wrist heart rate monitor calories burned

babypunkprincess
babypunkprincess Posts: 109 Member
in Fitness and Exercise
Just wondering how accurate one is? I'm hoping to get a fitbit for my birthday tomorrow but right now I have a cheapy $30 one from Walmart. Everytime I use it for say a walk I get roughly the same number for calories burned (I know different speeds etc will change the number) just wondering if It's fairly accurate. My height and weight are entered it

Replies

  • TavistockToad
    TavistockToad Posts: 35,719 Member
    I have the garmin 225, which is pretty accurate against MFP's numbers for running.
  • NorthCascades
    NorthCascades Posts: 10,968 Member
    Heart rate doesn't actually tell you how many calories you're burning, like power does. It gives a (usually pretty big) clue to how hard you're working. And then some kind of computer takes a guess at your calories based in part on what your pulse rate was. But each one does the guessing differently. So it isn't the case that all HRMs are accurate or inaccurate or that wrist ones are X% accurate, for calories. They're all estimating and some are better at it than others and if you want to delve into it in more detail, you need to look into the specific one you're interested in.

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