Credit:
Reviewed / Seamus Bellamy
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Credit:
Reviewed / Seamus Bellamy
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This luggage scale is accurate, light, and durable. The backlit display and simple procedure make it easy to use. Read More
The Etekcity Digital Hanging Luggage scale is accurate, but without a backlight, it is difficult to use. Read More
This AmazonBasics scale is well made, but its display isn't backlit. Read More
This analog scale and tape measure set is bulky, inaccurate, and poorly made. The hook also catches on clothing. Read More
This lightweight luggage scale is portable and easy to use but changing the units of weight is said to be a little annoying. Read More
Nothing shatters the zen-like calm that comes in the wake of an amazing vacation or productive business trip faster than unexpected baggage fees. Your luggage might have been light enough to avoid getting fleeced on your outgoing flight, but that bottle of duty-free scotch and the souvenirs you snagged for your nephew were heavy enough to get agents at the check-in counter salivating on the way back.
The best defense against overage fees is to invest in a portable luggage scale, like our favorite Dr. Meter Digital Luggage Scale (available at Amazon) . To help you find the best scale for your personal needs, I considered dozens of different models and then called in some of the best for some intensive testing.
Inexpensive
Lightweight
Easy to read
Some question accuracy
Hard to change units of weight
I’m Seamus Bellamy. I’ve been working as a tech and travel journalist for close to a decade. As a full-time digital nomad, I travel constantly across North and Central America, and also take frequent trips to Europe and Asia. I like to travel light when I take to the skies, but I’ve been hit with ugly baggage fees just like any other frequent traveler. In other words, I'm extremely motivated to find the best luggage scale possible.
The most important requirement for a great travel scale is accuracy. After all, if it can't provide a reliable reading of your bags' weight, you'll be on the hook for fees at the airport.
To make sure your scale doesn't leave you high and dry, I started with three different types of luggage—a hockey bag, a soft-sided suitcase, and a hard-sided suitcase—and used a household digital scale to determine their empty weight. I then weighed each bag again, using the 10 scales I called in for testing.
Next, I prepared test weights. The first group of weights consisted of 25-, 50-, and 75-pound increments made up of solid stuff like flats of canned goods and car batteries that wouldn’t shift while being weighed. The second group used the same increments, this time composed of items you might actually travel with—clothing, booze, a laptop, backpacking gear, and SCUBA equipment—to simulate the more unbalanced bags found in the real world.
Finally, I placed the test weights inside our three pieces of luggage and obtained baseline weights for each combo, then measured them again using each luggage scale. Most of the digital scales produced readings within a few decimal points of the baseline. However, I was able to eliminate one model right away due to inaccurate readings. Mechanical scales are considered to be inherently less accurate, and our testing certainly bore that out. However, for some shoppers a few pounds of variance might be a worthwhile trade-off for near-instant measurement. After all, not everyone is able to dead-lift and hold a 75-pound bag long enough to get a reading from a digital scale.
But accuracy isn't the only requirement for luggage scales: they should do their job in a timely manner, too. With this in mind, I gave each scale a time limit of five seconds to return a solid reading. This rule immediately knocked out two more contenders.
With my list of seven finalists in hand, I then examined build quality, extra features, ergonomics, and the weight of the scales themselves to determine the best of the best.
If you already have a bathroom scale at home, it might be tempting to use it to weigh your luggage before heading off to the airport. I don't recommend it, for a number of reasons. First, What your luggage might weigh at home and what it weighs on your return flight, once you've packed it full of soviengers, binders and other business meeting spoils or new clothes bought along the way. While a few additional items in your bag might seem like a big deal, a little bit of additional weight can lead to you being forced to ditch some of your belongings before returning home or face outlandish overweight fees for topping out what your airline feels is acceptable. Second, and perhaps more importantly, its difficult to get a trustworthy weight out of a bathroom scale when weighing luggage: if your bag is poorly balanced on the scale, you might be treated to an inaccurate reading that shows the bag as being well under the airline's maximum weight guidelines, or too heavy, forcing you to leave something at home that could make your travels a little more enjoyable.
If using a bathroom scale is the only option at your disposal, here's the best way to use it to weigh your bags:
Séamus Bellamy is a senior editor on Reviewed's Electronics Team. Before coming to Reviewed, his work was featured in The New York Times, The Globe & Mail, BBC World, Macworld and Maximum PC.
Ceara Perez-Murphy is a staff writer at Reviewed. In her free time she likes trying out new recipes in the kitchen, exploring new restaurants and spending time outdoors with her dogs.
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