If you’re struggling, consider therapy with our sponsor BetterHelp. Click betterhelp.com/shervin for a 10% discount on your first month of therapy with a licensed professional specific to your needs. ** Watch More Videos ** I Tested Apple Watch's VO₂ Max (vs Sports Lab): th-cam.com/video/30QUCjh_Q80/w-d-xo.html I Tested this Apple Watch Body Fat Scale (vs DEXA Scan): th-cam.com/video/qJKpIQfUig0/w-d-xo.html What's On My Apple Watch 2023 (Health & Fitness): th-cam.com/video/XEEkfpwwzY4/w-d-xo.html
Shervin! Quality content as usual! I'm stalking the internet for the best deal on a does everything fitness watch. Training for a triathlon and want something to aid in run pacing, hr tracking, switching between sports easily. Looking for value but there's just so many frickin choices. Tell me what to get and why please! Money is not a big deal but I don't like wasting it on stuff I don't need either! I'm subbed ❤
Because then the self-proclaimed fanboy “scientists” (yes i mean you The Quantified Scientist) would have to acknowledge that the AW is also just a gadget. I have also noticed the AW overshooting at least 2x for me.
Literally have been trying to find a video that does exactly this! Why aren't there more videos doing this? It's crazy, I was curious which would be more accurate
I’m on a cut right now and I use a calories tracker app. But I always leave an extra 300 cals on the table after each week to account for caloric discrepancies in nutrition labels and calorie expenditure 👍
Same here. This Video is great for showing the accurarcy Problems of those watches but they are still Good for us in Terms of pointing in the Right Direction :)
I wondered about this too. I only pay attention to my active calories burned and not total calories. Apple Watch will also tell you that for certain workout types, you're going to be estimated to burn calories at the same rate as a walk (which is what climbing workout says which is what I do), so it's fair to say that those type of workouts are totally just estimates. Would also have been interested to see less cardio comparison and a strength-focused workout.
For everyone who dont know: You have to adjust for example your weight in the health app. Because the apple watch literally will need it to calculate the calories you burned correctly. So just adjust every week your weight in the app. (
@@11hilas there is a withings scale costs like $100 connects to WiFi and apple health that can update automatically. It also very surprisingly has very accurate weather, far more accurate than the iPhone weather app. Didn’t get it for weather but impressive.
I still rely on my Apple Watch, whether close to accurate or not I went from 230lbs in late February and to 148lbs now in September. I’ve been pretty happy with what my watch has been tracking so far
Wow, congratulations on your transformation, I've had a similar transformation and I had lost about 40 pounds, the problem you'll face now is your body will try to get that weight back by making you binge eat, have a high protein diet so you don't feel much hungry and stay this weight until your bodyfat genetic setpoint lowers down to 150lbs
This makes sense actually based off the error range of these devices. Additionally, it is probable that if you were to add up all of your workouts from the week and compare actual calories burned to device calories,any of these devices would be pretty close (except Apple Watch which seems to be heavily biased in one direction).
if you’re goal is to lose weight the priority is not to overestimate expenditure. So just take half the number it says you burned! Worst case scenario you get a slight bonus deficit which will help balance the innacurate calorie labels of products. You shouldn’t expect to burn a lot of calories in the gym anyways, calorie management is the main way you lose weight.
I’ve usually always take my calories burned with a grain of salt, I just love tracking workouts in general to see trends in my activity and focus on areas I can improve. I love being able to see my paces on long runs, HR is definitely something I wish was more accurate though without having to buy a chest strap.
I lost 80 lbs in 8 months while wearing an Apple Watch Series 7 & learned quickly that the watch was inaccurate because I weighed myself in the morning & at night. I just now set my calorie goal to be 1,600 & know that I actually burn more like 1,200+ calories which is my true goal anyways. While I know it’s inaccurate, it still keeps me driven to reach that number, which has still made me healthier & more active & to be honest I’m completely ok with. Monitoring my sleep habits at least gives me some kinda data that I can go off of that I know when I had a good night’s sleep versus when I didn’t & has changed my sleeping habits to be better. I wish there were more accurate wearables, but for me it’s helped achieve my goals & live healthier so I can’t complain that much.
I also did this 175lbs tracked all calories in and out, it’s off 20% or so for me. If my move goal is 800 and I do it everyday, even if I’m getting 500, I’m doing something everyday day when before I didn’t do shit. I think the key is that the exercise is not part of the diet, your deficit should be based on little to no exercise and exercise just speeds it up and is a fun healthy thing to do. You can lose massive amounts of weight with very little exercise, an exercise plan for weight loss is very hard, easier to just find ways to not eat than burn it off.
A professional told me don’t count the calories you work out losing just count the calories you consume and ignore what you lose if you want to lose weight and it worked I use my Fitness app to count calories lost 100 pounds less than a year. it worked the best advice I ever got.
I've noticed the difference in calorie algorithms myself, each brand has its own set of values -- Fitbit tends to be on the "low side" (compared to other devices, not a lab) when estimating calories, and a lot of that seems to come from their look-up table where they use the exercise assigned (e.g. Ice Hockey has a different value than Power Walking) to adjust the rate of burn. Garmin skews higher and aligns with things like Wahoo and Polar. One thing I'm not positive about, but I suspect Fitbit's algorithm might be EXCESS calories you burned over basal metabolic rate, whereas some of the others appear to be cumulative. When you subtract your expected BMR from some of the higher ones, they tend to align with Fitbit. Best approach? Use this as a "relative" metric. If the watch says you burned +1000 calories above average, you were probably more active than usual .. or operating a jackhammer (tends to throw them off).
This is an astute comment and quite frankly the biggest component to this whole topic that was woefully missing in the video. I’ve been religiously using an Apple Watch since it first came out which was right before graduate school for me and I’ve observed many different things with it and other watches. I’m an exercise physiologist and a dietitian so I have a deeper background with this topic than most and I’ve came to some determinations that this video did as well when discussing it with experts but he missed some things. The equations are either poor, don’t use weight, VO2 max, etc. so they’re not going to be calibrated to each person, that’s a HUGE flaw. Also, these watches sometimes use “active” calories or “total” calories like apple who tells you what the different totals are whereas some do this but give you the “active” calories only which makes it much lower than the total calories. There’s no such thing as “active” calories, that’s dumb and isn’t how things are done with exercise research. We just take some means of measure like oxygen intake/co2 output or heart rate and base our calculations off that and potentially your weight depending upon which variable we’re using. I use ACSM equations and others and just use the watch data to get a decent heart rate average for the duration of my workout and put it in cells of a spreadsheet and have a more accurate equation that uses my body weight, VO2, etc. to get much more precise measurements based upon MY BODY rather than whatever the watch is using to make its calculations. There’s error in all of this but my method uses my bodies variables at least to help better predict it though it’s never going to be as good as gas exchange measurements done in a lab as this video pointed out. Overall I think this video was great, but missed a few of those small things that some people don’t know about these different watches.
I had an experience with a treadmill run where my fitbit read my heartrate as 195-210 for over 15 minutes. I got a runner's high, so I pushed myself a bit, but I felt genuinely amazing after the workout. The heart rate reading and the experience just don't match up at all.
I noticed my garmin epix heart rate measurement would jump all over during workouts…probably due it moving around on my wrist too much or changes in angles doing push ups etc. I synced my Polar H10 chest strap to the watch and after doing that it was perfectly consistent throughout the whole workout. Having consistent heart rate data the whole workout is key for the watch to do it’s calculations correctly.
I think people need to realize that you needed a whole lab and hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of equipment for your accurate results. The fact that a 49mm device that goes on your wrist is a couple hundred calories off is still an amazing feat of tech. Anyone who seriously thinks that an Apple Watch or a wearable is going to give you science lab results is out of their mind.
You can still use the watch as a consistent barometer. I.e., at the start of my diet I was eating 2300 calories + whatever apple gave me from my daily workouts. I kept monitoring my weight and found 1900 calories + whatever weight loss my watch gives me is the sweet spot. I’ve lost 13 lbs in 2 months doing that
Exactly! Did the same and went -8kg in about 8 months, but with a couple diet breaks. Now I notice I've stagnated for the last 3-4 weeks so I will just bump the base calories down by 200 (I was on 1800) and that should theoretically start moving the needle again, slowly.
Shervin, just curious, is the reported Apple Watch calories the Active Calories or total calories? Apple Watch reports both when you select a workout type.
he used total and I am not sure if it is good or not. Total should be used when you think about it but on the other hand this can be not that accurate because your resting calories are estimated only. So maybe showing active calories should be a way
That's not going to be useful information. Calorimeters account for all of the energy stored as heat in the food, but they don't account for the heat that gets wasted during the act of utilizing the food's energy, ie. the thermic effect of food. Food labels generally use food specific atwater factors that do account for an approximate estimate of the food's thermic effect, which means the calorie count on the food label should be lower than the calorimeter reading. And neither, by the way, account for the fact that the average human only absorbs about 80-90% (as low as 30% or as high as nearly 100%) of the calories they eat, the rest is wasted and excreted in the form of urine and feces--although there is no way to uniformly account for this as calorie absorption varies wildly from person to person based upon genetics (for example, I have celiac disease which causes fat malabsorption), lifestyle differences (incl. avg calorie consumption, physical activity, fluid intake), and the composition of your diet (principally fiber intake and degree of food processing)
I’ll say this… when I was eating 2400 calories daily… my watch was saying I would burn about 23-2400 daily…. And my weight stayed stagnant … when I weighed 80 pounds more And was only eating 1500 calories and it would say I was burning 2500 calories , I lost weight… I wanna say from experience it’s accurate enough to see trends and make changes for weight loss
well i feel like if you’re in a 1000 calorie deficit then yeah you’re erasing any room for error 😂 but for people who want something like a 200-500 deficit this can cause a problems not knowing
I want to thank you so much for this information. I was using my Apple Watch to figure out how much I burn versus how much I eat to lose weight. I was always frustrated on why I wasn't losing. The answer was that Apple gave me a higher calorie burn rate versus the actual amount. I know people say never eat back your calories... But I love food. So I learned it's best if I take off my watch and focus on calories in. You've got yourself a new subscriber!
Your videos are consistently amazing. They have the quality of a channel with 10 - 50x the subs. Idk if that’s your goal, but you’re gonna get there if you just keep it up.
Loved this. I think I will just subtract 15-20 percent of apples calories burned everyday and that should be close enough for someone just trying to stay fit/lose some weight.
It sounds fine but on the other hand maybe active number were more accurate. I know that total value counts in your daily burned calories but still you should have shown us all values you got@@ShervinShares
I’m curious if you added your cadence/ step length and heart zones in the devices after going through one of the test to give the devices the best chance to track your runs.
This makes so much sense why my defecits were only slightly effective, also I wish everyone would stop promoting better help 😭 All my psych professors have said it is awful and literally anyone can call themselves a therapist on this app, legally...
I think it would add to your videos to say explicitly which sensor you are using for each device. E.g., I used the Apple Watch wrist sensor only. Then I paired my Apple Watch with a chest strap made by Polar or Garmin, model X and then got these results. Thanks.
I would love to see this with Apple watch and his polar H10 connected to see if this is more accurate? Or ways to maybe improve the accuracy of these devices
Love this channel! Very entertaining and informative. Great take away statements! Also, if you do shift work, these wearable calculations particularly the sleep are even more off and unreliable. 🤷♀️
The question is, which numbers got compared? There is a basic consumption that the body always has, even if you are not doing anything. Then there is the activity energy, which is additionally consumed during activity. With Apple, both values are added together for the period of activity. You can see this especially when you have spent different amounts of time on the identical activity. If the values from the other measurement system only show the activity energy in isolation, without including the basic consumption, the values cannot be compared as it was done in the video.
Would be great if you could calibrate them to your specifications. I’ve been wearing an Apple Watch for years now, my Health app collects a lot of other data that I put into it. I wonder if that data influences my results or not.
I'm happy that I got a Whoop after watching your video 😊 It seems to either be pretty accurate or at least underestimate which is great if you want to make sure you're in a deficit. Crazy how far off the Apple Watch is though
Honestly, alls I need is a rough estimate. I don’t need it to be exact. It becomes a problem when you are eating a certain amount of calories BASED on that number. It becomes the differential between a calorie deficit, maintenance, or surplus. And at 100 calories in either direction, over time, you will either lose weight or gain weight if you eat based on the number on the watch.
Isn’t clear whether your test has been performed with the built-in wearables (garmin, apple etc….) wrist heart rate sensor or always with a chest strap connected to the wearables.
I didn't hear it mentioned in the video but i am very curious to see if the aplle watch ultra was closer or further from a regular apple watch's measurement.
probably not, the heavier the watch, less accurate will probably be, because of the movement and less stability in the arm and less contact with the skin
Always assumed my apple watch was estimating too many calories so I always register my weight roughly 5kg less than I what actually am to offset that but the HR data is very accurate compared to other watches I've tried so far so pretty happy with that atleast
I'd say yes age and weight are the most impactful when it comes to the algorithm for most of the workout types in apple watch. Numbers are now way more consistent with my whoop band @@ldproc0
Any chance for the Galaxy watch 6 classic test? I know Apple kills it with HR accuracy (The GW6 is inaccurate), but would be nice to know how it deals with it, as well.
I wear iWatch 8. I just checked the kcals it shows on my daily bicycle rides. They are very conservative when compared with average kcals burned per mile. At least 20% lower on the watch than what I would estimate based on speed and distance and terrain. You had me worried, needlessly.
I’ve always only taken wearable numbers and even calories I track in my lose it app as a rough general estimate and tweak according to results and what I’m seeing in the mirror, scale and how I’m feeling. But my thinking is it’s better to have the general estimate than not at all!
Correction. Most people do NOT spend hours in the gym every week. MOST people do NOT go to a gym or even EXERCISE. I use watches to time my rest periods in between sweets while doing resistance training AND the duration of my cardio sessions. Regarding calories I only look at the trends as to whether or not I'm steadily increasing the number of calories burned.
For the apple watch, I just multiply total calories burned by being active by 0.8 to get a rough estimate of how much i expended because I am trying to maingain. I don't want to gain a bunch of fat but im trying to avoid being in a calorie deficit at the same time, I know i cant exactly be at maintenece everyday but +50 or -50 calories over maintenece works as long as your consistant. If my apple watch says i burned 1000 move or active calories and its time for dinner, I just assume I burned 800 knowing it could have been as low as 700 or as high as 850 and to me it has helped me maingain and not gain any fat and add that ontop my bmr + thermic effect of food which ballpark but pretty accurate, if I did bmr + activity, I would lose weight because thermic effect of food isnt included in the bmr caculation.
Hi sherwin, to give you a short background. My 1st fitness tracker was xiaomi mi band 2 then transitioned to apple Watch 6 then upgraded to 8. Now I want to replace it with garmin watch. However, Upon watching your video. It gave me doubts if upgrading to garmin is realy worth it.?
Don't the test results hinge on how accurately the devices can measure the HR? From what I understand you'd have to use a chest strap and pair it with your watch to get an accurate HR reading. I usually pair my Apple Watch with a chest strap. Would be interesting to see if there is a difference. I couldn't tell from the video whether you tested that as well since that's how you seem to do your workouts.
Interesting vid! I crunched some numbers based on your 4 test results, specifically regarding the AppleWatch. Based on those calculations the Apple watch over estimated calorie burn on average, about 140 calories. Based on this and some other advice I have heard about the Apple Watch, I feel like if I subtract 200 from whatever the watch says, that number should be reasonably accurate.
I ran a test on PNOE that was working with Whoop to fine tune calorie burn. I am unsure if Whoop still supports this but for me, the calorie burn had a stronger correlation to other professional tests.
I have used Garmin and Apple Watch and have decided they are both an “in the ballpark” guess. I lower my caloric intake by 20% of the device in hopes of being close.
Hello from Spain! Amazing videos!!! Congrats. I saw in workout you have edited a training for KickBoxing. I do Boxing and I struggle how to measure since during sparring i do not use Apple Watch it incase I break it. is there any possibility to track with a band? or that data is not exported into Apple watch? Cheers!! :)
@@christiandavila2339 congrats on doing sparring instead of just boxercise! Once you get into the swing of combat, you find that caloric tracking and weight isn’t big deal compared to strength, speed, stamina. Nothing like one on one combat to track your fitness improvement!
it looks like the Whoop is usually under, witch could work to help lose weight. Going by a calorie intake lower would mean you can lose more weight but if your goal isnt to lose weight than it could be bad.
One thing to keep in mind: While the Apple Watch might be inaccurate, it is consistenly inaccurate. So you can still use it as an indicator to see trends.
Great video but one big thing you missed. From my experience the Apple Watch calories and distance are useless on a treadmill but way more accurate when doing an outside run with gps as Apple Watch doesn’t know your speed or distance on a treadmill. It therefore cannot match your speed to a valley burn. I’m pretty sure the calorie burn it gives is based on your estimated speed. Also I have found that my Apple Watch closely follows (within 5%) the calories my gyms exercise bike displays. The bike is calculating based on pedal speed/ torque while Apple Watch only has HR info. Pretty impressive if you ask me.
If you’re struggling, consider therapy with our sponsor BetterHelp. Click betterhelp.com/shervin for a 10% discount on your first month of therapy with a licensed professional specific to your needs.
** Watch More Videos **
I Tested Apple Watch's VO₂ Max (vs Sports Lab): th-cam.com/video/30QUCjh_Q80/w-d-xo.html
I Tested this Apple Watch Body Fat Scale (vs DEXA Scan): th-cam.com/video/qJKpIQfUig0/w-d-xo.html
What's On My Apple Watch 2023 (Health & Fitness): th-cam.com/video/XEEkfpwwzY4/w-d-xo.html
Shervin! Quality content as usual! I'm stalking the internet for the best deal on a does everything fitness watch. Training for a triathlon and want something to aid in run pacing, hr tracking, switching between sports easily. Looking for value but there's just so many frickin choices. Tell me what to get and why please! Money is not a big deal but I don't like wasting it on stuff I don't need either! I'm subbed ❤
If you did a test while walking that would have been awesome. Walking would give you a good baseline. You really can't mess up tracking walking.
Please also do it with samsung I want to which is better I have series 8 and my friend watch 4 classic which is better
Because then the self-proclaimed fanboy “scientists” (yes i mean you The Quantified Scientist) would have to acknowledge that the AW is also just a gadget. I have also noticed the AW overshooting at least 2x for me.
!WARNING! This is a scam! DO NOT USE "betterhelp"
Literally have been trying to find a video that does exactly this! Why aren't there more videos doing this? It's crazy, I was curious which would be more accurate
hopefully this will inspire more videos like this!
On multiple times I’ve been looking for a video on a specific health topic and 5 out of 6 times Shervin did it!
I recommend watching "Quantified Scientist", he tests these regularly
@@Dev-Austin he doesn't test calorie tracker accuracy. I watch him too.
@neuroresilience true, I stand corrected.
just started watching this video, already want to comment thanks for this, it has been a question in my head too for a long time!
I’m on a cut right now and I use a calories tracker app. But I always leave an extra 300 cals on the table after each week to account for caloric discrepancies in nutrition labels and calorie expenditure 👍
Same here. This Video is great for showing the accurarcy Problems of those watches but they are still Good for us in Terms of pointing in the Right Direction :)
300 for the whole week ? i Leave 100-200 every day for the same reason lol
Are the Apple Watch calories you displayed the “Active Calories” from the workout or “Total Calories”?
It looks like it’s total from this.
exactly. I am curious but I don't see any respond here
I wondered about this too. I only pay attention to my active calories burned and not total calories. Apple Watch will also tell you that for certain workout types, you're going to be estimated to burn calories at the same rate as a walk (which is what climbing workout says which is what I do), so it's fair to say that those type of workouts are totally just estimates.
Would also have been interested to see less cardio comparison and a strength-focused workout.
For everyone who dont know: You have to adjust for example your weight in the health app. Because the apple watch literally will need it to calculate the calories you burned correctly. So just adjust every week your weight in the app. (
@@11hilas there is a withings scale costs like $100 connects to WiFi and apple health that can update automatically. It also very surprisingly has very accurate weather, far more accurate than the iPhone weather app. Didn’t get it for weather but impressive.
I still rely on my Apple Watch, whether close to accurate or not I went from 230lbs in late February and to 148lbs now in September. I’ve been pretty happy with what my watch has been tracking so far
Wow, congratulations on your transformation, I've had a similar transformation and I had lost about 40 pounds, the problem you'll face now is your body will try to get that weight back by making you binge eat, have a high protein diet so you don't feel much hungry and stay this weight until your bodyfat genetic setpoint lowers down to 150lbs
@@Eatsuk33how long does it take until my bodyfat genetic setpoint to lower to the weight I want to maintain?
How so fast? so much?
@@martinblazek1090 I don't really know, but I'll say a year or so after that you'll not crave so many calories
@@Eatsuk33iv had this exact problem.
I proper struggle with it.
The average of the four wearables was actually really close to the actual calories burned.
So…. Wear all??
More wearables the better 😂
the comment I was looking for
This makes sense actually based off the error range of these devices. Additionally, it is probable that if you were to add up all of your workouts from the week and compare actual calories burned to device calories,any of these devices would be pretty close (except Apple Watch which seems to be heavily biased in one direction).
if you’re goal is to lose weight the priority is not to overestimate expenditure. So just take half the number it says you burned! Worst case scenario you get a slight bonus deficit which will help balance the innacurate calorie labels of products. You shouldn’t expect to burn a lot of calories in the gym anyways, calorie management is the main way you lose weight.
I love this dude. Going through all this hassle to provided valuable information.
Keep it up my man, you are doing great!
Thank you!! Means a ton
I’ve usually always take my calories burned with a grain of salt, I just love tracking workouts in general to see trends in my activity and focus on areas I can improve. I love being able to see my paces on long runs, HR is definitely something I wish was more accurate though without having to buy a chest strap.
I lost 80 lbs in 8 months while wearing an Apple Watch Series 7 & learned quickly that the watch was inaccurate because I weighed myself in the morning & at night. I just now set my calorie goal to be 1,600 & know that I actually burn more like 1,200+ calories which is my true goal anyways. While I know it’s inaccurate, it still keeps me driven to reach that number, which has still made me healthier & more active & to be honest I’m completely ok with. Monitoring my sleep habits at least gives me some kinda data that I can go off of that I know when I had a good night’s sleep versus when I didn’t & has changed my sleeping habits to be better. I wish there were more accurate wearables, but for me it’s helped achieve my goals & live healthier so I can’t complain that much.
Exactly. The point is not to get too caught up in the data, just using it to increase awareness of overall fitness
I also did this 175lbs tracked all calories in and out, it’s off 20% or so for me. If my move goal is 800 and I do it everyday, even if I’m getting 500, I’m doing something everyday day when before I didn’t do shit. I think the key is that the exercise is not part of the diet, your deficit should be based on little to no exercise and exercise just speeds it up and is a fun healthy thing to do. You can lose massive amounts of weight with very little exercise, an exercise plan for weight loss is very hard, easier to just find ways to not eat than burn it off.
A professional told me don’t count the calories you work out losing just count the calories you consume and ignore what you lose if you want to lose weight and it worked I use my Fitness app to count calories lost 100 pounds less than a year. it worked the best advice I ever got.
I've noticed the difference in calorie algorithms myself, each brand has its own set of values -- Fitbit tends to be on the "low side" (compared to other devices, not a lab) when estimating calories, and a lot of that seems to come from their look-up table where they use the exercise assigned (e.g. Ice Hockey has a different value than Power Walking) to adjust the rate of burn. Garmin skews higher and aligns with things like Wahoo and Polar.
One thing I'm not positive about, but I suspect Fitbit's algorithm might be EXCESS calories you burned over basal metabolic rate, whereas some of the others appear to be cumulative. When you subtract your expected BMR from some of the higher ones, they tend to align with Fitbit.
Best approach? Use this as a "relative" metric. If the watch says you burned +1000 calories above average, you were probably more active than usual .. or operating a jackhammer (tends to throw them off).
This is an astute comment and quite frankly the biggest component to this whole topic that was woefully missing in the video. I’ve been religiously using an Apple Watch since it first came out which was right before graduate school for me and I’ve observed many different things with it and other watches. I’m an exercise physiologist and a dietitian so I have a deeper background with this topic than most and I’ve came to some determinations that this video did as well when discussing it with experts but he missed some things. The equations are either poor, don’t use weight, VO2 max, etc. so they’re not going to be calibrated to each person, that’s a HUGE flaw. Also, these watches sometimes use “active” calories or “total” calories like apple who tells you what the different totals are whereas some do this but give you the “active” calories only which makes it much lower than the total calories. There’s no such thing as “active” calories, that’s dumb and isn’t how things are done with exercise research. We just take some means of measure like oxygen intake/co2 output or heart rate and base our calculations off that and potentially your weight depending upon which variable we’re using. I use ACSM equations and others and just use the watch data to get a decent heart rate average for the duration of my workout and put it in cells of a spreadsheet and have a more accurate equation that uses my body weight, VO2, etc. to get much more precise measurements based upon MY BODY rather than whatever the watch is using to make its calculations. There’s error in all of this but my method uses my bodies variables at least to help better predict it though it’s never going to be as good as gas exchange measurements done in a lab as this video pointed out. Overall I think this video was great, but missed a few of those small things that some people don’t know about these different watches.
I had an experience with a treadmill run where my fitbit read my heartrate as 195-210 for over 15 minutes. I got a runner's high, so I pushed myself a bit, but I felt genuinely amazing after the workout. The heart rate reading and the experience just don't match up at all.
Shervin goes so hard to make sure his videos are rigorous and transparent - he's an absolute G
6:45 for summary
I noticed my garmin epix heart rate measurement would jump all over during workouts…probably due it moving around on my wrist too much or changes in angles doing push ups etc. I synced my Polar H10 chest strap to the watch and after doing that it was perfectly consistent throughout the whole workout. Having consistent heart rate data the whole workout is key for the watch to do it’s calculations correctly.
yes! and height + weight
Thank you for everything you go through to provide these tests, I hope you realize how helpful you are :)
i'm honored, it's comments like yours that keep me going
I think people need to realize that you needed a whole lab and hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of equipment for your accurate results. The fact that a 49mm device that goes on your wrist is a couple hundred calories off is still an amazing feat of tech. Anyone who seriously thinks that an Apple Watch or a wearable is going to give you science lab results is out of their mind.
You can still use the watch as a consistent barometer. I.e., at the start of my diet I was eating 2300 calories + whatever apple gave me from my daily workouts. I kept monitoring my weight and found 1900 calories + whatever weight loss my watch gives me is the sweet spot. I’ve lost 13 lbs in 2 months doing that
Exactly! Did the same and went -8kg in about 8 months, but with a couple diet breaks. Now I notice I've stagnated for the last 3-4 weeks so I will just bump the base calories down by 200 (I was on 1800) and that should theoretically start moving the needle again, slowly.
Shervin, just curious, is the reported Apple Watch calories the Active Calories or total calories? Apple Watch reports both when you select a workout type.
he used total and I am not sure if it is good or not. Total should be used when you think about it but on the other hand this can be not that accurate because your resting calories are estimated only. So maybe showing active calories should be a way
hey, thanks for this video. can you see how accurate calorie counters are at restaurant? Like at Chick-Fil-A!!!!
Calorimeter vs Chick-Fil-A
That's not going to be useful information. Calorimeters account for all of the energy stored as heat in the food, but they don't account for the heat that gets wasted during the act of utilizing the food's energy, ie. the thermic effect of food. Food labels generally use food specific atwater factors that do account for an approximate estimate of the food's thermic effect, which means the calorie count on the food label should be lower than the calorimeter reading. And neither, by the way, account for the fact that the average human only absorbs about 80-90% (as low as 30% or as high as nearly 100%) of the calories they eat, the rest is wasted and excreted in the form of urine and feces--although there is no way to uniformly account for this as calorie absorption varies wildly from person to person based upon genetics (for example, I have celiac disease which causes fat malabsorption), lifestyle differences (incl. avg calorie consumption, physical activity, fluid intake), and the composition of your diet (principally fiber intake and degree of food processing)
Your videos are mind bogglingly good. Every video tops the previous. Hope you keep gaining subscribers you deserve it!
Just trying to get better!
Now this is the kind of info I find helpful!! Thanks dude!
Glad it was helpful!
I’ll say this… when I was eating 2400 calories daily… my watch was saying I would burn about 23-2400 daily…. And my weight stayed stagnant … when I weighed 80 pounds more And was only eating 1500 calories and it would say I was burning 2500 calories , I lost weight…
I wanna say from experience it’s accurate enough to see trends and make changes for weight loss
well i feel like if you’re in a 1000 calorie deficit then yeah you’re erasing any room for error 😂 but for people who want something like a 200-500 deficit this can cause a problems not knowing
I want to thank you so much for this information. I was using my Apple Watch to figure out how much I burn versus how much I eat to lose weight. I was always frustrated on why I wasn't losing. The answer was that Apple gave me a higher calorie burn rate versus the actual amount. I know people say never eat back your calories... But I love food. So I learned it's best if I take off my watch and focus on calories in. You've got yourself a new subscriber!
Your videos are consistently amazing. They have the quality of a channel with 10 - 50x the subs. Idk if that’s your goal, but you’re gonna get there if you just keep it up.
That's the plan!
@@ShervinShares And you are growing sooooo fast !!
Thank you for spending the money for us to provide important information! Shervin you are the best!
My pleasure!
You should’ve done more tests to get the avg. I’d say 10 tests of each would’ve been better to assist the accuracy
I'm sorry if I missed it, but did you have chest HRM feeding the devices or their integrated reader? If not, does a chest HRM improve their accuracy?
How about a chest strap? For example the ones from polar are they also as inaccurate as the watches?
I was so close to purchasing a FitBit purely for seeing my caloric expenditure. Im staying far away from that stuff now.
And how accurate the the Garmin epix gen 2 in terms of the calories?
Loved this. I think I will just subtract 15-20 percent of apples calories burned everyday and that should be close enough for someone just trying to stay fit/lose some weight.
My thoughts exactly
For the Apple watch, did you use the numbers shown under active kilocalories or total kilocalories?
total!
It sounds fine but on the other hand maybe active number were more accurate. I know that total value counts in your daily burned calories but still you should have shown us all values you got@@ShervinShares
@@ShervinSharesthat explains the huge differences. Active calories is the workout burn total while total calories is the active + rest calories burned
In 4:47 Apple Watch shows some Intensity tracking app. Could you please share the name of the app?
How does this compare to a HRM chest strap? And how much more accurate are they?
Why no Fitbit, which is probably the most popular fitness tracker?
I’m curious if you added your cadence/ step length and heart zones in the devices after going through one of the test to give the devices the best chance to track your runs.
Bro this is a good ass channel. Thank you for these experiments and shared results/data.
Did you compare it to Apple’s active calories?
You’ve quickly become my favorite TH-camr! PLEASE don’t change your style when you grow, you do so great!
i'm honored, thank you!
This makes so much sense why my defecits were only slightly effective, also I wish everyone would stop promoting better help 😭 All my psych professors have said it is awful and literally anyone can call themselves a therapist on this app, legally...
Thank you for the video and research! Was looking for this kind of channel!
Thank you!
I think it would add to your videos to say explicitly which sensor you are using for each device. E.g., I used the Apple Watch wrist sensor only. Then I paired my Apple Watch with a chest strap made by Polar or Garmin, model X and then got these results. Thanks.
I would love to see this with Apple watch and his polar H10 connected to see if this is more accurate? Or ways to maybe improve the accuracy of these devices
Love this channel! Very entertaining and informative. Great take away statements! Also, if you do shift work, these wearable calculations particularly the sleep are even more off and unreliable. 🤷♀️
Im curious how other products that strap around your chest compare, like myzone for example
The question is, which numbers got compared?
There is a basic consumption that the body always has, even if you are not doing anything.
Then there is the activity energy, which is additionally consumed during activity.
With Apple, both values are added together for the period of activity. You can see this especially when you have spent different amounts of time on the identical activity.
If the values from the other measurement system only show the activity energy in isolation, without including the basic consumption, the values cannot be compared as it was done in the video.
Would be great if you could calibrate them to your specifications. I’ve been wearing an Apple Watch for years now, my Health app collects a lot of other data that I put into it. I wonder if that data influences my results or not.
not me thinking I ran enough to burn off all the chelow kabab i ate last night....keep it up Sherv! Your uploads have been great
@ShervinShares Did you use the active cal burned or total cal burned for your Apple Watch?
did you calibrate your apple watch, with your height and weight and age etc..?
On the cycling test did you have a power meter connected to the garmin?
I'm happy that I got a Whoop after watching your video 😊 It seems to either be pretty accurate or at least underestimate which is great if you want to make sure you're in a deficit. Crazy how far off the Apple Watch is though
Just look at trends!
What Apple Watch version did you use?
Thanks needed this info
I also needed to comment and say HOW THANKFUL I AM FOR THESE TESTS. This drove the point straight home about the caloric inaccuracy of smart watches.
thats really the video, i‘ve been looking for the last years. it‘s even better seeing it from you.
thank you!
Honestly, alls I need is a rough estimate. I don’t need it to be exact. It becomes a problem when you are eating a certain amount of calories BASED on that number. It becomes the differential between a calorie deficit, maintenance, or surplus. And at 100 calories in either direction, over time, you will either lose weight or gain weight if you eat based on the number on the watch.
the line "Ill be working out till the day i die" OP, shows this is a lifestyle , love your work G
I might have missed the information, but what is the model you were using for the apple watch? Series 9?
Isn’t clear whether your test has been performed with the built-in wearables (garmin, apple etc….) wrist heart rate sensor or always with a chest strap connected to the wearables.
SO does this mean should I stop wearing Apple Watch and throw it away!
I didn't hear it mentioned in the video but i am very curious to see if the aplle watch ultra was closer or further from a regular apple watch's measurement.
probably not, the heavier the watch, less accurate will probably be, because of the movement and less stability in the arm and less contact with the skin
7:30 I am defying the laws! Dont change my mind!
Shervin my man, great content as usual. Maybe you could add a URL to the Aim7 article?
I love this content. Glad there is more and more quality content with years about health and fitness!
Great video. Another number that seems to be off is your subscriber count at just under 100K. How can that be, with this quality of content? 😮
Ngl the video was so well done the 8 min flew by and kept my attention the whole time. Great video!
Very interesting video. Quick,short and effective!
No useless talking.
Keep up the good work! 👍🏼
epic. however if the measuring device is consistently inaccurate you will end up using it "correctly" right?
This video is inspiring, we need more people like you who take tests as share the results with people
Always assumed my apple watch was estimating too many calories so I always register my weight roughly 5kg less than I what actually am to offset that but the HR data is very accurate compared to other watches I've tried so far so pretty happy with that atleast
Thanks for sharing!
Has this weight adjustment demonstrated consistent success for you as you follow caloric expenditure?
I'd say yes age and weight are the most impactful when it comes to the algorithm for most of the workout types in apple watch. Numbers are now way more consistent with my whoop band @@ldproc0
This is the kind of stuff we need! Amazing work man.. keep it up! Is there a way to check accuracy of these watches while working out with weights?
Im 1 week trying to find a video like this, finally. In Portuguese is impossible to find!
Wish you would have put the Fit bit in as well
Any chance for the Galaxy watch 6 classic test? I know Apple kills it with HR accuracy (The GW6 is inaccurate), but would be nice to know how it deals with it, as well.
that would be super interesting, I'll have to snag one!
What about the polar strap you were wearing? Is it as inaccurate as the watches?
I wear iWatch 8. I just checked the kcals it shows on my daily bicycle rides. They are very conservative when compared with average kcals burned per mile. At least 20% lower on the watch than what I would estimate based on speed and distance and terrain.
You had me worried, needlessly.
Why no Fitbit?
I’ve always only taken wearable numbers and even calories I track in my lose it app as a rough general estimate and tweak according to results and what I’m seeing in the mirror, scale and how I’m feeling. But my thinking is it’s better to have the general estimate than not at all!
Correction. Most people do NOT spend hours in the gym every week.
MOST people do NOT go to a gym or even EXERCISE.
I use watches to time my rest periods in between sweets while doing resistance training AND the duration of my cardio sessions. Regarding calories I only look at the trends as to whether or not I'm steadily increasing the number of calories burned.
So which wearable is better? Whoop seems to be far more accurate than the other wearables?
During workouts, Apple Watch needs to be paired with chest strap HR monitor. That makes the watch more accurate during workouts
For the apple watch, I just multiply total calories burned by being active by 0.8 to get a rough estimate of how much i expended because I am trying to maingain. I don't want to gain a bunch of fat but im trying to avoid being in a calorie deficit at the same time, I know i cant exactly be at maintenece everyday but +50 or -50 calories over maintenece works as long as your consistant.
If my apple watch says i burned 1000 move or active calories and its time for dinner, I just assume I burned 800 knowing it could have been as low as 700 or as high as 850 and to me it has helped me maingain and not gain any fat and add that ontop my bmr + thermic effect of food which ballpark but pretty accurate, if I did bmr + activity, I would lose weight because thermic effect of food isnt included in the bmr caculation.
Great vid mate. Would definitely be great to see the same tests with chest straps.
Hi sherwin, to give you a short background. My 1st fitness tracker was xiaomi mi band 2 then transitioned to apple Watch 6 then upgraded to 8. Now I want to replace it with garmin watch. However, Upon watching your video. It gave me doubts if upgrading to garmin is realy worth it.?
Don't the test results hinge on how accurately the devices can measure the HR? From what I understand you'd have to use a chest strap and pair it with your watch to get an accurate HR reading. I usually pair my Apple Watch with a chest strap. Would be interesting to see if there is a difference. I couldn't tell from the video whether you tested that as well since that's how you seem to do your workouts.
Hi. Nice video. Would you please let us know what is the name of the app on Apple Watch at minute 4:48? Thanks.
Interesting vid! I crunched some numbers based on your 4 test results, specifically regarding the AppleWatch. Based on those calculations the Apple watch over estimated calorie burn on average, about 140 calories. Based on this and some other advice I have heard about the Apple Watch, I feel like if I subtract 200 from whatever the watch says, that number should be reasonably accurate.
I ran a test on PNOE that was working with Whoop to fine tune calorie burn. I am unsure if Whoop still supports this but for me, the calorie burn had a stronger correlation to other professional tests.
I have used Garmin and Apple Watch and have decided they are both an “in the ballpark” guess. I lower my caloric intake by 20% of the device in hopes of being close.
ballpark is good enough! use the trends
@@ShervinShares The trends are what is most helpful. I tied the Apple Watch with the Zones App to get a better idea on how to improve my running.
why rely on guesses at all? Just track your bodyweight everyday and asses the weekly average weight loss/gain.
Hello from Spain!
Amazing videos!!! Congrats. I saw in workout you have edited a training for KickBoxing. I do Boxing and I struggle how to measure since during sparring i do not use Apple Watch it incase I break it. is there any possibility to track with a band? or that data is not exported into Apple watch? Cheers!! :)
@@christiandavila2339 congrats on doing sparring instead of just boxercise! Once you get into the swing of combat, you find that caloric tracking and weight isn’t big deal compared to strength, speed, stamina. Nothing like one on one combat to track your fitness improvement!
it looks like the Whoop is usually under, witch could work to help lose weight. Going by a calorie intake lower would mean you can lose more weight but if your goal isnt to lose weight than it could be bad.
Did you post the Apple Watch’s “ total calories burned or the “active calories” because your readings for what you did see high
Link a hr strap with a pm on a bike; much more accurate.
I'd like to see how accurate a Stryd linked to a hr strap would be.
Did you have the same exact body metrics (body fat %, weight, height, gender) on all the companion apps for each device?
Did you actually test what each device predicts for calories if you wear a chest strap to do the heart rate measurements?
Outstanding information. Thank you.
You bet!
One thing to keep in mind:
While the Apple Watch might be inaccurate, it is consistenly inaccurate. So you can still use it as an indicator to see trends.
Great video but one big thing you missed. From my experience the Apple Watch calories and distance are useless on a treadmill but way more accurate when doing an outside run with gps as Apple Watch doesn’t know your speed or distance on a treadmill. It therefore cannot match your speed to a valley burn. I’m pretty sure the calorie burn it gives is based on your estimated speed.
Also I have found that my Apple Watch closely follows (within 5%) the calories my gyms exercise bike displays. The bike is calculating based on pedal speed/ torque while Apple Watch only has HR info. Pretty impressive if you ask me.