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Growing up, my body weight varied so drastically, I would have given even Renée Zellweger a run for her money. Having once gone from 275lbs to 135lbs, I’ve become quite attentive to monitoring physical health and diet over the years. I can’t help but get excited at the thought of a digital interface doing all that tallying automatically.

The Withings Connected Body Scan is a Wi-Fi body scale that documents your body weight, lean mass and body mass index. The data is kept on a personalized website for you to monitor your fitness progress (or regress if it’s the holidays, you’re trying to quit smoking, or willpower means nothing to you other than a rickshaw being pulled by some guy named Will).

There’s even an iPhone app, which makes for a good use of inspiration while you’re out and about and thinking about ordering that extra serving of fries.

The concept is great and the potential for more health monitoring devices is definitely gaining, but at $159, my only real gripe about it is that the Nintento Wii beat them to the punch.

The Nintendo Wii ($199) has just released an upgrade to their Wii Fit Plus ($89) which also monitors your weight and health progress. It also gives you fun fitness games to play from strength training to balance to yoga and even aerobics. It also helps you create fitness goals in addition to tracking your progress. Speaking of giving a run for your money, the Wii Fit covers a little bit more mileage for your dollar. Withings Connected Body Scan is not alone in the race, but the increasing emergence of these kind of devices makes for a pretty interesting step into the future of self-monitoring health.

You be the judge: