As most of you know, I’m a personal trainer and macro coach, which means the scale comes up a lot in my daily interactions with clients. It can be a serious point of contention with those who have a negative relationship with the scale, and this is especially true for women. 

I’ve always used a regular scale and tracked my weigh-ins with an app (I like Happy Scale), and for me, that felt like enough. However, I had several of my clients ask about the Hume Health Body Pod, so I figured it was time to check it out for myself. 

I have been tracking my weight alongside many other metrics using the Body Pod, and I’m eager to share my feedback with you. This device is designed to help you understand your body composition from a whole new perspective, but how accurate is it? And is it worth the investment? Let’s chat about it.

Unboxing and Getting Started

I received my Body Pod pretty quickly after ordering it, and I was honestly pretty excited about trying it out. I’ve seen a million fitness influencers talking about it and have seen umpteen ads featuring it. Being in the fitness and health industry, I feel like it’s important to stay on top of trends and to share any valuable equipment or knowledge that can potentially help my clients.

The Hume Health scale looks very similar to a traditional scale with the exception of the retractable handlebar that sits at the top of the scale. It’s a standard size and weight and has a really sleek design.

The first thing I did was plug it in using the USB charging cord that it came with. While that was charging, I scanned the QR code to download the Hume Health App. Getting started in the app was really easy; it automatically detected my scale and paired it up. I was a little worried that I might need to pay for a subscription to the app, but I was pleasantly surprised when I realized that app usage was free (that feels rare these days). There is, of course, a premium version you can upgrade to that includes more personalized reports and such, but I didn’t feel it necessary to purchase that.

Once my Health Pod had been charging for a few minutes, I unplugged it and stepped on it to take my first reading. It’s important to note that you need to have your app open in order to see your weigh-in results. I weigh in daily on my regular scale first thing in the morning, so I have a general idea of my current weight - I was excited to see how the Hume scale matched up!

My First Weigh-In With the Body Pod

My first weigh-in took about 20 seconds - you stand on the scale and hold onto the handles while the app does its thing. You’ll know when the weigh-in is complete by looking at the app. My first weigh-in felt a bit off for me, it said I was about 4-5 lbs more than my regular scale weight usually reads. I chalked much of this up to the fact that I was fully clothed, had a full day of eating and drinking under my belt, and new scales always need a bit of time to calibrate.

My weight came up in kg, but I use lbs, so I Googled how to change it, and it was simple (it’s in the settings!). I was definitely a bit intimidated by all the data and options that were on the screen - I wasn’t sure where to look first or what some of it meant. The Body Pod connected to my Apple Health App (with my permission) so that data was brought into the mix, too (sleep, steps, heart rate, etc).

On my home screen in the Hume Health App, I can view my body composition, which includes my latest weigh-in, my BMR (basal metabolic rate), my body fat, and my muscle. But I like to go to the “Measures” tab, where you can view things more in-depth.

You will see a bunch of options for viewing data:

• Standard
• Weight loss
• Athlete
• DEXA
• Inbody
• All

I like to click on “All and from there, I can see my weight, skeletal muscle mass, body fat percentage, subcutaneous fat mass, lean mass, skeletal mass, body water, BMR, muscle and fat mass for my arms, legs, and trunk, my metabolic age, and more. This is where looking at the data gets really fun!

Check out this video below where I record my screen inside the Hume Health app:

Interpreting the Data

With each weigh-in, all of your data is compared to your previous data, and the app will tell you if it’s up or down. For example, an important piece of data that the Body Pod collects is your body water. As women, our body water fluctuates a ton throughout the month. This is true for men, too, but women are usually the ones who struggle with seeing the scale fluctuations. 

By tracking your daily body water, you are able to discern that a spike in the scale may just be because you have some additional water on board today. You can then look at your body fat and see that nothing has changed there in a day’s time, and you’re able to conclude that you simply have more water in your body today and that you didn’t gain fat. This is something that I coach women through constantly and one reason why I would recommend this scale to women struggling with their relationship with the number on the scale each day.

Having never measured my body fat or muscle before, I was really excited to see that all of the hard work I put in strength training consistently over the years has really paid off. My body fat percentage is low, and my muscle mass is high (Hume will assign you a score based on comparing your data to that of other users with similar measurements). 

If you were on a fat-loss journey, it would be really fun and encouraging to watch your body fat drop while your muscle mass increases (assuming you were strength training and eating adequate protein).

The other metric that I find to be pretty cool and encouraging is the metabolic age data. Currently, mine is reading 27 years (I am about to be 37), so that means my metabolism is functioning at the level of someone 10 years my junior - I’ll take it! That’s definitely a metric I look forward to maintaining and perhaps even improving over time.

Overall Thoughts and Recommendations

Although I was hesitant about the price tag on the Hume Health Body Pod, it turns out I actually think it’s worth it for those who enjoy data and who are on a health and fitness journey. 

So often, I see women get really discouraged with their progress, especially when beginning a new macro tracking and weight training journey - results take time, and sometimes their body composition is changing (their dropping body fat and increasing lean muscle mass), but these changes aren’t reflected on a traditional scale. They so desperately want to see the scale number go down, but it sometimes stays the same or even increases a bit. 

If more people had access to a tool like the Hume Health Body Pod, it would take a lot of the sting and emotion out of the scale because you can track your real-time changes not only day to day but month to month and year to year. The truth is that change takes time, and we sometimes don’t see or feel those changes, but having this level of data at a claimed 98% accuracy can help keep you motivated and encouraged on your journey.

The Body Pod is also a good way to stay accountable to yourself. If you start to see increases in fat and decreases in muscle, you know that if you want to maintain your physique and improve your health, you’ll need to implement some changes. 

If you have the budget and are someone who likes keeping tabs on your health or who has struggled with your relationship with the scale, I think the Hume Health Body Pod is worth the investment.