Calorie usage

[Kravman2]

I have noticed that the way my Charge 5 calculates calorie usage seems to depend a great deal on heart rate. A relatively short walk at a high tempo seems to use considerably more calories than a much longer walk at a slower pace (although still being shown as active minutes). I do expect a difference but not as much as the results shown. To what extent is heart rate important in the calculation of calorie usage when compared to distance and pace? 

[JohnnyRow]

Heart rate determines your calorie burn per minute.  That's basically it.  After a short hard walk, your heart rate will slow down and your calorie burn per minute will also slow down accordingly.  If you really want to compare calorie burn in same amount of time, say of a one hour slower walk, compared to a faster 15 minute walk followed by 45 minutes of other routine activity, you could use the on-watch Exercise App to start and end the walk, not 'ending' the shorter more strenuous walk until the same amount of time had passed as you did for your longer walk.  Then you could get a true comparison of calorie burn in same time period for the 2 cases, though still a health advantage to getting heart up into higher ranges occasionally.

[Kravman2]

Thanks for that. I am used to getting a higher calorie count after a workout or fast paced walk but last week I got a couple of surprising results that just didn’t gel. One day I did only 8500 steps mostly walking round the shops and got a day reading of 2532 calories but on another 17533 steps (on an actual walk, including 1000ft climb) and the calorie reading for the day was 2282. However during the actual walk  I had a couple of lengthy stops (eg lunch) and didn’t pause the counter. The time taken for the walk was therefore apparently lengthy and the average pace and heart rate would appear low ( if somehow averaged out) but it was still the same distance. I’m sure my previous fit bit only counted moving time but the Charge 5 doesn’t seem to. Perhaps I need to pause the counter with every stop. 

[JohnnyRow]

As for pausing walk, there is setting somewhere for that, maybe default was set different for 2 watches, or maybe earlier watch didn't have same options.  Offhand I don't remember where there setting is without a lot of digging but you can set it whether or not to automatically pause when you are at rest, such as for when you have to stop for light to cross street.