WHY UP↑SCALE › FOR GOOD!
Bought once. Yours for good.
No subscription, no account, no advertisements, no cookies in the app, no cloud - and it works offline, for ever. Here is what that means, why we do it - and why the usual way sucks.
Our five promises
1Works offline - for ever
The scale talks directly to your phone, tablet or computer - wirelessly, without internet, without a router, without our server. Open the app once while you are online, or install it on your home screen: from then on it starts without any network. Or download the whole app as one single file from the update page and keep it - it runs from your disk, also in ten years, also when our website is gone.
Only a few extras need the internet, and only when you use them: the barcode lookup of packed food (Open Food Facts), the cocktail search (TheCocktailDB) and importing a recipe from a website. Everything else - weighing, all modes, labels, records - runs offline.
2No advertisements - not even in the free version
No banners, no pop-ups, no "watch a video to unlock", no sponsored products in your recipes. The free version is free, not paid with your attention. The only thing we ever show you: a short note that PRO exists, and a small "FREE VERSION" line on free labels.
3No cookies, no tracking in the app
The app sets no cookies, has no tracking code and no analytics, and sends nothing about you or your weighings to us or to anybody else. No cookie banner, because there is nothing to agree to. What the app keeps (your settings, the diary, the archive of the log) stays in the storage of your own browser on your own device.
To be exact: this info website (not the app) counts its visitors with Google Analytics. The app and the scale never do.
4No subscription - you pay once
PRO costs 46.50 EUR once, ENTERPRISE & COMPLIANCE 121.30 EUR once. The licence is made for your board and works on it for ever - also completely offline, also when you never update again. Firmware and app updates stay free. Your board broke? You get a replacement licence for the new one.
What one scale costs over five years · what is in which version
5No account, no login at our place, no e-mail
You open the app and connect your scale - that's it. No sign-up, no password to us, no "log in with ...". The app needs no permissions on your phone except the wireless connection (and the camera, only if you scan a code). To buy a licence we only need your e-mail address to send it - you never need an account, and the licence never asks for one.
Users and logins exist only on your scale, for your own team (ENTERPRISE) - we never see them.
6Your data stays yours - on your scale
Products, recipes, stock, the sales log and the records are saved on the scale itself. Every phone that connects sees the same data - without a cloud in between. Back up everything as a file, whenever you want, and copy it to another scale. No lock-in: the exports are plain CSV and JSON (ENTERPRISE), the protocol is open.
Manual: backups, recipe backups
7And the security?
- No internet on the scale: it has no network connection at all - only the direct wireless link to your devices, ESP-NOW and USB. Nobody can reach it from the internet.
- Updates only from you: a new firmware is installed by you, by USB from your computer - nobody can push one to your scale.
- Close your scale: a password (or users with ENTERPRISE) keeps strangers out. Passwords are saved salted and hashed; with users they never go over the air in plain text but encrypted with the key of the scale.
- Signed licence and sealed records: the licence key is signed by us and bound to your chip; records and reports are sealed by your scale and can be checked by anybody on up-scales.com/check.
- The app never calls home: the online lookup of a lost licence or a seal certificate only happens after you say OK - and only the Device ID is sent.
Good to know: the setting BLE FOR ALL sends the weight openly to every device nearby (for displays and demos) - leave it off when you don't need it. The keys sit in the flash of the scale without secure boot: whoever holds your scale in the hand can read them. The limits, in full.
What others do - and why it sucks
Most smart scales and weighing software today are built to earn every month. Here is the usual way, and ours.
| The usual way | Why it sucks | UP↑SCALE |
|---|---|---|
| Subscription for the app, the statistics, the inventory or the cloud | You pay for ever - and when you stop, your tool and often your data are gone | pay once, keep it for ever |
| Account and cloud required, even to weigh | No internet = no scale. Your recipes, sales and customer data sit on someone else's server - and you have to answer for them under the GDPR | no account, data on your scale |
| The maker's server runs the device | When the company closes the service or sells it, your "smart" scale is a brick | works offline, for ever - even from a single file |
| Free app with adverts and tracking SDKs | You pay with your attention and your data, and the app sends both away | no adverts, no cookies, no tracking |
| Paid upgrades and new hardware for new features | The scale you bought never gets better - the next model does | free updates, installed from your browser |
| One product per job - a counting scale, a label scale, an SPC tool, an inventory app | Each costs hundreds or a monthly fee, none talks to the others | 25+ jobs in one app |
| Closed formats, export only into the maker's software | Lock-in: you can't leave without losing your history | backups, CSV / JSON, open protocol |
Pay once - not every month
Over five years one scale costs you about 60 EUR with PRO (about 13.50 EUR with the free version). The usual adapters, prepackage apps, cloud weighing services and statistics or inventory subscriptions cost 270 EUR to 8,000 EUR and more - for one job each.
Free and PRO - what is in which version
Try it for free, unlock PRO or ENTERPRISE once, for ever. Every function shows where it is included:
Start for the price of the board - maybe you never need more
The free version is not a demo. For the price of the board (about 13.50 EUR at TinyTronics) you get a smart scale with no time limit, no account and no advertisements.
- weighing in all units, volumes, prices, containers, take-away
- counting, simple check-weighing, recipe runs, coffee timer and pour-over, calibration, labels
- the nutrition diary for your family, the baking tools, the infusion calculator
- several phones and computers, ESP-NOW devices, USB, backups, one extra scale
- all tests of the test suite with the results on the screen
- every PRO mode as a free trial on your own scale
At home, for the kitchen, baking, a diet or a hobby, the free version is usually all you need - you may never buy PRO, and that is fine with us. PRO (46.50 EUR, once) is for when your scale does daily work: no trial limits, reports, label printers, more scales, 1000 products and 250 recipes on the scale.