Calculating calories burned

[pittguy79]

I have had my Surge for about 1 week.  I have been riding a stationary bike consistently for about 24 months.  I am 5'11'' , 195 and 58 years old.  Resting heart rate is mid 50's.  I ride a Precor bike for 60 minutes at 21 mph.  Heart rate per bike handles matches Surge heart rate within 2 bpm.  Heart rate during ride is between 135 to 145 bpm depending on intensity.  Bike provides a calorie burn of 20 cal/min while the Surge is 12 cal/min.  Is there a problem with the Surge or a reasonable explanation for the difference?  I searched the forum and did not find an satisfactory answer.  

[pittguy79]

The surge is providing approximatley 55% of thr calories burned compared to a Precor stationary bike using the spinning exercise selection.  All calorie burned calculators I have used indicate 1200 to 1400 calories burned per hour when riding at 20 mph+ at my weight.  Heart rate indications between the bike and surge is righrt on, +/- 2 bpm at 135 to 145 bpm for the tme ridden.  Why the difference?.  

[RobertoME · Accepted solution]

Hello  @pittguy79, welcome to our community. Note that I have merged both of your post so all the information you have provided is gather only in one post to maintain the order in our community.

Note that while you are doing exercise on your stationary bike there is no motion of going forward that your Surge can detect. Your tracker in the most basic form is a movement sensor and if the movement is reduce, in example: doing spinning; where your hands wont move in the same way when you walk it will have an impact, so the calories will be affected. If you believe that your calories burned per minute are not accurate, you can always enter this activity as a manual activity.

See ya later, I'll be around.

[pittguy79]

Thanks.  I would have thought the spinning selection under exercise would be set up to accomodate minimal hand motion but I suppose not..............thanks

[RobertoME]

Hello @pittguy79, thank you for letting me know that you are using the specific exercise on your Surge. Note that manually log this activity is the best way but in the case of using the spinning activity, it should improve the accuracy of your calories burned. Have you noticed if your heart rate is not too low while you are doing this activity? If your heart rate did not seem correct, it may have to do with the nature of the exercise and placement of the tracker. The heart rate can affect in a direct way the accuracy of the calories burned.  For details about what can affect the accuracy of the heart rate reading, please visit http://fitbit.link/1RbObzX and specifically the question "What impacts the accuracy of my heart rate reading?" There is another post  where other users talk about this. Perhaps you can find helpful some ideas there.

Let me know how it goes friend.

[pittguy79]

Heart rate on the bike and surge are close throughout the ride, 1 or 2 bpm difference.  Heart rate throughout the ride, after 5 minute warm up, ranges from 125 to 145 so I do not think heart rate is too low.

[Leebassman]

I'd like to say that I have had the same problem since I got the device at Christmas; but I have the same issue on elliptical and treadmill as well as stationary bike. After numerous calls to customer service (I'm now on my second Surge), I've finally found an individual who seems to really care about solving the problem; but as of yet , no luck. I DO wear the device three fingers above the wrist bone as suggested. I would like to start other forms of activity such as biking and martial arts, but I would have to depend on the device to make sure the intensity was similar. I say this respectfully, but if I can't get more accurate readings, I have a $250 devise that is basically worthless.

[noel01]

Hi Roberto. My issue just a little different. My surge app provides a total calories when I'm cycling. On the calories screen it has the graph relating to the total calories ... but the cals/min is inconsistent. Two cycles today. First, 49 mins, 277 calories - app says 4.1 cals/min. Second, 36 mins, 96 calories - app says 2.1 cals/min. Dashboard on my computer contains the correct cals/min figure.

Only seems to be an issue when I use the exercise function (just checked it happens for both cycling and walking). When exercising without that function the app appears to provide the correct cals/min.

Any suggestions.

Thanks.

[pittguy79]

Noe, has your experience been that when simply starting a bike ride, without selecting an exercise mode, the calories burned per minute appears to be accurate? 

[noel01]

Hi. Unfortunately I  haven't tested that scenario. Always use exercise mode for the cycling so that I have the map information as well. I have tested for walking and in that instance, not using the exercise mode (for walking) appears to be accurate.

Noel

[RobertoME]

Hi there everyone and welcome aboard to our Community @noel01. I offer you my apologies for not posting any update recently. Also thank you @pittguy79 for asking this, as I had the same question.

How it goes so far @noel01? Is still presenting inaccuracies regarding your Cals/mins stat on your cycling exercise? If it does, can you share a screenshot with me? In this way I can have a closer look and find a solution. If you need more help with taking screenshots you can use this help article.

Hope to hear from you soon, I'll be around.