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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Mine are supported by Gadgetbridge and have no WiFi. Sounds secure enough to me.
I use Tasker to log my weight to a Google Sheets spreadsheet, and just use a dumb scale.
The only piece of technology in my house is a toaster from 1982, and I keep a loaded shotgun next to it just in case it makes a noise I don’t recognize.
I am SCP-426, your toaster.
The only technology in my house is me, and I keep a loaded shotgun next to me in case I make a noise I don’t recognize.
(Am I doing this right?)
What if the shotgun makes a noise you don’t recognize? Hit it with the toaster?
If my shotgun starts making strange noises, I check the brownies.
I do similar with a shortcut on my phone to a NocoDB Form.
Same here but with Apple Health. You can even build some Shortcut to log the weight via Siri if you like to.
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?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!
I did not. Foolishly I got rid of my balance board after some years of no use.
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.
Really? That’s a good idea.
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.
I also have been using a Withings scale for the past 4 years and it has been great. I also got it primarily because of the privacy policy.
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
I zoomed in on the screen because I just assumed this was a meme.
… male feet. That’s what I’m going with.
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
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 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.
I also use openScale from F-Droid, in combination with this Bluetooth scale:
https://sanitas-online.de/de/p/sbf-70-bluetooth-glas-diagnosewaage/
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
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 like data, I like tech, I like investing large amounts of time and energy to self-host things that muggles would not bother with.
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.
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
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.
That’s crazy talk.
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.
Body fat tracking etc
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.
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.
Quick google search it seems your only options for HA are Xiaomi scales with bluetooth paired to a mcu with esphome.
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?ESPHome has firmware for the BT proxy:
https://esphome.io/projects/?type=bluetooth
The I installed the xiaomi app on my phone, I think it was called zepp life or something for the scale I have, you do the initial setup of the scale on there, and then it’ll be picked up by the Bluetooth proxy.
OpenScale works great and kind of does what you want. If you have an old Android phone laying around you can have it persistently connected to a cheap Bluetooth scale. Functional, but at a much have higher power cost than an ESP32 solution. Automated database exports to a local file (on the android device) and Syncthing can move your data around for analysis.
The good folks over at Gadgetbridge might have a solution too, although their list of supported scales looks pretty short.
You might also look into making a project like rmfakecloud to trick your Fitbit device into pushing data to a local server.
Not sure about home assistant though, I’ve never used it.
