100% success using an iPhone hotspot with a Garmin scale

I love data. There's something about collecting it and storing it in a place where you can later view and interrogate it at will. And over the years. as I've started to appreciate the many dimensions to data, I've looked for tools and workflows to accumulate more of this data. The goal however is that I don't have to put in the effort of collating it myself.

Enter Garmin and their at times hideously poor weighing scales

Goodness. If Apple had delivered an iPod that would only sometimes connect to the Internet to get new iTune songs, Apple would no longer exist. But, that's what we have with the Garmin scales. At times, it connect to the Internet just fine and at others it seemingly can no longer find the router it's been speaking with for months.

I can only assume that Garmin hires excellent developers for their projects, but either doesn't employ enough, has abandoned their scales project or simply sees greater reward for placing their efforts elsewhere. /rant over!

Anyway, I've had 100% success through tethering with my iPhone

Exhausted of trying all other options with my routers and close to the point of throwing it out, I tried tethering my iPhone and it worked. And it's continued to work every time I've tried it.

It's a little frustrating to turn my phones Wi-Fi off, and then switch to tethering, but it's far easier than faffing with routers and better than not having any data at all.

Here's what I do when using the scales

1. Switch off my Wi-Fi on my iPhone
2. Search for 'personal hotspot' and switch it on
3. Use the scales

Here's what I did to get the scales working

1. Reset the scale to factory settings
2. Switched off my iPhones Wi-Fi
3. Configured my iPhone hotspot
4. Connected the scale to that hotspot
5. Used the scales

Worth noting that when you update your phone or your scales, you might need to reset the Wi-Fi connection again. For me, this has only happened once in the past year.

Hope this helps someone.