat, but it's interesting nonetheless. Based on your statistics, you'll also get your basal metabolic rate (BMR), which is helpful if you're counting calories. The scale also calculates your metabolic age based on your BMR. If your metabolic age is higher than your current age, that means you need to improve your body composition.

I'm interested in tracking muscle mass as I get older, so the Elis Chroma allows you to see if you're gaining muscle or losing fat. You'll also be able to track skeletal muscle, which is really what you're "building" when you're trying to add muscle. There's also protein mass to keep an eye on how much protein you have to sustain your muscles.

The app gives you healthy parameters to ensure your overall health is on track. Each time you step on the scale, you get a measurement report that tells you what stats meet health standards and which do not. The unhealthy stats are in yellow or red, and healthier body composition measurements are in green. The app also allows you to track your trends to see how your body composition fluctuates every day over a few weeks.

RENPHO's Elis Chroma Smart Body Scale is a sleek scale that's easy to use, and it can be helpful for people to track specific health measures. However, the app's settings can mess with your mind if you're heavier than what the app considers to be "normal." Because the scale measured me to be 148 pounds, it deemed me to be "overweight," even though I wear a size 4. I'm 63 inches tall, and the RENPHO website says that the "ideal" body weight ranges between 115 and 170 pounds for women between 63 and 70 inches tall. In other words, it's important to keep other health statistics like body fat and muscle mass within healthy standards.

Similarly, the metabolic age says that I'm 57, yet I'm 55 years old. My BMR is only about 10 calories different from my other body composition scale, yet that one says my metabolic age is 53. Granted, there is about a pound difference in weight and the body fat differs by about 2%, but just seeing my metabolic age being higher than my current age made me freak out. Mind you, 10 of my other health statistics are well within the healthy or normal range, but seeing a high BMI, metabolic age, and weight triggers all of the body image issues I had as a teenager.

Tracking your body composition is really important combined with your blood pressure, cholesterol levels, and other vitals. Body composition scales like the Elis Chroma are great ways to keep an eye on how your body changes over a range of time. Rather than weighing myself once a week at the same time of day, I've found it more useful to measure my body composition to see the variations from day to day based on my hydration and sodium intake the day before.

(Read: Do body fat scales actually work?)

What I've noticed is that on days when my body water is really high, my body fat goes down and other measurements improve. If I ate at a few restaurants over the weekend, my measurements would go in an unhealthy direction. It's not that my body changes so drastically from day to day, but instead it has to do with the way body composition scales measure.

Body composition scales like the Elis Chroma Smart Body Scale are great frames of reference so you can get an idea of how your health is progressing. However, try not to take the measures too seriously, especially if some measures say you're unhealthy if you know your health is relatively on track.