How accurate is you activity tracker?

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  • nxd10
    nxd10 Posts: 4,570 Member
    It is consistent, if not accurate. I wear it every day (and have one type or another for 8 years). I am a consistent logger and tracker. Because of that, if I hit the numbers that keep me balanced, I stay balanced. Both may be wrong, but they work together.
  • nxd10
    nxd10 Posts: 4,570 Member
    Noreenmarie1234 wrote: »
    ITUSGirl51 wrote: »
    I’m starting to think my Apple Watch is low on some active calories. I do the elliptical a few times a week and it seems really low for those workouts. I’m in maintenance and am still losing a little weight. Also the AW does not sync all active calories (step + exercise) with MFP so that’s a problem too. I’m thinking of buying a different device and see if the results are different.
    I think it is a little low as well because according to today’s results it only gave me 39 calories per mile.

    I use an Apple Watch now too. It is less accurate than my fitbit zip was because I walk with my hands in my pocket. It is also very bad at registering slow steps (as is everything). I spent 6 hours walking in a museum the other day and it gave me like 1000 steps - and I was exhausted. I've read studies saying that's true for everything. OTOH, it is much better at differentiating strolling from walking from brisk walking in terms of calories because it counts heart rate.

  • ChelzFit
    ChelzFit Posts: 292 Member
    I find my Apple Watch low as well. It gives me a TDEE without exercise of around 1800...I maintain weight on at least 2,200 calories on my non-active days and around 2,500 on my active days. I use it more for a motivator of meeting my move goal for the day.
  • DX2JX2
    DX2JX2 Posts: 1,921 Member
    Noreenmarie1234 wrote: »
    Today I walked a half marathon with my uncle. I walked 16 miles total over the day and my Apple Watch only gives me 617 calories burned. I definitely think it is on the low side of estimates.

    Conventional wisdom is that your incremental burn when walking is about 30% of your body weight per mile. A 150 pound person would burn just under 50 calories per mile more than they would have burned otherwise. Your watch might not be too far off.

    My Garmin is pretty reasonable with calorie estimates. Resting calories seem pretty much in line with MFP and the USDA supertracker. Activity calorie estimates are a little high but they're not completely out of the ballpark. I'd guess that they're accurate to within 15%-20%.
  • CarvedTones
    CarvedTones Posts: 2,340 Member
    DX2JX2 wrote: »
    Noreenmarie1234 wrote: »
    Today I walked a half marathon with my uncle. I walked 16 miles total over the day and my Apple Watch only gives me 617 calories burned. I definitely think it is on the low side of estimates.

    Conventional wisdom is that your incremental burn when walking is about 30% of your body weight per mile. A 150 pound person would burn just under 50 calories per mile more than they would have burned otherwise. Your watch might not be too far off.

    My Garmin is pretty reasonable with calorie estimates. Resting calories seem pretty much in line with MFP and the USDA supertracker. Activity calorie estimates are a little high but they're not completely out of the ballpark. I'd guess that they're accurate to within 15%-20%.

    MMW gives me over 100 calories per mile at 4+ mph. I thought it was too high and usually either edit it or don't start tracking until I am a mile or two into a 4-5 mile walk. It sounds like it is even further off than that.
  • heybales
    heybales Posts: 18,842 Member
    CarvedTones wrote: »
    DX2JX2 wrote: »
    Noreenmarie1234 wrote: »
    Today I walked a half marathon with my uncle. I walked 16 miles total over the day and my Apple Watch only gives me 617 calories burned. I definitely think it is on the low side of estimates.

    Conventional wisdom is that your incremental burn when walking is about 30% of your body weight per mile. A 150 pound person would burn just under 50 calories per mile more than they would have burned otherwise. Your watch might not be too far off.

    My Garmin is pretty reasonable with calorie estimates. Resting calories seem pretty much in line with MFP and the USDA supertracker. Activity calorie estimates are a little high but they're not completely out of the ballpark. I'd guess that they're accurate to within 15%-20%.

    MMW gives me over 100 calories per mile at 4+ mph. I thought it was too high and usually either edit it or don't start tracking until I am a mile or two into a 4-5 mile walk. It sounds like it is even further off than that.

    Depends on the purpose of the figure. MMW is probably right on compared to any other formula, which I'm sure they are using.

    For example, manually logging workouts that will end up going to activity tracker needs to contain the base calories like MMW would provide. So if an MMW workout ends up going to activity tracker, it needs the full amount.

    But on MFP by itself no syncing, a more accurate assessment would be as described by @dx2jx2 - only the calories above and beyond already accounted for.
    And actually, MFP is accounting/expecting for more than BMR level burn, but rather the estimated daily burn.

    That's why the MFP (and some for others) database for walking is actually right on - as far as calories burned during that chunk of time.
    But when you subtract off what MFP expected you to burn already, not nearly as much left over.

    Hence the common advice to only count 1/2 of estimated calorie burn, from observation on any lower level workout calorie burn - absolutely true.

    Sadly MFP so easily could correct this, since they have all the figures already.
    Perhaps at this point they figure so many activity trackers synced to accounts, no need.

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