Fitness Trackers out of Step When Measuring Calories

If you are getting a fitness tracker for the sole purpose of tracking calories burned, you may be in for some deception: research claims that most of the devices out there are pretty inaccurate and bad at it. While trackers do a very good job at monitoring heart rate, calorie estimates were said to be “all over the map.” Errors with energy expenditure readings reached as high as 92.6% on certain products.

“We were pleasantly surprised at how well the heart rate did – under many circumstances for most of the devices, they actually did really quite well,” said Euan Ashley, professor of cardiovascular medicine at Stanford University and co-author of the research. “At the same time we were unpleasantly surprised at how poor the calorie estimates were for the devices – they were really all over the map.” The team tested seven wrist-worn wearable devices – the Apple Watch, Basis Peak, Fitbit Surge, Microsoft Band, Mio Alpha 2, PulseOn, and Samsung Gear S2 – with 31 women and 29 men each wearing multiple devices at a time while using treadmills to walk or run, cycling on exercise bikes or simply sitting.

Yea, I don't look at it as an accurate figure...more like a ballpark. Though, I honestly don't count calories. I keep track of time and effort.

Some of these companies algorithm's are poorly made. I pointed out a serious flaw in the Samsung one when I got my Fit2. Their community support said there was nothing wrong with it.

In certain exercises (when using the exercise programs on the watch), the device will count calories burned less than your projected basal. So an exercise that should burn +300 calories, is actually reporting less than the calories it takes to maintain life support. That's clearly a math error, yet they never fixed it. Still, to this day, we don't have a working calorie burn total on the Fit2. Most exercises are still 50-75% lower than what a more accurate measuring device will display.

Hence why I ignore the calorie counter. Which is silly, considering a fit watch has one primary job - track fitness.

Many companies just don't care, fitness tracking is secondary just another word to hit on a checklist of IOT.

MY fitness tracker makes me money with Humana so I wear it. It's literally earning me points that I redeem for gift cards or etc. as I wear it. Otherwise, I would not.

That lady has some giant pantaloons on

a more interesting article could have been an examination of the claim: "very good" job at monitoring heart rate

Hmm, the article didn't mention which way the inaccuracy went. 27%+/- or both?

I've had a FitBit Charge 2 for a couple of months now and it seems to underestimate the calories burned when compared with my cycling app as well as the machines at the gym that track it. Considering that I have a speed and cadence sensor on my bike and the app does take into account the wind speed/direction and elevation, I'm inclined to think that both the cycling app I use and the gym machines are accurate. The gym machines also capture power output which would definitely put it at being more accurate than the Charge 2. Usually the Charge 2 is about 100-200 cals less than my cycling app or the machines at the gym and I have noticed that the discrepancy widens the longer the workout is.

In any case, if it's inaccurate it seems to be consistent day to day which is still a good enough ball park for me.

Glad to hear the heart rate sensors fair well, whatever that figure may be for the Charge 2, since that was my primary reason for buying it.

i think the model in the pic needs to come over here and show me how such devices are used