I’ve had a fitbit wifi bathroom scale for a while. Getting the data out got suddenly more difficult when Google bought them, and I didn’t love giving that data to google. It’s finally died, and I’m looking at replacement options.
In a perfect world, I could just go to a store and buy a “HomeAssistant Ready” scale. If I can’t have that, I’d like a scale that is on my local network and exposes the last x weigh-ins as an API on the device, then I could write something to poll it.
I haven’t seen anything like those, but have turned up:
- a project to decode the bluetooth transmissions of a number of scales (after you build an ESP32 device for it)
- the Withings cloud based scale, but with a well documented API
Any other good options?
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I have a cheap $20 1byone scale from Amazon but it’s actually fantastic.
Where’s that meme about tech enthusiasts and tech employees with a printer gun, where does this guy fall
I don’t have any options for you but make sure you get one that doesn’t use battery when not in use. It’s really annoying replacing those little coin batteries all the time even though you only use it like .001% of the time
I’m starting to think my commitment to the Apple ecosystem and my desire for self-hosting are at odds.
If you can find an old working Wii Fit Balance Board you can use it as a very accurate Bluetooth scale.
Did you do that?
If yes, could you share some info about it?I did not. Foolishly I got rid of my balance board after some years of no use.
Looks like a few folks have
https://github.com/schellingb/WiiBalanceScale
https://github.com/aelveborn/Wii-Scale
Going to have to try this out myself!
Really? That’s a good idea.
It’s interesting how old console tech comes back around to be useful for other stuff. I’ve used a couple Xbox Kinects to do 3D scanning and with an augmented reality sand box.
Not local, but I’ve been using my withings scale for at least 5 years, and I sync the weights with its home assistant automation from the withings api, then plot the data on a custom health dashboard I made.
I’d love a local alternative, but regardless I haven’t had any problems with my setup.
It doesn’t sync to homeassistant, but I use a Xiaomi scale with openScale off of F-Droid. There’s a few different scales supported: https://github.com/oliexdev/openScale/wiki/Supported-scales-in-openScale
I also use openScale from F-Droid, in combination with this Bluetooth scale:
https://sanitas-online.de/de/p/sbf-70-bluetooth-glas-diagnosewaage/
I use miscale 1 with gadgetbridge. Homeassistant has also autodiscivered it, but I’m hessitant to pair it with 2 different devices so no idea if it actually works.
This is what I use. Replaced my old Fitbit Aria 2. I weighed in on both scales for about a month, and it was consistently 0.15 kg below, which is good. The body fat measurement was a bit more off, and it varies almost nothing over long periods of time, but I don’t really trust those measurements anyway.
I believe you can set up the scale in GadgetBridge as well, but I have not tried to do that.
I think looking at openscale would be worthwhile:
https://github.com/oliexdev/openScale/wiki
Looks like it can push to mqtt? Huh, that’s new to me.
Also, if you want HA, there’s this:
https://github.com/lolouk44/hassio-addons/blob/master/mi-scale/DOCS.md
Good luck!
I use openscale and a Beuer BF700 (I think that’s the model #, it’s a model listed in the github wiki) and it works great, although I had to do the initial setup on their proprietary app to get the profiles to work right, and the scale had to be imported/was a bit hard to find. The wiki includes instructions for modifying a scale to add an arduino and the necessary bits to DIY one if you’re at all technically inclined.
I recommend it, but YMMV if you try to use a newer scale. If I ever have more time I would like to try to extend the drivers to support more scales, because openscale is very good software.
I can’t help, I wish I could, but I’m curious. Why a smart scale? Why not just any dumb scale from Bed Bath and Beyond?
I’d guess automatic history tracking. Step on it every morning and it’ll automatically save your weight to Home Assistant or whatever so you can see if you’re gaining/losing over time.
Can’t you just use a notebook for that?
Sure, and I could also turn on/off my lights with a switch instead of having them come on when I get home, and turn off when I leave.
Who would do such a thing? It must absolutely terrible to manually flip a switch.
I don’t know what you want man. I like automating stuff so I don’t have to worry about remembering as much.
That’s crazy talk.
I suppose that makes sense, honestly I just go with “more/less than last time” lol. If I went more in depth with it I’d probably use a pen and paper.
I don’t keep track of my weight so I could be wrong here, but more/less than last time wouldn’t be very helpful as your weight can vary by the day. You need a trend over weeks to really see what’s going on. I definitely wouldn’t use pen/paper as it’s just too much data to organize and graph, but excel would be a reasonable alternative.
Sure a spreadsheet could work too, but yeah I also clearly don’t keep track lol.
Cumulatively pen and paper will add up to more effort. And I would person give up at some point. It would probably never enter my daily jabits. Realistically if on the scale everyday, the changes are so minute you won’t notice the monthly and longer duration trends.
It’s really surprising there isn’t a no bullshit option you could just buy
I like data, I like tech, I like investing large amounts of time and energy to self-host things that muggles would not bother with.
Body fat tracking etc
I’m using the Xiaomi “Mi Body competition 2” together with https://github.com/lolouk44/hassio-addons/tree/master/mi-scale and am reasonably satisfied with it.
I zoomed in on the screen because I just assumed this was a meme.
… male feet. That’s what I’m going with.
Wait what I thought this was satire at first
you can’t even poke fun at selfhosted people anymore because someone WILL 100% spend 48 hours straight 3d printing and programming a toothbrush
edit: you have to be kidding me https://kuenzi.dev/toothbrush/That would be a fun thread. What’s the most unnecessary self hosted thing you’ve seen someone host or host
I thought this one was dumb too https://lemm.ee/post/49060797
Lmao
perhaps a used medical scale?
Can you just get a normal scale? I just have a mechanical one from the last century
I mean, yes, I could. But I’m committed to the #selfhosted life where I spend hours building unnecessarily complicated systems to make my life easier in small ways.
It just feels like a very dark reality
How do you automatically compile the daily readings into an excel file with graphs? Raspberry pi running opencv sending the time series to influx db and then grafana generate graphs for you home assistant health monitoring dashboard, along with the blood pressure monitor, continuous glucose monitor, pee ketone content, the pills dispenser and the rest of your fitness regimen?
I don’t know what you are trying to say. (Your sentence is a run on)
Explained by chatgpt
https://chatgpt.com/share/6760e8bc-24ec-8005-be3c-241aa6bf4aaf
