Best Digital Kitchen Scales 2020: Perfect measurements every time

Ascher Portable Pocket Scale
Ascher Portable Pocket Scale (Image credit: Amazon)

kitchen scale

Source: Amazon (Image credit: Source: Amazon)

A decent digital scale is a wise investment for more ambitious home cooks, and you needn't spend a fortune to get one. We recommend getting a super-smart scale if you can afford it. For this reason, our best overall choice is the Etekcity Smart Digital Kitchen Scale. It has Bluetooth connectivity and the incredibly useful ability to hook up to its companion app to track the nutritional data of your food. If you are looking for a scale that does it all, we have quite a few options to consider.

Best Overall: Etekcity Smart Digital Kitchen Scale

Source: Etekcity (Image credit: Source: Etekcity)

A Bluetooth connected device, Etekcity's smart scale has a companion app called VeSync. You can control the scales through it to target, convert units, and adjust the time. This connectivity also means you can sync nutrition information with Apple and Android devices. You can also share data such as calories, vitamins, minerals, carbs, and protein with Fitbits and the Apple Health app. The VeSync app can create a food diary.

The scale has extensive food data built-in with a 1,100 foodstuffs database. There's also the ability to add your own custom food types.

Etekcity Smart Digital Kitchen Scale

Calorie counter

Reasons to buy

+
Nutritional calculator
+
Syncs with Fitbit and Apple Health
+
Bluetooth control via the VeSync app

Reasons to avoid

-
Can't weigh less than 3 grams
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No barcode scanner

This award-winning set of scales offers a real solution for anyone looking to really drill down on their diet.

Best Basic Scale: Salter Digital Kitchen Scale

Source: Salter (Image credit: Source: Salter)

This digital scale is compact, but it is powerful in helping you measure ingredients or keeping track of your food intake. It features a large, LCD display screen that shows measurements in kilograms, grams, pounds and ounces. It also has an aquatic function which measures liquids in milliliters. The scale's sensor can be used on its own to weigh foods like fruit, or can be used with a bowl to measure smaller foods. The scale can be calibrated to ensure accuracy and can be again calibrated as you are measuring ingredients within the same bowl cutting down on the use of multiple dishes and saving time as you cook.

With the Salter digital scale you get an extra battery. However, because this is a basic scale you don't have the ability to sync it to an app, save settings, or use it to measure or take specific dietary foods.

Salter Digital Kitchen Scale

Simple, yet powerful

Reasons to buy

+
Easy to use
+
Calibrate during use
+
Extra battery included

Reasons to avoid

-
Not a smart scale
-
Doesn't connect to an app

The Salter digital kitchen scale lets you calibrate as you add ingredients to your mixing bowl.

Best Waterproof: Nicewell Digital Food Scale

Source: Nicewell (Image credit: Source: Nicewell)

This sleek scale from Nicewell can weigh up to 10 kilograms, or 22 pounds, and offers excellent precision. They can register weight in 1 gram increments. The weighing platform is large — 22.86-centimeters by 16-centimeters, so it is ideal for larger recipe quantities. The tempered glass surface not only looks good but it is very practical. The weighing platform is waterproof, so you can run the surface under your kitchen faucet.

This battery-powered option has a very useful built-in five-unit conversion that you can switch between using the touch-sensitive buttons. It boasts a handy tare function and powers off automatically after 120 seconds.

Nicewell Digital Food Scale

Aqua go

Reasons to buy

+
Waterproof weighing surface
+
Tare functionality
+
Large surface

Reasons to avoid

-
Small LCD display
-
No kitchen timer

The Nicewell kitchen scale offers culinary chic, fully-featured functionally and is waterproof for easy cleanup.

Best Slimline Design: Ozeri Ultra Thin Professional Digital Kitchen Food Scale

Source: Ozeri (Image credit: Source: Ozeri)

The Ozeri option offers an ultra-thin design at only 11mm thick; at less than half an inch deep it's one of the slimmest on the market. This makes it easy to find a cupboard or drawer to slip it into.

With its four high precision sensors, it can measure from 0.05 ounces to 11 lbs, complete with tare functionality at the press of a button. You can operate this handy little scale with two buttons that give an audible click when you press them. The LCD screen is large and easy-to-read, especially as it boasts a wide viewing angle.

Ozeri Ultra Thin Professional Digital Kitchen Food Scale

Skinny winner

Reasons to buy

+
Very slim
+
Enhanced viewing angle display
+
Hygienic stainless steel

Reasons to avoid

-
No kitchen timer
-
Not AA/AAA batteries

A sleek option that will look good and function well in modern kitchens; this is an affordable choice for expert cooks.

Best Scale and Bowel: Etekcity Digital Kitchen Scale with Detachable Bowl

Source: Etekcity (Image credit: Source: Etekcity)

This digital kitsch scale is made from stainless steel, so it's safe to use with any kind of food, including meat, because it can be easily cleaned and sterilized between uses. It includes a stainless steel bowl to make it easier to weight messier foods. The Etekcity digital kitchen food scale measures foods upto 5 kilograms and in 1 gram increments. You can also set the LCD display to read in ounces and pounds, or in liters and milliliters if you're weighing liquids. This scale includes a kitchen timer and has a built-in auto shut off feature that will turn off the unit after 2 minutes on inactivity.

This kitchen scale isn't a smart scale, so it doesn't connect to apps, remember settings, or help with specific foods or dietary needs. But it does have an auto-zero function so the scale can be calibrated to work with other bowls and mugs instead of just the bowl it comes with.

Etekcity Digital Kitchen Scale with Detachable Bowl

Detachable design

Reasons to buy

+
Precise measurements
+
Includes a measuring bowl
+
Auto-zero function
+
Stainless steel for easy cleanup

Reasons to avoid

-
Not a smart scale

The Etekcity food scale comes with a stainless steel bowl to make it easier to use and clean up afterwards.

Best Compact Design: Joseph Joseph TriScale

This unique digital kitchen scale opens up to provide three arms that work like a weighing platform for bowls and plates. Folded up it measures a tiny 4.5 x 14.9 x 2.1 cms. When it's closed, the clever design means the unit's arms protect the screen and controls, meaning you can literally chuck it in a kitchen drawer.

Despite its unusual design, it is a fully functional scale, weighing in grams, pounds, ounces, fluid ounces and milliliters up tp 11bs or ozs and 5,000 mls. Additionally, there's an LCD display, touch-sensitive controls, auto power-off, and it boasts a wipe-clean finish.

Joseph Joseph TriScale

Tri-tastic

Reasons to buy

+
Folds up for storage
+
11lb capacity despite small size
+
Multiple unit measurements

Reasons to avoid

-
No flat surface for weighing
-
No kitchen timer

If you're short on kitchen space, this innovative fancy folder offers full-size functionality in a compact package.

Bottom line

We've highlighted a variety of models, and we're sure you'll find one to suit your culinary needs. Whether you need space, easy measuring, or a way to keep track of your diet, there's definitely a scale for you here. Our best pick though is the Etekcity Smart Digital Kitchen Scale. It's up-to-date with connected functionality, offers all you could want from a digital scale, and even boasts a kitchen timer. For those looking to get the most out of their digital scale, this is the one to pick.

Amy-Mae Turner

Amy-Mae has been writing about consumer technology since before the iPhone was even a twinkle in Steve Jobs' eye. She started out in magazine publishing with the UK lads' mag 'Boy's Toys' then moved online with startup Pocket-lint.com as the first full-time member of staff, helping grow the site to one of the UK's largest gadget sites. Amy-Mae then moved to Mashable when it only had a staff of around 10 people. After working her way up to a senior role there, Amy-Mae left in 2014 to have her daughter. Since then Amy-Mae has continued to contribute to Mashable and The Daily Dot, keeping up-to-date with the latest consumer technology and social media trends. For iMore.com, Amy-Mae gets to her explore her love of home cooking, concentrating on all things kitchen tech.