Which scale is faster?
Which scale is faster at tracking weight change?
In another video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IpjN_FzjUW8 I mentioned that the Decent Scale is optimized to track weight change, while most other scales are optimized to determine stable weight.
A customer decided to test my claim, by putting an Acaia scale on top of the Decent Scale, and filming the different weight results as they poured water into the top of both. That's their video above.
As you can see, the Decent Scale is consistently showing a greater weight than the Acaia. This is because it's reacting faster to the weight changing. When there is no weight changing, both scales show the same result.
In no way is this a criticism of the Acaia. It's a beautiful, well built scale. In many way, my design of the Decent Scale was in reaction to the Acaia, changing things as I wish they were on the Acaia. These aren't necessarily what you want changed.
One thing I really wanted was “no lag”, because I use my 0.1 gram scale for tracking “flow rate into the cup” with my DE1 espresso machine. I also use it to stop the espresso at the right moment, and less lag means more accurate stopping.
I don't need or want “smoothing” because I want to compare, in as real time as possible, the flow rate going into the puck, compared to the espresso flowing into the cup. Smoothing the weight causes a delay between the two lines, which makes interpretation more difficult.
I have heard that it's possible via bluetooth to disable the smoothing on the Acaia, and if so, that's a great feature that they put in. Edit: apparently it's possible to shorten that smoothing. I'm going to ask the customer to change that setting and re-shoot the video.
-john
Updated 2021/06/26