Your smartwatch may be lying to you about how many calories you burned
If you're depending on your smartwatch to tell you the truth about how many calories you burned during a workout—well, don't.
Smartwatches may be inflating the number of calories burned during workouts, according to a study published in PLOS One. Researchers at Florida International University (FIU) tested four popular fitness watches against a gold-standard clinical lab device and found the trackers consistently overestimated calorie burn. The discrepancy grew larger with higher body fat percentages, potentially misleading people aiming to manage their weight.
Lead author Jason Kostrna cautions against treating the calorie count as an accurate figure, as users could end up in a calorie surplus due to the misreading. Apple Watch Series 8 performed best, while Garmin and Samsung overestimated the most. The study's implications urge users to view calorie-burn estimates as rough guides rather than precise measurements, focusing instead on heart rate and exercise duration for better guidance.
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