Best Food Scale without Auto-Off or with Long Auto-Off

My kitchen scale died. I use it every morning to measure out my coffee beans and the weight of water I pour over the ground coffee, so this was a small crisis. I purchased the highest-ranked scale on Amazon for a mere $10, and although it was a nice scale, it automatically turned off after a mere 2 minutes of non-use. For people who constantly monitor their morning coffee’s pour-over operation, that might not be a problem. But I pour in three stages and do other things for breakfast preparation while each stage drips through. 2 minutes is far too short an interval for my needs. The scale kept turning off before I got back to add more water. So I returned it.

I spent hours searching a zillion Amazon-answered questions trying to figure out if a scale did or did not have an auto-off feature. At the end of this effort, I had six scales to choose from that were affordable and had a long or able-to-be-disabled auto-off feature.  Hopefully this list will save you some time the next time your scale dies.

Best Overall Functionality Plus AC Adapter

$25.99
Jennings CJ4000 4000g x 0.5g
  • Auto-off can be disabled
  • Comes with AC adapter, so you don’t have to mess with batteries (not helpful if you don’t have a convenient outlet)
  • FastCompany found it to consistently read 0.5g too high.

 

Best Looking—9 Cool Colors

$21.97
Escali Primo
scale_Escali_colors
  • I really liked the dark red color, but it comes in 9 very comes in 9 very cool colors
  • 5000 g (11 lb) capacity
  • 4-minute auto-off
  • 10-year warranty

 

Longest Warranty

Although all of the American Weigh scales have auto-off, there is a button under the scale that can completely disable the feature.

$21.10
scale_AWS1
  • An AC adapter can be purchased separately
  • Uses one 9V battery
  • 10-year warranty
  • 9.5 × 7.5 × 2.62 in. footprint
  • 13-lb capacity

$22.32
  • 2 AAA batteries
  • 10-year warranty
  • 5.31 × 4.75 × 1.19 in. footprint

 

Added Functionality—A Timer

$19.59
  • Auto-off in 4 minutes
  • 6.6 lb (3000 g) capacity
  • Two AAA batteries
  • 1-year warranty

 

Most Affordable

$17.99
  • Glass top
  • 5-year warranty
  • 10 × 6 × 0.8 in. footprint
  • Has a lock button that allows screen to stay on for 5 minutes without movement; else will go into sleep mode after 30 seconds and will shut off in 3 minutes