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Soehnle Brand
Easy Control Digital Personal BATHROOM SCALE with Multi-Function Display Model 63086 reviewed by Patrick Killough (1) lunch.com 10/03/2011 name of review: Soehnle Brand Scales Keep Getting Thinner and More Fascinating. Maybe I can, too! rating: * * * * review: The Soehnle Corporation of Nassau, Germany is a leading manufacturer of scales for bathroom and kitchen -- both fields crowded with competitors. I am submitting this review to the Ubergizmo community of Torch.com because I think of Ubergizmoites as hi tech nerds or cosmological speculators a la Immanuel Velikovsky. Well, I am not in that league, but a scale like the Soehnle Easy Control Bathroom Scale Model 63806 challenges me the way rocket science might challenge you, dear reader. To show you how lo-tech are my wife and I, both in our 70s, it took us two minutes to get the three accompanying AAA batteries into the rear side well of the sleek white scale that we had just unpacked. We had ordered that weighing machine for me to review for amazon.com/vine. It arrived by UPS packaged like and resembling a freshly baked, slightly rectangular pizza. I noted that it had come all the way from China. But accompanying literature assured that, wherever manufactured, our new scale had been designed in Germany by Germans who stand by its quality. It comes with a three-year guarantee. From then on my wife and I relied on the instruction manual that came inside the pizza box. We were immediately distracted by the 18 different languages for us to choose among. We could handle five of them, but not Portuguese, Danish, Hungarian and ten others. We opted for English. We flipped to the first five illustrations on pages 5 and 6. English was the second listed of 18 languages spread across those two pages and only required us to do three things in "Start-up operation": Insert Batteries (we were hi-tech enough already to have done that), Set Units and Place Scale on a hard, level surface. Set units meant choosing among kilograms, pounds or the beloved of Brits "stones" (14 avoirdupois pounds). We opted for pounds. After that all that was left for us to do was to feed in first my height and weight and then my wife's and our desired target weights. The clever Soehnle scale would then notice whether it was 6'1" or 5'8" who had hopped on the scale, tell each what he/she weighed, express his/her body mass index and how many pounds we were away from the target weight in pounds that each had selected. This phase took us a surprising amount of time. For some reason we could not get all the numerical inputs to "take" when the scale was positioned on our hard wood dining room table, cheek by jowl with our 35-page instruction manual. Once, however, we had dared to experiment, had put our new pet down on the even harder tile floor surface just inside our front door, then on our knees try again to input target weight, etc., etc. -- all went well. And the scale has the capacity to take the data of an additional three persons besides us two. So 32 minutes after we two lo-tech non-nerds had begun with AAA batteries and more, we were done. Our new Soehnle was performing as directed and we have set out with confidence to attain our target weights. The numbers displayed by our new friends in Germany and China are large enough for us to take in without recourse to reading glasses. Some additional data about our "digital personal scale with multi-function display": its dimensions are 12.2 x 12 x 0.9 inches ; 3.6 pounds. For the moment at least the Soehnle replaces our beloved but simpler Weighwatchers portable bathroom scale. Soehnle is heavier, slimmer and appears sturdier than its Weighwatchers cousin. limThe psychology built into our Soehnle must be: if year after year, Soehnle scales grow thinner and thinner, why can't we? The only negatives, once we got Soehnle up and running, that my wife and I notice after each of us using the Easy Control Bathroom Scale Model 63086 about ten times is this: sometimes you have to tap it several times to make it enter its start up, lit up phase. And the numbers that we look down at before we step on might vary from time to time: lights flashing or steady and other minor variations. But if we are bold and step on, it works as promised. Thanks for reading a lo-tech brain's approach to something unthinkable when I was born in 1935. -OOO- http://www.lunch.com/reviews/d/UserReview-Soehnle_Easy _Control_Bathroom_Scale_63806-1769714-213968- Soehnle_Brand_Scales_Keep_Getting_Thinner _and_More.html =-=-=-=-=-=-=--=-= (2) amazon.com 10/03/2011 title of review: This scale is handsome. It is quirky. But it delivers. Try it! rating: * * * * review: My wife and aging I knew that we had our work cut out to get our newly delivered Soehnle Easy Control Bathroom Scale working to our satisfaction. For we are non-nerds and the set-up manual is written in 18 languages spread over 33 pages. We could have handled the first listed language (German), the third (French), the fifth (Dutch) and the sixth (Spanish). But we made it easy and picked language number two (English). First we inserted the two AAA batteries. That took us a couple of minutes. 32 minutes later we had tracked down page after page the English language instructions, matched them up with the scattered illustrations and the scale was working as intended, we think. By hit and miss we found that putting in height and desired target weight into the memory slots for two different people went more smoothly with the scale lying on the hard tile floor rather than on our wooden dining room table. We have now used the made-in-China, designed-in-Germany bathroom scale ten or a dozen times apiece. It works well enough for our purposes, though it does not always start up immediately or show the same starting information (before we step on the scale) that the manual says it should. But it is useful to see our body-mass index and how many pounds we have to go to reach our programmed body weight. The scale is handsome, a bit heavier than the Weight Watchers WW-11D Portable Precision Electronic Scale that it replaces. But for that reason the Soehnle Bathroom Scale also comes across as sturdier. A slight problem: nowhere on box that the scale came in or in the assembly instructions is this particular scale identified by a product number. I went to the firm's home page http://www.soehnle.com and looked under Body Balance Analysis Scales. But I was not sure which item pictured and described was the same as what my wife and I unpacked and are using. Picky, picky, I guess. FInally, my wife suggested looking on the back of our scale. Sure enough: Model Number 63806. -OOO- https://www.amazon.com/gp/vine/product? ie=UTF8&asin=B0057FQN4K =-=-=-=-=-=-=--=-= (3) epinions.com 10/04/2011 Review Title: A woman is only a woman. But a good scale tells you your weight! Product rating: * * * * Pros: Soehnle scale is accurate as to weight, body weight index and trend. Affordable. Handsome. Lightweight. Cons: 35 page instruction manual in 18 languages. A bit quirky at start-up time. The Bottom Line: Give Soehnle model 63806 a trial. This scale is sturdy, portable, stowable, lightweight, accurate, able to handle five different weighers and with a three year guarantee. Start-up variations are tolerable. aohcapablanca's Full Review: Soehnle Easy Control Bathroom Scale - 63806 I might have begun this review of Soehnle Easy Control Model 63806 Bathroom Scale by invoking and parodying Rudyard Kipling: A woman is only a woman. But a good scale tells you your weight! But I won't. I might have invited you to hold this elegant nearly square (12.2 x 12 x 0.9 inches) white weighing-machine up to the the setting sun and watch 90 % of its surface let the light pour through. We could then ask with Elizabeth Barrett Browning: "How do I love thee? Let me count the ways." But I won't. For a bathroom scale is no woman, no prism, no sonnet. A scale may be a thing of beauty and therefore as John Keats would would have it a joy -- if not forever, then for as long as it works. But a scale is not a chalice, nor the Sistine Chapel frescos. A bathroom scale needs to be merely
-- (1) Portable, lightweight, maneuverable, easily shovable into a nearby corner when its brief work is done. Soehnle Model 63806 is all of the above. At 3.6 pounds it is a wee bit heavier than the Weightwatchers workhorse 11D Portable Precision Electronic Scale that it has just replaced. But young Soehnle's heft makes you feel secure, as if in the company of a good, alert sentry. -- (2) Accurate. Young 63806 calibrates well with old man Weightwatchers bathroom scale. Not only can you confidently ask it to record your avoirdupois in pounds or kilograms, but even in stones (14 pounds)... God Save the Queen! -- (3) Able to report your Body Mass Index (BMI). And Soehnle 63806 is up to the task. Just feed in your height to the nearest two tenths of an inch (we Colonials resist meters). - (4) Tell you at a glance how many more pounds you have to gain (or, in no doubt rare cases, lose) before you reach the target weight you have programmed in. Viva Soehnle! --(5) Endowed with numbers large enough to be seen without a telescope. That's another win for our Soehnle. Both weigher 6' 1" and weigher 5' 8.4" can look down past our knees and read the numbers and weep (or smile). All right, enough already of the arcane hi-tech nerdish data above! Let's humanize young Soehnle Easy Control Bathroom Scale -- (A) It was delivered by UPS in what looked like a handsome pizza box. -- (B) Soehnle Model 63806 was made in China to specifications and with monitored standards of Germans resident in Nassau, Germany. Whew! -- (C) The scale was accompanied by an explanatory pamphlet with 35 pages of white paper and rather light grey print. The illustrations were helpful, appearing only on pages 2, 6, 8 and 13. The rest of the pamphlet was words, words, words. Want to guess in how many languages? Eighteen. (Yes, 18!) Of the five tongues that my wife and I could read, we selected number two: English. Among the 13 others there are Turkish, Hungarian, Polish, Finnish and more. A fair amount of searching was needed to match up illustrations of Model 63806 with the widely scattered handful of English texts. -- (D) From the time we started reading, had inserted the three AAA batteries, fed in weight, height and target data for two people and got young Soehnle working to our satisfaction, 32 minutes had elapsed. But then we are septuagenarians and non-nerdish. If you are 40 or under, expect 7 or 8 minutes, tops. I suspect that if and when we add three more weighers -- and we are assured that we can -- it will be a piece of cake, so long as our short-term memory stays alive. -- (E) The last time I looked there are 38 reviews of Soehnle Easy Control Bathroom Scale 63806 on amazon.com. Most were gushing. But some users were frustrated or close to disgusted. Their scale quit working after a couple of tries. Or the enclosed batteries were dead after a week. The weights were never right twice in a row. Luckily for them, Soehnle gives a three year guarantee. As for users 6' 1" and 5' 8.4" -- knock on wood -- we are content, after a dozen or so weigh-ins apiece. The scale is admittedly a bit quirky at wake-up time. It is supposed to come alive with one moderately vigorous toe tap. Sometimes, however, I have to toe down four or five times. You are supposed to wait for the red light indicating whether you are user 1 or user 2 to stop flashing before you step on. But after ten seconds or two I just hop on and it works well. -- (F) User 5' 8.4" wishes that our new scale had a strap to pick it up with. And she worries what would happen to its front surface (is it clear plastic? glass?) if it fell on a hard surface. Would it shatter? --(G) Prices for this Soehnle bathroom scale are all over the map, if you scan internet sources: I have seen a spread between $25 and $60. All in all, the Soehnle 63806 is a handsome addition to the AOHCAPABLANCA household. It does what it is supposed to do and while arguably judgmental (there is that dooming Puritan "trend" number indicating how many pounds still separate you from your target weight), our new bathroom scale is not noisy or denunciatory. Try one and judge for yourself! -OOO- p.s. Thank you, dlstewart/Dawn, epinions gatekeeper, for leading me to this product in the data base. And thank you, too, amazon.com/vine for sending user 6' 1" a free Soehnle 63806 to try out and then write a feeble, albeit honest, review of. Recommended: Yes http://www.epinions.com/review/Soehnle_Easy_Control _Bathroom_Scale_63806_epi/content_565989445252 =-=-==-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= http://www.patrickkillough.com/ethics/soehnle_scale.html |