Fitness trackers, including the most popular, is not able to correctly measure the number of calories that burns to make use of the gadget.
This was announced by the specialists of the Medical center of Stanford University, published the results of their study in the journal of Personalized Medicine.
During the experiment, the researchers examined the trackers with the help of 60 volunteers who used the device while running or walking on a treadmill. Experts simultaneously measured the performance of participants with medical equipment.
The study found that trackers very accurately measure heart rate – the maximum error was 5%. But when counting calories even the most accurate of them made an error of 27%. The greatest accuracy was 93%.
In fact, the authors explain the work that the trackers measure the pulse in real time, and calculate calories using their own algorithms, which do not take into account height, weight, metabolic rate and other information for the user, important for accurate calculations.
As stated by scientists, users of such devices when planning nutrition and physical activity in the end, guided by erroneous data.
