If you read my July editorial, you will remember I talked about the Kuroda Cell or K-Cell (if you haven't read July's editorial yet, you can find it at ). The K-Cell matured into A&D's Smart Sensor, which then became the heart of A&D's new UC-321 Personal Precision Scale. ( to learn more about the UC-321.) We want consumers to recognize and appreciate the two most important features of the UC-321: 50 gram resolution and long term reliability. These two features are the very reason why we decided to bring this product to a market that is already saturated with bathroom scales that only give you an approximated weight in 500 gram, 200 gram or at best 100 gram resolution on the display.

When you find a bathroom scale with 100 gram resolution, in most cases it only means it is showing you your weight to 100 gram increment on the display, but it is not showing your true weight with accuracy. Let me show you what I mean; when you get on a bathroom scale, let's say it displays 65.7kg. After the display turns off, you turn on the scale again and you step on, it shows again 65.7kg. Since you got the same value twice in a row, you believe the scale is accurate. Then, you try again after you have a cup of coffee that weighs 100g or 150g, and step on it again. The scale STILL shows 65.7kg. Now can we say it is accurate? The scale shows the same value repeatedly, but it is no longer showing the weight (your new weight) on the scale display.We tend to interpret repeatability as accuracy, and somehow the scale is made to take advantage of our innocent intuitive interpretation of repeatability.

A normal consumer has difficulty in telling the difference between repeatability and accuracy. A&D believes it is our duty, as a manufacturer of measurement instruments, to educate the consumer on the difference between repeatability and accuracy. Unfortunately, the bathroom scale manufacturers may think differently, as I learned accidentally. Most of the digital bathroom scales have what the inside people call a "Pull Back" function. It literally means the scale pulls back the previously measured value from memory and displays it when the difference between the previous reading and the next measurement is within a certain predefined value. It is this innovation in the digital bathroom scale industry that has made digital scales cheap and appear to be accurate. With this "pull back" function, there is no last digit fluctuation as it shows the previous reading stored in memory when the following measurement is within a few digits of fluctuation. This means you will see the same weight value displayed when you weigh once and weigh again after having a few cups of coffee that weigh a few hundred grams. This is an innovative means to give a peace of mind to consumers but is it allowable from a metrological point of view? By all means no! In metrology it means cheating.

With the "Pull Back" algorithm, one can make a scale of 500g accuracy and have its repeatability be 100g, which most consumers interpret as accurate to 100g. It is very unfortunate a method considered cheating in one industry (metrology) becomes innovation in another industry. With the above example, a scale of 500g accuracy can only show the weight to be either 65.5kg or 66.0kg instead of 65.7kg at best.

In order to clearly differentiate our new UC-321, Personal Precision Health Scale from other digital bathroom scales, we have decided to promote this product to athletes and sports-enthusiasts as our main market segment.In that regard we were fortunate enough to have had Mari Tanigawa join us as the UC-321 development advisor at an early stage. She is a well-known athlete and a symbol of the citizen marathon runner, because she began running after watching people jogging around the Japanese Imperial Palace ponds during lunch hours when she was working in an office in Tokyo. She thought she could run and she did. Following her sensational legendary debut Japan in 1991, she has established a great track record.

1^st place at Tokyo International Women's Marathon Race in 1991
2nd place at Nagoya International Women's Marathon in 19921^st place at Gold Coast Marathon in 1992
1^st place at Sapporo Half Marathon in 1993
2^nd place at Tokyo International Women's Marathon in 1993
2^nd place at Belgium World Half Marathon in 1994
1^st place Paris Marathon in 1994

She is a lovely person, yet she is also a formidable competitive runner. Now Mari runs as a professional runner in approximately 30 marathon races throughout Japan, promoting sports and fitness to everyone. Her motto is to promote the fun of running and to support those who love running. She turned out to be a great supporter of A&D and she really appreciates the true 50g resolution of our UC-321, which is so important for those athletes who control their conditioning, weight and health.

Athletes admire fair play and they know they cannot cheat on their weight or conditioning. That is why the UC-321 is fast becoming the personal scale of choice by sports-loving people.

PS: A&D is proud to selectively sponsor sports events in conjunction with the promotion of theUC-321. You can see the events we sponsor. Maybe we will see you at one of our events!

You may address any comments concerning this editorial by email to Mr. Eto