The MioFuse is able to monitor heart rate by measuring the volume of blood under the skin
You can’t expect a perfect measurement. Ten to 15 per cent out is good – 5 per cent is difficult to achieve
“You can’t expect a perfect
measurement,” comments Yang Bai, the lead Iowa State University researcher. “Ten to 15 per cent out is good – 5 per cent is difficult to achieve.” Bai explains that the actual number of
calories a person burns during exercise varies depending on the person and what they’re doing during the workout. She adds that tracking technology in fitness devices doesn’t take amount of resistance into account – say, for instance, if you’re running up a hill or lifting a heavier weight. “When the activity changes, or you change speeds, this will affect how many calories you burn off,” she adds.
Overstating calories? And the challenge of accurately measuring calories isn’t limited to trackers, as Liz Dickinson, CEO of wearable company MioGlobal, explains, pointing out that counting calories based on steps taken gives only an indication of what an average person of average fitness might burn off during the exercise. “It’s imprecise,” she says. “Calories actually burn off depending on metabolic expenditure, which varies with age, fitness levels and gender.” She continues: “If you input all this
information it gives a picture of who you are, but you still only get a crude reading.” So if the reading is only crude when all
this data is inputted, what happens when people using fitness equipment in a gym just press ‘quick start’, or at most input
May 2015 © Cybertrek 2015
their age and weight? Dave Wright, CEO of heart rate system MYZONE, believes 99 per cent of people using a piece of fitness equipment don’t provide enough information to get any sort of accurate indication of the calories they burn off. Wright also believes some equipment
manufacturers overstate the number of calories burned. “It makes members feel better on their piece of equipment, which helps the supplier sell more of its brand to health clubs,” he says. “But if you want accuracy, the more data points you collect, the more accurate the equation and the more precise the calorie count.”
Everyday activity vs exercise Returning specifically to the trackers vs apps debate, Doug McClure, executive VP of product marketing at FitLinxx – which has recently launched its AmpStrip device – doesn’t accept that smartphone apps do as effective a job as wearables in tracking fitness. “People might carry their phones with them all day, but the phone isn’t always on their person – it’s sitting on a desk, in a bag, or a drawer,” he points out. “If you’re running on a treadmill for an hour, then a phone app will do a similar job, but in the real world phone apps fall down.” Dickinson says another drawback of
smartphone apps is that – at least for now – they tend to measure steps, not heart rate. Meanwhile new wearables such as the Apple Watch and MioGlobal’s
latest general purpose activity tracker, MioFuse, use more advanced technology to measure heart rate. In the case of the MioFuse, electro-optical cell technology measures the volume of blood under the skin, with an algorithm calculating the heartbeat during the workout. “This technology doesn’t calculate
heart rate from an electrical beat of the heart, though, which would be more accurate still,” comments Wright. “It also relies on the person’s arms
staying still and the device being tight enough not to let light in from the outside. The algorithm predicts the movement of the wrist, which is OK when the movement is regular – running or walking. But if the movement is irregular, it can’t measure heart rate in real time. It will therefore give inaccurate readings during vigorous exercise.” Wright believes these devices are
good for the 23 hours of the day when someone isn’t exercising, but says they will need an accurate device, such as a chest strap, to more accurately measure what goes on during concerted activity. And even then there are challenges
to obtaining accurate data, because the analogue chips in cardio equipment rely on the heart rate belts that come with this chip, says Wright: “The issue with analogue chest straps is that, with multiple people exercising across numerous pieces of cardio equipment, you get cross-talk – your heart rate
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