Vivoactive HR - and spin class

cedder1

Can anyone tell me the best way to measure calories burned using this? The cycling feature I think is only good for outside cycling or indoor trainers.

NorthCascades

There should be an indoor cycling mode. It will turn GPS off but look for sensors like an HRM, and speed and cadence from the bike if available. Since those probably won't be available, your device will record whatever it has access to, basically your HR over time.

The calorie figure will be an estimate.

cedder1

There is an indoor cycling mode, but it says to attach the cadence sensor, which I cannot to the spin bike.

NorthCascades

If it can't find a cadence sensor, it'll record your workout without cadence.

If you really wanted to, you might be able to get their new cadence sensor to work on a spin bike because the new one just uses rubber bands on the crank arm (nothing on the chainstay) but you can still ride without one.

I don't have access to Garmin's code so I can't say this for sure, but I think their calorie formula only takes time and HR into account, ignoring cadence completely.

This is an older article, but probably useful here as it demonstrates Garmin's approach to this: How calorie measurement works on Garmin fitness devices