Your smartwatch is lying to you about how many calories you burned, Study finds

cross-posted from: https://piefed.world/c/tech/p/1374232/your-smartwatch-is-lying-to-you-about-how-many-calories-you-burned-study-finds

news.fiu.edu/2026/your-smartwatch-is-lying-to-you-about-how-many-calories-you-burned-in-your-last-workout

A couple of people I know with daily step quotas, will tell me they have done they’re daily steps today when walking to lunch and back. Yes, it’s like 6 blocks but it’s no workout. I think these devices are giving users a false sense of exercise.

If you set your step quota to 10 steps, you can both hit your quota and have gained nothing from it. This is a problem with users setting quotas too low, not a problem of the device giving bad information.

Apple Watch is set ridiculously low by default.

I’m half way through daily calorie expenditure sitting on my office chair.

It’s clearly aimed by default at sedentary workers like tech.