Fitness App Caloric Burn

I Had the same thing happen. I did a very intense crossfit/kettlebell workout today and wore the watch as well as my wahoo tickrX. The Tickrx registered 650 calories and the watch was 400 with 100 being "resting" calories and there was no rest during the workout. I'm gonna connect my tickrx to the watch tomorrow and see if it improves the accuracy. But the whole resting calorie thing makes no sense to me.

I'm having the same issues. I think it's because of inaccuracies with the heart rate sensor and/or the sensor can't tolerate high intensity exercise. When I paired a heart rate chest strap with my watch it recorded much more accurate results.

The "resting calories" you and the original poster mentioned are the calories you would have burned anyway if you'd rested for the same duration as the workout. Apple Watch / HealthKit tracks Activity Calories and Resting Calories separately.

I may have been expecting too much from the watch but its activity modes don't account for intensity though if my heart rate is through the roof it should be able to calculate calorie burn with the amount of effort being generated. On the elliptical, there's no way to adjust the level of effort so even if I'm doing a level 20 inline and 20 resistance, the app is just using whatever the baseline they use which seems super low. Elliptical machine shows 100 calories versus watch showing 20 calories burned. Same on rowing. Being able to adjust effort (high, moderate, low) would be a nice feature.

Cool article. Thanks!

Resting Calories is a complete joke --- as of now 2205 BST, 467 active calories, perhaps a little generous and 2293 resting calories, total of calories 'used so far today' = 2760, about 600 too high.

Something is very wrong and could cause you to gain pounds when using as a guide on how much to eat.

Just by being alive you burn resting (Basal) calories, so you still get credit for that when you do exercise.

Data taken from the MOVE section of the Activity App.

I hope you are right. I bought the watch to replace my fitbit. It is giving me 1000 more calories per day. This renders the activity app useless.

Having followed the discussion on this forum and several related ones, I am convinced that the problem lies, quite simply, in incompetent programming.

Just one example of several I have given on other forums: the calorie data displayed on the watch Workout during an Outdoor Cycle run are Active calories; the calorie data displayed at the end of that run are the accumulated Active calories, a figure for Resting calories (not displayed during the run); and a total of the two... BUT the figure sent to the iPhone Health app to show in the Active Calories pane is the total of the two, and the Resting calories pane on the iPhone Health app reports No Data.

I await an update of the Workout app on the Watch, and the Health app on the iPhone.

In the meanwhile, Apple should be thoroughly ashamed of themselves. After all the faradiddle and publicity about a new era in health measurement, it's turning into a disaster as embarrassing as the Apple Maps screw-up shortly after Tim Cook took over.

I have had the same problem. It seems the calculations of Caloric burn are off.

I have used a Polar heart rate monitor to measure heart rate and caloric burn when I play squash for about ten years. I burn approximately 750 calories per hour.

When I got my Apple Watch I wore it and the Polar (with a chest strap) at the same time. The polar was clearly more accurate, but the apple watch was OK and fairly close on the heart rate. However, the estimated calories burned were less than half. I used it on the "indoor run" setting as there does not seem to be any setting for more "game like" activities.

So I figured I would invest in a Bluetooth chest strap to connect to the Apple Watch (Polar H7). It connected nicely and now I'm comfortable that my heart rate is measured relatively accurately on the Watch. However, the caloric burn is still less than half of what it should be.

Q1: Are there other apps that could be more accurate and that could communicate with Health Kit?

Q2: Any comments from Apple on this?

Many thanks

Lexionn

I've been using a Wahoo chest strap and their software on my iPhone. Like yourself, I find that the calories reported during the run are less than half what the chest strap is giving. I'm guessing that that's because the Watch shows just the Active calories during the run. It certainly puts Active and Resting together when reporting at the end of the run. Looks like the chest strap and its software, on the other hand, is reporting Active+Resting throughout. Hence the discrepancy

Actually, the figures I get from the Watch also vary drastically depending on whether I am doing an Outdoor Cycle or the generic 'Other' workout.

If you then take into account that what appears on the iPhone Health app seems to be a cumulative reading, for the whole day from midnight, of all the apps that feed in to it, and you can sort of begin to give Apple the benefit of the doubt.

BUT it's the guessing we're all having to do that's the worst part of all this: it's high time that Apple released a thorough description of how the various Workouts compute their calories and transfer the outcome to the Health app. The handouts on their website are hopelessly vague and their support technicians apologise politely but haven't a clue.

I too would love to know if there's an alternative to the Apple Watch Workout app, that connects to the Health app. Sure, we could go back to using the iPhone apps that wok with the chest strap, but then what's the point of having the Watch!?

A query from me. Has anyone worked out how to get the Resting Calories pane on the iPhone/Health app to receive and display the relevant calories? All I ever see is 'No Data'.

KInd regards,

Devi

Devi, thanks for your very thoughtful answer. Very helpful.

The difference between "active and resting" is interesting. However, it seems hard to reconcile a total burn with less than half "moving" burn. This would imply I'm not moving very much. Although my squash partner would likely agree with this statement, I still got pretty tired. :-)

It was also interesting that your compared the different types of workout -- outdoor cycle vs. "other". What was your reflection there? I will test these as well but just haven't done that yet. I have stayed with the "indoor run".

My guess (and hope) is that as they allow more native apps on the Watch we will see a flurry of apps with more options and maybe different kinds calculations. And I really wish I could display the heart rate as a percent of my maximum....

Thanks again

Lexionn

I am using Apple Watch Workout App and Runkeeper App on my iPhone6. Both are sync'd with Apple Health so they know my current weight, height etc

I have had the watch for about 4 weeks now, it is on me all the time except sleeping.

I have done numerous runs with both Watch and iPhone so I know the calibration is set up.

The same run

Apple Watch: 650 calories = 549 (active calories), 101 (resting)

RunKeeper: 826 calories

Automatic calorie counting on the Watch was a big selling point for me.

I would like to know, which device / app I should trust?

"I would like to know, which device / app I should trust?"

I don't know about Runkeeper, but I am confident that the AW is not accurate now. Its calorie count does not reconcile with multiple other sources for multiple exercises. Hopefully, it will be fixed soon. I suspect that Apple has been flooded with reports.

George