Your smartwatch is lying to you about how many calories you burned in your last workout
news.fiu.edu
A study found that fitness trackers overestimate calories burned, and accuracy worsens as body fat increases.
  • BigTrout75@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    10 days ago

    A couple of people I know with daily step quotas, will tell me they have done they’re daily steps today when walking to lunch and back. Yes, it’s like 6 blocks but it’s no workout. I think these devices are giving users a false sense of exercise.

    • KairuByte@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      0·
      10 days ago

      If you set your step quota to 10 steps, you can both hit your quota and have gained nothing from it. This is a problem with users setting quotas too low, not a problem of the device giving bad information.

      • bugbear@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
        0·
        9 days ago

        There’s no real quota to set it to anyway, what’s too low or too high is very subjective.

          • bugbear@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
            0·
            9 days ago

            I meant that there isn’t a real science based recommendation. I aim for at least 10k steps a day as well, but even that number is made up

      • Brimstone@lemmy.mlEnglish
        0·
        9 days ago

        Apple Watch is set ridiculously low by default.

        I’m half way through daily calorie expenditure sitting on my office chair.

        It’s clearly aimed by default at sedentary workers like tech.

        • Earthwormjim91@lemmy.worldEnglish
          0·
          9 days ago

          I mean, you set it up like that lol. When you set up the activity, it specifically asks how active you are and then sets the default goal based on that. And you have to manually confirm the goal too on the slider.

    • brainzzz@piefed.worldEnglish
      0·
      10 days ago

      Are they not just looking to move more? Or are they treating it like a workout? I work from home and steps are helpful to know if I moved around enough.