fitbit flex accuracy

[pcoriolan]

Hi,

I am using a fitbit flex and I am trying to understand if accuracy is working as expected. I am doing everyday an average of 10000 steps by walking. I need to say that I am ~200 pounds and what I expect to burn is around 600calories during 90 minutes of activity according to most calories calculators. But my fitbit reports instead an average of 1000 calories (additional 400 calories every session). Does anybody know where is coming from this difference? It gives me a lot of trouble since I am syncing fitbit data with my fitnesspal account and I need to keep in mind anytime about this gap. Would be this related to fitbix flex way on calculating burned caloreis? (I am walking not running so I am not sure about data accuracy). Any idea is appreciated.

Tanks,

C

[FerdinandFitbit · Accepted solution]

Hi there @pcoriolan. It's great to see you in the Community! 🙂

When it comes to the calories burn calculation, with your Fitbit Flex, this will take into consideration the effort you put every minute which is also the way that active mintues are calculated. This means that if for example, you are walking fast in a time frame of 5 mintues and you make about 500 steps, you are taking a greater amount of steps than if you were walking just 300 steps in those 5 minutes. This will be calculated by your tracker as a high intensity activity and will therefore calculate more calories burned during those 5 minutes because you put more effort by doing more steps in the same amount of time.

You can take a look at this article for understanding how Fitbit knows how many calories you burn and this other article for knowing how active minutes work since in the end these two work together.

Hope this helps and if you need any more help, let me know!