In the course of a day, a couple hundred calories isn’t that big of a deal. The Fitbit Surge was found to be the most accurate for energy expenditure when stacked up against similar trackers.Īnother thing to consider is the tendency of popular trackers to overestimate calorie burn. If calorie burn is a big deal for you, you might want to look to the other popular trackers. But it was subpar at calculating calorie burn. One study found the Apple Watch to be superior and a clear winner at tracking heart rate. Some users reported step tracking and accelerometer data being miscounted after some time of using their Fitbit Versa, so Fitbit outlines steps to calibrate it to ensure better accuracy. It had a repeat ability of 0.72 and 0.81 respectively, so overall the accuracy was great and stacked up well against some more expensive competitors. In a study on walking data, Fitbit boasted 99.6% accuracy for walking outside without hills, and an overall 96.4% accuracy. The heart rate monitors you strap around your chest are more accurate for heart rate, so that’s something to consider if that’s more important to you than something with all the bells and whistles, like an Apple Watch. In this case, you might want to opt for a device that does only this and does it really well. Maybe you know you need to keep your heart rate in a specific range for your workout. Let’s say you’re particularly interested in highly accurate data on one aspect, like your heart rate. For example, as we’ll mention later, the Apple Watch was found to be better at heart rate monitoring, while the Fitbit had a great accuracy rate with accelerometer data. Different trackers are more accurate when it comes to data recorded by these two methods. and uses their measured heart rate to calculate energy expenditure.

Heart rate monitoring, on the other hand, takes into account the user’s age, height, weight, etc. The first is through accelerometer data, which measures a user’s acceleration of their body when exercising to translate that to energy expenditure. Heart Rate Monitor for Calculating Calorie Burnįitness trackers generally use two different systems to track calorie burn. But is all the information they’re giving you accurate? What if you plan your calorie intake around the 500 calories you burned during your run, but that was an overestimate and you only burned 300? What if your step goal is 10,000 but your watch is undercounting and causing you to feel defeated? Is there a most accurate fitness tracker? In this article, we see how the most popular fitness trackers stack up in comparison based on a few different factors.Īccelerometer vs. These can be great to track progress and meet goals. They can show you your exact step count, calories burned, minutes moved, heart rate and movement pace. Fitness trackers such as Apple Watch, Fitbit, Garmin and more are great tools for motivating yourself and identifying tangible goals.

Calorie tracker band