Fitbit vs Apple Watch

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Andrea222
Andrea222 Posts: 27 Member
edited July 2023 in Fitness and Exercise
I just switched from a Fitbit to an Apple Watch, and I'm very confused as to how they both count calories. With my Fitbit, the more I moved, the more calories were added onto my daily total. I didn't have to select a workout, I just had to get my heart rate up or go on a walk, or whatever. For instance, I spent a good hour cleaning the house today, and I worked pretty hard. I know Fitbit would've given me-I don't know-at least an extra 100 calories. My Apple Watch? Just 10.

So now at the end of today, my calories have not increased hardly at all with my Apple Watch when I know they would've been with my Fitbit. I know my Apple Watch is connected to MyFitnessPal because when I did an actual workout yesterday, MFP registered about 400 extra calories from it.

But today, even though I was pretty active, my Apple Watch is giving me zero credit.

Does anyone know what's going on?

Replies

  • herblovinmom
    herblovinmom Posts: 354 Member
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    Apple Watch doesn’t register your doing an exercise unless your something like %20 above your average heart rate or something like that, that may not be the specific percentage, but I know it’s not easy to earn those exercise minutes unless you log an exercise activity. When I switched from Fitbit to apple many years ago I felt like apple didn’t give me as much as Fitbit, not as many calories nor as many steps. Maybe Fitbit over gives. It’s all just an estimate though. I don’t know that either one is accurate. I’d like to think our technology is far enough along to be able to make assumptions about our bodily functions based on certain metrics but I don’t have a base line to compare the data to to know if that’s true. But I do enjoy my Apple Watch. Felt Fitbit was a bit more exercise focused.
  • dougii
    dougii Posts: 678 Member
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    If you pick "other, open goal" as a workout activity your Apple Watch will give you a calorie count. It is based on their metric and from what I can tell it is high. Once you have some data you can see where your HR actually is during your workout. If not it will give you "move" calories based on your HR (which it is very good at tracking if you are wearing it correctly) but you may never get high enough for long enough to count as "exercise" minutes. Some of the data on the app takes months to collect before there is enough for the watch to start giving you averages and movement directions. Taken with a grain of salt I do love my Apple Watch!

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