New Balance Calorie Monitor- Good or Bad?

marie_2454

I've been contemplating getting a heart rate monitor/ calorie burn calculator thingy for a while, but haven't because it seems the good ones are pretty expensive. For me, having a HRM would be nice, but it isn't worth the $50+ (for me personally). However, I just bought a New Balance Fitness Series one from Target because it was on clearance. (Regular $47.99, I paid $7.24) It was the last one, so I just went ahead and bought it, but if it's not good/ accurate, I'd like to return it. It doesn't have a chest strap, it's just a little watch thing that calculates your calorie burn for 24 hours (resets at midnight), plus it counts your steps and distance. I just want it for the calories burned part.

So, does anyone have any experience with this one? Will it give pretty accurate results (for calorie burn. I don't necessarily need a step counter or distance calculator.)

Any opinions are appreciated!

rajendra82

I don't believe you quite understand what a heart rate monitor is and does. The equipment you bought is an activity monitor. It is similar to a fitbit, or Nike+ fuleband. What these do is measure your activity for a 24 hour period, and let you know if you are sedentary, or active, or whatever.

A heart rate monitor is not used like that. It is equipment that you only wear while exercising. If it is a chest strap based monitor, and all the good ones are, it measures your heart rate continuously during your chosen activity, and most (except the aweful New Balance N1), will also tell you the average heart rate during the activity. Some will convert this to calories burned during the activity as well, but if you only know the average heart rate, you can use an online calculator to do that yourself. Once you know the calories burned during the exercise, you can log them into the app, and it willl give you additional caolories you can eat that day, without potentially overeating.

shadow2soul

I looked up online and couldn't find much about it. It's hard to say how accurate it is going to be.

Looking at a picture of the back of a box (I hope I'm looking at the right thing). It says it takes into account your BMR, distance/steps, and HR to come up with your estimated total burn for the day.

The only problem I see, is that the HR function isn't going to be all that accurate since it will only test it when you touch the watch. This could end up making your estimated burn slightly inflated or under estimated. That is unless it is continually watching your HR, in which case it might be pretty accurate. But again, I'm just making guesses from looking at the back of a box.

I would have been ecstatic to find something that did all this for under $10. That being said I use a Fitbit zip ($60) for estimated calorie burn (steps/distance & bmr) outside of exercise and a Pyle HRM ($26) for cardio calorie burns.

edit: Like the poster above me stated. You bought an Activity Monitor that also measures HR. Which is pretty cool if you ask me. That being said, actual HRMs are only meant to be worn during steady state cardio and are really inaccurate outside of that.

marie_2454

Thanks guys! After reading your posts I realize this isn't really going to do what I want it to, so I'll be returning it.