Charge HR exercise calories really high

happycauseIride

I just bought the Charge HR and have been wearing it for a week now. I have a Polar FT4 HRM too. My Polar will say I burned 400 calories in an hour long workout, but my new Charge HR will say I burned 600! The heart rates on both devices are the same so that is a huge difference! Has anyone else experienced this?? What is going on??

SFDonovan

I have the FT4 too. I'll have to test this when I get my Charge HR, but it's on back order. I needed an XL size.

heybales

For those where the avgHR actually does match for the HR between devices, that has indeed been noted. Seems about half have incorrect HR readings so of course they don't match.

Now, is it an issue with the Polar, which assumes a lot of stats based on ones it does have, or the Charge HR doing the same thing?

I know for the Polar, it assumes that a bad BMI (height/weight) means you have a bad level of VO2max fitness (age/gender).

But it's much easier to gain fitness than to lose weight, so their assumption is really bad for those that are very active but the BMI is still not great.

So for Polar's in that case - they see a low HR and assume low calorie burn. But if your fitness level by VO2max is actually higher than assumed, you actually do burn more calories.

And while Fitbit must be doing the same thing with likely different formulas (I doubt Polar licensed theirs), they also could be taking in steps to balance out with it - and they may be more accurate.

This is what I'd like to see someone test. And distance NOT based on the device which could be wrong with stride length, but treadmill measured distance.

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/774337-how-to-test-hrm-for-how-accurate-calorie-burn-is

NancyN795

heybales wrote: »

For those where the avgHR actually does match for the HR between devices, that has indeed been noted. Seems about half have incorrect HR readings so of course they don't match.

Now, is it an issue with the Polar, which assumes a lot of stats based on ones it does have, or the Charge HR doing the same thing?

I know for the Polar, it assumes that a bad BMI (height/weight) means you have a bad level of VO2max fitness (age/gender).

But it's much easier to gain fitness than to lose weight, so their assumption is really bad for those that are very active but the BMI is still not great.

So for Polar's in that case - they see a low HR and assume low calorie burn. But if your fitness level by VO2max is actually higher than assumed, you actually do burn more calories.

And while Fitbit must be doing the same thing with likely different formulas (I doubt Polar licensed theirs), they also could be taking in steps to balance out with it - and they may be more accurate.

This is what I'd like to see someone test. And distance NOT based on the device which could be wrong with stride length, but treadmill measured distance.

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/774337-how-to-test-hrm-for-how-accurate-calorie-burn-is

That's really interesting. I fit that description. My activity level is pretty good - at least an hour of moderate to intense cardio each day and now I'm adding some strength training, too. This is reflected in my resting heart rate which I measure at about 50 (but FitBit insists it is more like low 60s). So, I'm either in the "Athlete" or "Excellent" range for RHR. However, my BMI sucks. I dream of the day when I will be merely overweight.

When I compared my Charge HR measured heart rate during exercise to a chest strap HRM, they pretty much agreed on the average beats per minute.

I'm unlikely to do a treadmill test to figure out if the FitBit calorie burn is accurate. I guess I'll just have to continue going by whether or not I'm losing weight. I haven't been lately, but I blame that on "casual snacking" - i.e. I've been eating stuff and not entering it into MFP. I'm trying to be better about that now.