When smart phones work in tandem with scales

Tanita, a world-known scales-maker, recently introduced the BC-502 Lieta model, a body composition scales with built-in Bluetooth connectivity. But the company did not just release the product, it came up with a business model that involved several partners:

• Kirin Well Foods – producer of diet products under the brand Lieta Café
• Meipull – developer of mobile application Palette-Navi for Lieta

Business Model
When a user buys the BC-502 Lieta scales, he can also download Meipull’s application onto his smart phone in order to retrieve personal data from the scales instantly. The BC-502 model is capable to beam such information as weight, body fat percentage, total body water percentage, bone mass and metabolic age, daily caloric intake, muscle mass recall, and visceral fat rating. On a smart phone’s side, this data is stored and can be seen in a graphical representation. Moreover, the smart phone user can opt to wirelessly upload the data onto the Lieta Café’s blog where the user can privately keep tracking of his weight with the corresponding daily diet menu from Lieta Café.

Pricing & Availability
The scales are offered at around $300 with the mobile application available for download from Lieta Café’s website. At the moment, only Motorola’s M1000 offered by DoCoMo is capable to work with Tanita’s scales.

Source: BCN Ranking (Japanese)