Do you rely on your activity tracker to determine how many calories you burn? Then this news will be a disappointment to you.
According to research from Stanford University, most trackers are not very accurate in this area. The study examined the results of seven popular trackers:Apple Watch, Basis Peak, Fitbit Surge, Microsoft Band, Mio Alpha 2, PulseOn and the Samsung Gear S2.
Of these trackers, the Fitbit Surge came out on top in terms of calorie counting. However, the difference is still 27 percent. At PulseOn, the deviation even turned out to be 93 percent. You can't blindly rely on your activity tracker when it comes to burning calories. There is a good chance that you actually burn fewer calories than your tracker indicates.
Actually, it is not so strange that there are such large deviations. Every person is different and it is difficult to create an algorithm that is right for every physique. A tracker can also detect higher activity if your arm moves a lot, for example in tennis. The heart rate monitors of the trackers were all very accurate.
