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 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.
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
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/
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’ve had a withings scale for like 5 or 6 years, use trendweight.com for a graph, I haven’t had any problems with it besides replacing the batteries every year or so
Where’s that meme about tech enthusiasts and tech employees with a printer gun, where does this guy fall
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.
I have a withings and I really like it. Their privacy policy made me feel better about allowing my info on the cloud. You can run it offline (it sends weight via Bluetooth to the app but won’t show 7-day trend an scale screen without wifi). I don’t mind that, so I leave it disconnected. I don’t use a home assistant though so I can’t speak to that part.
I have the withings watch also, so I use the app as my catch all health tracker which works well. it’s nice to have everything together. Can’t speak to any others but I’d recommend withings.
I went from Fitbit to Withings, that Fitbit scale was nothing but pain. Every time my battery started getting low it would disconnect from Wi-Fi and I have to re pair it. It was inconsistent, If you pick it up and move it a foot to the left you get a completely different reading than if you just leave it where it sits. Because of the messed up fluctuations, It constantly identified the wrong person in the house.
Had the Withings scale for 4 years now and it’s just been fine.
perhaps a used medical scale?
I have a withings scale and it’s great so far.
Like you, I had a Fitbit one, and I find it sucked and was very unreliable.It’s worth noting that there is a withings home assistant integration
I have a Xiaomi scale connected through an esp Bluetooth proxy. Works pretty well.
The process for this is to obtain an EPS32 with bluetooth and wifi, pair it to the scale with bluetooth then keep it powered on in range of the scale, then the data goes into HA?
Yep, pretty much. Just get an ESP32 and not an 8266.
I have it plugged into an old Nokia charger and hidden in a cupboard to service all the Bluetooth temperature and door sensors.
When I use the scale it automatically sends the data to HA. Really convenient to use.
Which firmware did you load into the ESP?
Firmware apart what did you have to do?
