Gizmodo: tanita

Portable Urine Glucose Meter Hates Needles, Loves Pee

Mark Wilson — Wed, 21 May 2008 09:20:00 EDT

Most diabetics are tough enough to routinely test their blood without crying about it (the alternative to death is certainly a good one), but Tanita has announced a portable digital urine glucose meter for those with sugar-management diseases like diabetes and metabolic syndrome that needs no blood.

A portable unit of what they've had in hospitals for years, a user simply urinates on the sensor (a la home pregnancy tests) to measure the urine sugar level. Results take roughly six seconds. It's not exactly the same as a blood sugar level, but the measurement should provide correlative evidence as to how much sugar is running rampant in one's blood stream.

The unit will run $154 when it's released. Each sensor cartridge is good for 200 uses and will cost $58 to replace. [TechOn]

Tanita's Abdominal Fat-Measuring Machine a Big Fat Waste of Space

AddyDugdale — Fri, 07 Dec 2007 10:06:51 EST

For people too obese to get out of bed comes the abdominal fat-measuring machine. Tanita's AB-101 zones in on the fat around your midriff and then, thanks to a scanning process similar to X-rays, can tell you whether you should be looking for something in the outsize department of Caskets R Us.

Key in basic details—gender, height, weight, etc&mdash and the monitor will calculate your BMI in around 30 seconds. It goes on sale in Japan in February 2008 and will retail for around $2,640. Oh, and let us give praise to the Modelizer-on-High for using a pretty model and not a Sumo wrestler in the picture. [Impress via New Launches]

Tanita BC-545 Scale: Learn More About That Flab Than You Really Want to Know

Charlie White — Fri, 02 Mar 2007 13:00:00 EST

Tanita scales are so cool. But this Tanita Innerscan BC-545 measures a whole lot more than your weight, so much so that the company calls it a Segmental Body Composition Monitor. It can give you readings of how much fat is in each arm, each leg, and of course, that potentially ample repository of adipose tissue (that's blubber in doctor talk), the trunk area.

Stand on the four sensor plates and pull up on two retractable electronics, and the device sends a weak electric current through your body to see what you're really made of. It keeps track of your measurements and can display your progress in days, weeks, or months over a three-year period. One thing that will be much lighter right away is your wallet—the BC-545 costs $390. – Charlie White

The Amazing InnerScan Segmental Body Composition Monitor [Gizmag]

Tanita Scale Records Your Weight on USB, Graphs Your Fat

Jason Chen — Mon, 16 Oct 2006 18:15:28 EDT

A cousin of the Tanita BC-502 with Bluetooth and a fat sensor, this Tanita BC-500-SV has a USB port so you can keep track of your weight on a memory stick. Every time you weigh yourself, gazing past your midnight KFC and one-mojito-too-many gut, the scale will record your body weight and fat percentage onto the USB drive.

The included drive can track four users for 30 days, which then gets uploaded to your Windows PC to graph your weight. If you're one of those people who don't find motivation in losing weight unless there's some kind of gimmick or gadget, this may help keep you alive for another 20 years. – Jason Chen

Product Page [Amazon JP via Calorie Lab via The Raw Feed]

Tanita Scale With Fat Sensor and Bluetooth

Jason Chen — Fri, 19 May 2006 14:55:25 EDT

There's a reason why the Japanese aren't nearly as fat as Americans. Tanita's BC-502 scale can measure your weight and send a small current through your body to tell you your BMI and fat ratio.

What makes this unit special is that it can be connected to a PC using a USB cable so you can chart your progress in losing or gaining weight. Not only that, they have a bluetooth module that can sync up with your phone, so you won't have to bend down to read the scale (and for keeping track of your progress).

Once on the phone, the data can be sent to a website so your doctor can monitor your health. Maybe now we nerds will be tempted to get back in shape? Nah.

Tanita BC-502. the geek's Bluetooth scale [Akihabara News]