Omron HBF-400 Body Fat Monitor and Scale
August 17, 2010 by admin
Filed under Fatt Loss Monitor, Omron
Omron HBF-400 Body Fat Monitor and Scale
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 List Price: $59.99 Sale Price: $32.00 Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours Eligible For Free Shipping 
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Product Description
Easy To Read Large Digital Display
Weight, Body Fat% and BMI In Seconds
4 Personal Profiles with Previous Measurements Results
1 Scale For The Whole Family
Weight Capacity Up To 330 lbs.
Batteries Included
Contents:
1 Fat Loss Monitor with scale
4 "AA" Batteries
1 Instruction Manual
Measure the result of your Weight Loss Program
Lose the "right" weight, Fat not Muscle
What is most important about Weight?
It's very important to lose excess body fat as opposed to muscle mass. Lean muscle is needed for your body to function well... look your best and avoid health risks. The Omron Fat Loss Monitor with Scale gives you the ability to track the fat you are losing.
Accurate body fat calculations using Bioelectrical Impedance Technology
Body fat and muscle tissue have different levels of electrical conductivity. The Fat Loss Monitor with Scale sends a safe, low-level electrical current through you body to calculate the amount of body fat tissue. This is known as the Bioelectrical Impedance (BI) Method. Your body fat percentage is automatically calculated using the body fat tissue amount, you height, weight, age and gender information. Omron provides you with the accurate and reliable information you need to help measure your progress in achieving your health and fitness goals.
Model: HBF-400
Weight: 0 to 330lbs., with 0.2lb increments
Body fat percentage: 5.0 to 60.0% with 0.1% increments
BMI: 7.0 to 90.0 with 0.1 increments
Body fat percentage / BMI classification: - (Low) / 0 (Normal) / + (High) / ++ (Very High) with 12 levels of bar display
Set ranges:
Height: 3'4" to 6' 3/4"
Age: 10 to 80 years old
Gender: Male / Female
Power Supply: 4 AA batteries
Battery life: Approximately 1 year (when used four times a day)
Operating temperature and humidity: 50°F to 104°F, 30% to 85% RH
Storage temperature and humidity: -4°F to 140°F, 10% to 95% RH
Details
- Provides accurate measurement of weight, body fat percentage, and body mass index (BMI)
- Supports up to four personal profiles, so each member of your family can track their own measurements
- BMI classified at three levels: underweight, normal, overweight, and obese
- Provides measurements for people of nearly all heights (3'4" to 6' 6-3/4") and nearly all ages (10 to 79 years)
- Measures 12.2 x 11.8 x 2.1 inches (L x W x H)
Rating
but guess that my body fat (BFI) and body mass (BMI) index readings are a wake up call to lower! This scale is solidly built, easy to read, and simple to operate. The “metal colored plastic” is extensive, but does not detract from the scale’s aesthetics. Getting the scale to display your weight only is simple. However, getting it to display your BFI and BMI are a little more daunting, but simple when you get the hang of it. The controls (on-off) and the logic of the readings are very intuitive. I use my feet to easily turn it on and off and select weight-only or body fat index. No need to bend down or get on the floor! As for accuracy, I can’t totally weigh in (bad pun). Did note that the BFI and BMI readings were fairly close to those measured in a recent doctor visit, which is why I bought this scale in the first place. One last positive: the scale takes four AA batteries (included), which is much better than lithium, since AA’s are cheaper and more readily available. All in all, an economical start toward monitoring a shape-up, weight loss program.
Rating
If you are willing to spend a few minutes with the manual, and are interested in healthy weight loss, then this is a great product. This scale will measure body fat and skeletal muscle. This is important because unhealthy weight loss can be accomplished at the expence of muscle and often leads to quick regain of the weight with more fat than you originally started with. The scale does not give 100% accurate measure of body fat or skeletal muscle BUT the readings are consistant if you do them at the start of each day. This means you can see if you are loosing fat (yeah!)or muscle (boo!) over time. Don’t trust any one measurement as it will vary based on fluid intake and other factors. It is better to get an average over several days to see your present level. I am tracking my progress carefully and though I am loosing weight slower, I am actually loosing fat at the same time I am gaining muscle. If I had a regular scale I might assume I wasn’t loosing much weight at all and restricted my calories too much or over exercised. Oh yeah, the scale works great also.
Rating
I originally ordered a Tanita scale and it stopped working within two weeks. (Amazon, of course, took it back with no problems.) I was so glad when the Omron scale arrived. It costs less than the Tanita but the quality is much higher. The numbers on it are very large and easy to read. Also, it is much easier to place your feet properly than on the Tanita. I can’t wait to try all the features. By the way, I weighed myself over and over and my weight only varied .2 lbs. as promised. Great deal for the money!!!
Rating
I compared this body fat monitor to similar ones from Tanita. You are definately getting more for your money here. It stores up to 4 users where the Tanita models only store 2 and compares function for function elsewhere at a lower price point. Not to mention that this scale just feels like better quality when you pick it up. I bought one with one of the Omron Pedometers to take advantage of the instant rebate on Amazon. (I haven’t seen an event on Tanita on Amazon for a while.) The pedometer was the #1 rated in CR. They are both top notch products.
Rating
I order all kinds of items online and have done so for years. But when it comes to some items, I usually prefer to see it firsthand before ordering. I couldn’t do that with this scale, but it turned out better than I’d hoped!
The picture doesn’t really show you how well this scale is made. Although the top is primarily plastic, there is so little flex that you’d think the whole thing is metal. The display is high contrast and the digits and icons large making it easy to read even at my height of 6’1″. My favorite part of the construction is that the feet “float” slightly allowing the scale to adapt to surfaces that may be a little uneven. That’s always been a problem for me on vinyl, tile, or hardwood floors where slight variations occur. Also, the power button on the front (as you walk up to it) toggles the unit on and off. Nice for saving battery life instead of having to rely on an Auto-Off feature (which it will do after 10 minutes of inactivity). The manual states that you’ll get about 12 months on one set of batteries (4 x AA) taking four readings a day.
Having memories for 4 people as well as a “guest” reading is great, too. The unit keeps only the last reading, but if you’re tracking that information and don’t have time to jot it down at a weigh-in, you can always come back later, turn it on, and pull up your profile’s most recent data.
The BMI and body fat percentage readouts are simple to understand and a bar graph accompanies the BMI to give you at-a-glance feedback where you’re at generally, i.e., Under, Normal, Over, etc. on your BMI. This is based on your providing your gender, height (in 1/4 inch increments) and age.
The manual is well written and in English only. It gives a good overview of how the BMI is calculated and what Omron did to come up with the table references that it uses internally to generate that value.
Overall, I am extremely pleased with this scale and highly recommend it for anyone who wants an accurate, repeatable (same readings with little to no variation when taken one after the other) and informative digital scale.
Rating
As a scale the Omron HBF-500 is excellent. It is consistent, in tests with my wife and I (who are more than 100 pounds different in weight) the scale gave the same weight each of 5 times in a row that we stepped on it. So it is consistent. I am a nurse and weighed myself on our calibrated scales and found that this scale weighed me 0.5 pounds heavier than the hospital one, which can be explained by the glass of water I drank when I got home. So it is both consistent and accurate.
So what about the body fat monitor: As to the accuracy of the monitor I cannot speak. However, it is very consistent, much more consistent than the experience that I have had with the handheld-only monitors from Omron. The scale will calculate your percent body fat & your percent skeletal muscle. It will also give you a reading of your visceral body fat, which is a better indicator of your health risk associated with body fat (visceral body fat is the fat which is inside your body surrounding your organs, which subcutaneous fat is the fat that we all see just under our skin). Using these calculations and the user-defined height, weight, and age data that you enter, it will give you your resting metabolic energy needs for the day to give you an idea of how much you should be eating to lose weight in a healthy manner.
The scale has 4 user profiles so that 4 different users can use the scale and track their data. Data can be recalled letting you know what your measurements were yesterday, a week ago, a month ago, and 3 months ago.
The handle fits well inside the front of the scale. I was expecting the scale to be bulkier than it is. It is just a little taller than a normal scale and very attractive. It isn’t something that you’re going to need to hide between uses. Just put it where any normal bathroom scale would fit.
The scale is a little bit difficult to use if you haven’t read the instruction manual. The good news is that the manual is very easy to use and very informative. Plan on 5-10 minutes of reading time when your scale first arrives. You will be glad that you learned all about what your new scale does. After skimming the manual, my wife and I are both able to operate the scale and use all of its functionality.
Price-wise, this seems like an excellent value. The cost of a high-quality scale added to the price of a decent Body-fat monitor (which won’t give you the more detailed body composition detail of this hands-and-feet monitor) will be more than the price of this one unit. Also, this unit keeps all of your data in one location. So for the price, this unit was a no-brainer for me when it was time to buy a new scale after my old one stopped being consistent and accurate.
Highly recommended.