The new Polar Balance is a smart bathroom scale that integrates well in the Polar ecosystem. It doesn't have any wow factor to make it fly off of store shelves, but the information you get about your weight from the companion Polar Flow app is rich and actionable. It makes suggestions each day for what you can do to reach your desired goal, like "run 31 minutes," or "eat 3 fewer pieces of white bread." Flow is one of the most intense fitness and health tracking apps out there, and it's best for people who are training and care about things like lactic acid threshold and VO2Max. If you're already a Polar user, the scale is a good addition to your fitness tracking arsenal. But if all this talk of VO2Max makes your head spin, you're much better off with a smart Wi-Fi scale designed more for simplicity and ease of use, like the Withings Smart Body Analyzer or the QardioBase, our two Editors' Choices.

Style and Details

The Polar Balance ( at Amazon) is sleek and contemporary. Its glass, splash-proof top covers a solid square base that comes in black or white. It has the same general aesthetic of so many other smart scales, including the Runtastic Libra ( at Amazon) and the Nuyu Wireless Scale . It measures roughly 1 by 12 by 12 inches (HWD) and weighs 3.8 pounds. I don't much care for the large gray and red Polar logo printed on the scale; most Polar devices suffer from the same overly enthusiastic logo placement.

An LCD shows your weight in large, easy-to-read numbers to the nearest 0.2 lb. You can switch to kilos if you prefer metric readings. Aside from weight, the readout only shows a Bluetooth icon to indicate it's syncing or trying to sync. The Balance doesn't read body fat, whereas the Withings Body Analyzer ($79.00 at Amazon) , QardioBase , and Fitbit Aria Wi-Fi Smart Scale ($107.21 at Amazon) do. The Polar Flow app gives you more information about your weight, however, such as an estimated body mass index. More on the app, which is really the selling point, momentarily.

The scale runs on three replaceable AAA batteries, which are included and should keep it running about a year. The Balance can track weight for up to 10 people.

In order for the scaler to sync your weight with the Polar Flow app, you need either a compatible Polar fitness tracker (including the Polar V800, M400, Loop, Loop 2, and A360), or an iOS or Android device. I tested the Balance with the M400 fitness tracker. With a little bit of trial and error, I figured out how to connect the scale to the M400 without ever picking up an instruction manual. Connecting directly via my iPhone game me a little more trouble, until I realized that it happens through the app.

Weighing In

I tested the scale with the Polar M400. Upon stepping on the scale I saw my weight, and when I pressed the right button on the M400, my weight synced with the watch. But I still had to get my weight into the Polar Flow app. To do that, I had to sync the watch with my phone, or with my computer using a USB cord. Then, either the mobile app or the desktop app pushes the data to the app. I prefer to use the Flow web app over the mobile app because it contains so much information that I like to see it on a larger screen.

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I compared my weigh-ins on the Polar Balance with readings from the QardioBase, and they were nearly identical every time. The QadioBase has a neat feature that, when enabled, doesn't actually show your weight on the scale, but instead flashes either a happy face or sad face, depending on whether you're getting closer to or farther from your weight goal. And if you put it into pregnancy mode, it only shows a happy face no matter your weight. The Polar Balance doesn't offer any ingenuity like that.

On its own, the Polar Balance itself is a little bland. It syncs via Bluetooth, but not Wi-Fi. Wi-Fi syncing makes for a much better user experience because it doesn't require that you have a compatible Bluetooth device by your side when you weigh yourself. The bathroom, where most people keep their scales, may be the one remaining place some of us still don't tote our electronics.

Coaching
While the scale itself isn't anything to write home about, the Flow app is what makes investing in Polar worthwhile. Polar users tend to care about things like their lactic threshold and maximum heart rate for training. The reason to use a Polar device rather than something from Fitbit is because you want to train, not because you want to take at least 10,000 steps every day.

When you track your weight in the Flow app, it shows you all kinds of graphs and charts that guide you toward actionable things you can do to reach your goals. For example, my weight goal is to lose 8 pounds over 8 weeks. What should I do today to help make that happen? Well, the Flow app tells me I need to get rid of 454 calories today, and to do that I need to change my eating and my exercise. I could jog for 29 minutes or walk for 58 minutes, and I should trim out 272 calories, which amounts to 6 ounces of french fries or 2 ounces of chocolate. It's some of the most clear advice I've ever seen in a health app.

The app also tracks BMI, weight over time, and calories consumed, if you connect the excellent calorie-counting app MyFitnessPal.

Bringing Balance to Polar Users
$100 is a fair price for a scale that doesn't do it all, as scales with Wi-Fi tend to cost about $50 more. Still, other Bluetooth-only smart scales cost less than the Polar Balance. The Nuyu Wireless Scale sells for $49, and the Pivotal Living Smart Scale goes for $39. Neither of these scales have an app experience that can match Polar's, however.

Although the Polar Balance scale itself is a little underwhelming, the excellent information about weight from the Flow app more than makes up for it. I think current Polar users will really enjoy the Balance scale, but anyone who is just in the market for a smart scale that's easy to use and comes with great features will prefer the QardioBase or the Withings Smart Body Analyzer.

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