apple watch workout is way off on calories

I too find the Apple watch to be under counting the calories burned on a high intensity elliptical workout. I have used the Polar FT80 with chest heart rate monitor and it calculates my calories burned to be 559 for 50 minutes (last workout0 whereas my Apple watch calculated 350.

My Polar FT80 has a fitness test and resting heart rate test so i believe this to be more accurate. Even when i look at total calories burned on the Apple Watch it is still way under.

The Apple Watch also jumps when monitoring my heart rate, it can go from 90 to 152 then down to 50 - during a strength training workout whereas my FT80 continuously monitors my heart rate accurately - any advise?

Also, Apple need to add more workouts, e.g. for strength training as all you can enter is "other" which it says it is similar to a walk!! NOT

I am NOT happy about this.

Corry

Just a quick update on mine - it has been getting better. Last night I walked 4.25 miles on the Woodway and the "watch" recorded 3.2 which is a good improvement from the 1.4 miles to 4.2 miles the night before. One thing Apple needs to do is let the developers who are really smart have direct control of the instruments. I have an iPhone app that uses the built in microphone to listen to my heart and determine blood pressure without a cuff. So yes there are other programmers who will make sure this is an amazing tool for the future.

Interestingly, now as we look back at Apple and a lot of their start in this type of product direction started with Apple Super bowl ad showing how everyone was mindless and just doing what IBM to their customers back then and now here we are and apple has all of us standing in lines to get our next Apple device and Apple has decided what we can have and not have and what we can do and not do with our Apple products. There are a LOT of similarities. Maybe next year IBM will redo the ad and show Apple as the one with all us mindless drones just taking what they give us:)

I really would like to turn the fitness apps over to people that are a lot better at it. Just making the graphics look different is NOT the same as employing different strategies on the instruments.

Good to see this thread, since I was very puzzled that the Watch shows just Active calories during a run, reports Active and Resting Calories when the run is complete, and forwards the total of both (I think!) to the Health app on my iPhone, where it appears on the Active Calories graph!

Query: Resting Calories on the iPhone reports 'No Data'! How do I get it to report the Resting Calories figure taken off the Watch? (When I ask it to Share Data it doesn't show any apps to connect to.)

Second Query: How do I get the iPhone to report JUST the Active Calories figure off the Watch on its Active Calories graph?

Third Query: Why oh why does the iPhone Health app keep all the calorie readings it receives from the Watch? Thousands of them! (Try it for yourself: Click on the Active Calories display, choose 'Show all data', and... wait till they all download. Surely all that's necessary is a running total to put onto the display? Is this filling up my iPhone memory?

I asked an Apple Support chap all this and he was immensely emabarassed, and said he'd pass my query on to the people who write the software...

It's off for me as well, but I know it is off because I'm using a power meter and am directly measuring the amount of work done. My ride this morning reported 576 kJ of work, which is approximately 576 kcal. Apple watch reported 440. Average heart rate and speed are close and differ probably because of timing issues (I missed starting the garmin for the first 30 seconds) and the garmin omitting time stopped from average speed.

Mike

Spinning is regularly off, despite efforts at calibration. 30 minutes of medium intensity (half the time out of the saddle) registers anywhere between 170 and 190 calories for me, a 150lb man getting upwards of 170bpm.

I agree that the calories are way off, even combining resting and workout calories--especially using the "other category". I do a lot of resistance training and zumba classes and the calorie data I receive is a joke. This feature was one of the ones I was super excited about when I purchased the watch and I'm pretty disappointed.

I have calibrated my watch and I wear it as snug as I can stand it. I don't have tattoos.

I finally took a very short run using both my watch and my iphone which was connected to my Digifit app and HRM. Amazingly, the calorie count was within 10 calories of each other.

The only thing about the watch that was irritating is it told me my pace was a minute and half slower than my Digifit app. I am slow enough and somewhat lazy so I like to watch my pace when I run because I tend to keep slowing down. Most likely if I had just used the watch and paired it with my phone it would have given the correct pace. But I am addicted to the graphs and data coming from Digifit, which has not yet come out with an apple watch app.

Of course apple tracker gave me almost 3400 calories burned for the day because the resting calories are over 2000! What a joke! My doctor could not believe that apple would be that irresponsible and give such an inaccurate calorie count.

Hi All - 3rd day with my Apple Watch and first time I went out for an outdoor run with it to calibrate it and like a lot of others, my actual calories were way off. I also used strava at the same time to see how the calculations between the 2 compare and here's what happened:

Strava - 4.6m, 850 cals

Apple Watch Activity (Outdoor Run) - 4.48m, Active Cals 492 (Total 591)....so a variance of -259 calories and -0.12 miles.

Must say, the distance measurement was close enough and much better than the indoor run I did yesterday - ran 6.6 miles on the treadmill and watch only measured 4.5m! Calories were also way off!

I'm hoping as the "watch gets to know me" ⚠, the measurements will get better, if not, I have just wasted over £300 as I did buy the watch with the primary aim of using it as a fitness tracker.

This may be impolite, but why do you think Strava is the benchmark to evaluate it against? The issue with measuring calories running is it is difficult to estimate the amount of work done -- doing so requires a metabolic analyzer. All devices (including a treadmill) make estimates of work, but they all are approximations and only as good as the data that goes into the algorithms. http://greatist.com/fitness/do-calorie-monitors-really-work

I have also found that the BMR is way off. Based on my height, weight, sex, it should be about 1500. Apple watch gives me 2570 resting calories per day... no way! Also, I am getting 500-600 active calories for 1.5 hours of yoga, recorded as "Other" with average heart rate of 76bpm??? I would think that with the heart rate monitor, you should be able to get a pretty accurate estimate of calories burnt. Calories for some some the built in activities like Outdoor Walk, Elliptical, etc. are pretty accurate.

I've bought my sport apple watch one week ago and I am really disappointed with it.

I' m a female of 157 cm and 58 kg and the resting calories I daily burn should be between 1200 and 1300. Instead the Activity app estimates around 1800 calories each day (1,2kcal/min).

Furthermore active calories are underestimated and I don't understand how they are computed.

For curiosity I started an outdoor running workout while sitting on my sofa and it calculated calories as if I was really running.

Finally heart rate measurements are irregular. In fact the records I can read on Health app sometimes have a 10 minutes frequency and sometimes have a many hours empty gap without any record.

We need a software update as soon as possible and we wish clear explanations on the method our apple watch compute calories.

Thanks for your answers and suggestions.

I believe that Apple has still a big job to do in order to offer a reliable fitness watch.

I appreciate your explanations about the frequency of the heart rate records stored in Health App.

i've checked all my personal information and they are correct.

I've performed the calibration procedure once and I'll do it again.

I've rebooted the watch and maybe I'll try resetting It.

i've reported my negative experience to Apple hoping that they will fix as soon as possible.

It is Incredible that I've tried starting another running workout during my afternoon nap and active calories have been added in the Activity App.

Actually I'm so disappointed that I'm considering taking the watch back to the Apple Store and asking a refound since I've bought it essentially as a fitness instrument.... I'm sorry because I hadn't had negative experiences with Apple before (Mac Book Pro,iPhone, iPad)

There are clearly some improvements needed in the 1.X version of the software, many of which, hopefully, will be fixed in the upcoming update in the next month or so.

Frankly, I am surprised that the 1.X is as good as it is given the secrecy of the watch project and the limited testing that was possible before it was launched. Now that it is in the hands of several million users, Apple is able to get a lot of feedback and make the needed corrections. I think most of the problems discussed in this forum are software related and will be fixed.

However, I don't think a multi-function device will ever do specific functions as well as devices dedicated to a very specific function. One has a choice of getting something that does multiple things well, or several devices that do specific, and limited things, very well.

George

Apple Watch for fitness is a total failure. I am so surprised that Apple will release a product full of so many inaccuracies. My resting calories come out to 2500 when they should be about 1300. for my Yoga, I used "Other" activity and it gave me 1200 calories burnt for a 90 minute session which is a total joke. I thought the calories will be calculated based on heart rate during the session, but it does not appear to be the case because the average heart rate shows up as 74. Total nonsense! I also bought it as a fitness instrument. Fitbit does a far superior job for 1/3rd of the price. Apple should take it back!

"Apple should take it back!"

No. You should take yours back. There are many people, such as myself, who would not want the watch to be recalled.

If you are interested in a fitness-tracking-only, plastic device, the Apple Watch may not be for you.

George