Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

The concept behind the Skulpt Aim is a good one, at least on paper: rather than taking a single bio-electrical measurement to determine body composition, take individual measurements of various muscle groups. Track progress on individual muscle groups and use a weighted average for the overall composition and tracking. Unfortunately, due to no systems engineering and poor manufacturing quality, the Skulpt Aim does not deliver on its promises. After about 6 months of use and unending frustration, I have discarded this device in trash, which is where it belongs. First of all, the Skulpt company is a marketing machine! They even have Tony Horton and Scott Herman pitching their products! Searching reviews will generally show very positive reviews; however, most of these reviews are nothing more than re-hashing the positive marketing information from the Skulpt website. The company does not host any user forums where users can share their real experiences. Everything is nicely "cleansed" by Skulpt, including any negative comments on their Facebook page. Looking at the Skulpt team on their website shows that very few people are engaged in any type of engineering. No one is identified as a systems engineer. Most of the team are VPs, marketers, or communications types -- everyone dedicated to get you to buy the product rather than produce a good product. When I first got my Skulpt Aim, the first thing I noticed was poor manufacturing quality. The top of the unit was loose and separating from the center "glow ring". Amazon offered me a discount to keep the unit rather than return it, so I opted for the discount and a little super glue. The Aim device is closely coupled with the Skulpt App that runs on an iPhone or Android device. In fact, you must run the App to really use the Aim. The Aim communicates with the App via Bluetooth. Since there is no systems engineering for this product, the communication between the devices is an unending source of problems: - The Bluetooth interface is routinely reset causing synchronization problems - The Aim randomly loses the Bluetooth pairing - The synchronization process on the App fails and terminates - The Aim requires synchronization when it was successfully synchronized previously. - Synchronized data does not appear on all devices running the App. Over the course of 6 months, the battery capacity of the Aim declined rapidly. (Battery capacity is the number of amp-hours stored by the battery and represents how long the device will run on a full charge.) I would always store the Aim in its charging cradle to ensure it was fully charged. Initially, I was able to take measurements of all muscle groups on both sides of my body and still have 2 bars left on the battery indicator. The battery capacity declined to the point where I could not measure all muscle groups without the device shutting itself off with a drained battery indication. Then, I started taking measurements on the left side one day, followed by the right side the other day. Battery capacity continued to decline to the point where half-body measurements were no longer possible. Eventually, I could not even take the quick measurement of just 4 muscle groups. My Skulpt Aim package indicates that the Aim is "Long-lasting - rechargeable battery lasts up to two months." Clearly this claim is nothing but more marketing lies! There is nothing indicating how frequently the Aim is used during that time or how many measurements should be expected from a full charge. The battery is not replaceable, so when battery capacity degrades to the point where measurements cannot be taken, the unit essentially becomes junk! During the 6 months, Skulpt would release firmware and App updates. Many of these updates were filled with bugs. One firmware update would cause the Aim to refuse to turn on even if it was fully charged - the glow bar would just turn red. After about 3-4 attempts, I could eventually get the device to turn on. After taking measurements and turning the device off, it would find it would turn itself back on after about 5 minutes. This is not the smartest firmware update for a device that has battery capacity issues! Eventually, the battery capacity degraded so much, I could no longer process a firmware update. The device would turn itself off prior to the update completing. The charging cradle is just a charger for the internal battery -- the cradle does not power the unit directly, it only charges the battery; the battery powers the unit. So because of the power design, it was not possible to even process the firmware update even if the device was in its charging cradle -- the fully charged battery was drained before completing the firmware update. After 6 months of buggy firmware and Apps, degrading battery capacity, and bad manufacturing, the Skulpt Aim essentially became useless. So, I discarded it in the trash. I have never been so happy to rid myself of such a frustrating product.