Calories burnt estimation in Runtastic vs. HRM?

allergictodiets

Does any of you use Runtastic and could tell me whether in your experience it takes the heart rate readings into consideration when counting the calories burned?
I cycle to work every day ( about 7 km in one direction ) pulling my daughter in her baby carrier ( she weights about 18 kg + a couple of kg for the Chariot itself ) so I am fairly slow ( 30 mins - there are at least 5 crossings where I have to wait for the lights to change ) but still manage to get sweaty.
I used Runtastic to estimate the calories burned ( I choose "cycling" as my workout type ). It ALWAYS gave me around 125 kcal ( give or take 10 kcal ) from home to work, based on my speed only. I decided to see whether wearing a HRM would make any difference, so I bought a Polar H7 strap and tried it out. The Polar app on my iPhone consistently gave me between 225-250 kcal for the same trip, but the Runtastic app still showed between 125-150 kcal. My heart rate definitely gets recorded, today it said it was 125 bpm on average.
Has anyone experienced something similar? I am wondering which numbers I should trust...

flynnfinn

bump...curious myself! i have a polar FT7 which almost always gives me 2x the amount for calorie burn as runtastic and mapmyrun. the other day, i ran 6km and my HRM gave me a reading of 500 calories burned while runtastic and mapmyrun clocked in at somewhere around 260. huge difference!

regardless, i always go with the lowest number when entering data into MFP. better to underestimate!

MeanderingMammal

From what you've describedI'd assess that runtastic is probably closer to realistic, although it will be low. If you have a lot of stops then there are periods when your HRM is measuring your HR but you're static, so it's not a realistic assessment of exertion.

It's worth remembering that the HRM only provides an extrapolated extimate of calorie consumption based on a number of assumptions. Your ride doesn't appear to validate those assumptions. Equally you probably need to inject the weight of the trailer into Runtastic to help inform the processing.

That said, even if you split the difference, you're getting into margin of error territory, it's so close as to not really matter too much. The difference is already only two pieces of fruit.

allergictodiets

You make some good points @MeanderingMam. The funny thing I have only just remembered is that once I chose by mistake "mountain biking" as my workout type and Runtastic gave me almost twice the amount of calories burned for exactly the same ride :-). I guess I will just stick to the lowest estimation given, as @flynnfinn says - better to underestimate.

markm75

I know this is an old thread, but i too notice the difference in runtastic "mountain biking" vs cycling.. if i set a 90 min trail ride to mountain biking it shows 1310 calories.. if i change to cycling its 556.. I have the same HRM and if you use online calculators to determine gross and then net calorie burn based on heart rate, it comes out to about 1263 net.. so therefore, i have left mine set to "mountain biking" and will also check using the online calculator to determine how accurate the calories are.. hopefully this is the right way of doing it.

Mr_Knight

Bikecalculator.com is giving about 100 calories, which is pretty close to your Runtastic number.