Fitbit Aria Air
A solid choice for Fitbit fans, but lacks body composition data.
Before you invest in the Fitbit Aria Air, you should know that unlike other Fitbit smart scales, it doesn’t use a small electrical current to estimate your body composition (including fat, muscle and bone mass) – a method known as bioimpedence. This means you’ll get a less complete picture of changes to your body, but means it’s safe for people with implanted devices such as pacemakers.
We were surprised how heavy the Fitbit Aria Air was. It weighs 3.9lb (1.7kg), which isn’t much less than Wi-Fi scales like the Garmin Index S2, and much less than the Eufy Smart Scale C1 Bluetooth scale. Fitbit advises always storing the scale upright, so you’re unlikely to be moving it often, but it’s something to bear in mind if space in your bathroom is limited.
Instead, the Fitbit Aria Air measures weight (in imperial or metric units), and calculates your BMI using the height entered when you created your Fitbit account. This is synced immediately with the Fitbit mobile app, where you can track changes over time and see how close you are to meeting your target weight. It also makes it easy to see how any lifestyle changes, such as increased exercise or improved sleep patterns, may have affected your weight.
The Fitbit Aria Air connects to your phone via Bluetooth, and has no Wi-Fi connectivity. This means it’s very quick and easy to set up, with no need to enter the password for your home network, but your phone will need to be within Bluetooth range for your data to sync.
Because the scale doesn’t track body composition, it’s unable to identify you unless your phone is within Bluetooth range. Step aboard without a connection and you’ll see your weight, but your data won’t be synced. It’s not stored on the scale itself, as there would be no way to pin it to a particular user.
This could be inconvenient if you’re not in the habit of taking your phone into the bathroom in the morning, but does mean there’s no limit to the number of people who can use the scale. Most smart scales only support between four and 16 users, but the Aria Air has no such cap, provided each person has a
Fitbit account.
Weight is shown on the bright LED display as soon as you step on, and provided you have the Fitbit app open on your phone, it will appear there straight away. Unlike Salter’s Bluetooth smart scales, there’s no need to tap a button to initiate the syncing progress.
Just open the app, step aboard, and your weight and BMI will sync automatically. There’s no body composition data though, so if you’re interested in checking out changes to fat and muscle mass over time, you’ll need to look elsewhere. If your needs are simple, though, it’s excellent.
Cat Ellis