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Fitness trackers worn on the wrist to record physical activity significantly overestimate calories burned, a new study suggests.
The least accurate device reported users had exerted up to twice as much energy as they really had.
But all seven modelings tested including the Apple Watch, the Samsung Gear S2 and the Fitbit Surge were way off the mark.”
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It means users may fail to achieve their target levels of exercise and struggle to lose weightas quickly as they expect.
Researchers from Stanford University, California, tested the trackers on 60 volunteers as they sat still, walked, run and cycled.
The ensues, which were published in the Journal of Personalized Medicine were compared with a gold criterion, ” obtained using medical-grade equipment.
Six of the devices measured heart rate with an error rateof less than 5 percent, which the researchers considered acceptable.
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But none measured energy expending accurately, with even the best musician being off by an average of 27 percent.
The worst the PulseOn was off by an average of 93 percent.
Devices reported the lowest mistake for cycling and the highest for walking.
Errors were also greater for men, people with a higher body mass index, and those with darker skin.
The heart rate measurements performed far better than we expected but the energy expending measures were way off the mark, ” study author Anna Shcherbina said. The intensity of just how bad the latter are surprised me.
The devices measuring heart rate directly, but energy expending must be calculated using a combination of factors.
Each device utilizes its own algorithm to estimate calories burned.
Its very hard to train an algorithm that would be accurate across a wide variety of people because energy expenditure is variable based on someones fitness level, elevation and weight, etc, ” Shcherbina said.
The researchers cautioned against use the devices as part of health improvement those programmes and called for companies to routinely test them against a specify standard.
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