An increasing number of heart rate monitors, fitness trackers and smartwatches are coming onto the market. But are you able to trust what they inform you?

Today’s digital fitness gadgets should give you the chance to inform you all types of things, from the standard of your sleep to how high your heart rate is. But these usually are not the measuring devices researchers use when measuring activity levels. The rationale? They usually are not of a high enough standard.

The instruments we use in research have been thoroughly tested to make certain they measure what they’re purported to measure. The sensors in fitness watches and similar devices don’t undergo the identical testing, and due to this fact you can not make certain that you might be getting the proper metrics.”

Benedikte Western, Researcher

Uncertain basis

She is a PhD research fellow on the Department of Sport Science and Physical Education on the University of Agder and uses activity monitors in her research.

She has noticed that many persons are a little bit too concerned with what the numbers should say about their training progress.

“The watch may offer you a rating that claims something about your activity level that day, your sleep, the calories burned or similar. But we do not know the way they calculate this”, Western says.

Is it the center rate above a percentage of maximal heart rate over time? The variety of steps? Or perhaps a mix of several such aspects?

“We do not know, and that makes it difficult to trust that you just get the proper information.”

They promise greater than they will deliver

Finding the very best strategy to measure activity is a big field of research. The researchers themselves may not yet have found the very best strategy to do that.

But what they use is the very best there may be to this point, and so they are aware that they haven’t got all of the answers.

The marketing of many activity tracking devices says something entirely different. In some cases, they advertise that a fitness watch can offer you a concrete insight into what time of the day you might be in the very best condition to realize the very best possible performance.

When researchers use activity monitors, they’re primarily involved in the raw data which they later use to analyse the outcomes.

This can be a task the fitness watches do robotically.

“Some watches have every day activity targets, which might inform you that you have reached 60 per cent of your fitness goal, for instance. But based on what? Gender, age, weight, height, and body composition are among the aspects you might want to bear in mind”, Western says.

Best for motivation

She herself has used activity trackers in her research, also the regular ones which you can buy within the shop.

But then the aim was not to take a look at the information the devices provide.

“I actually have been involved in checking out what motivates people to exercise, and activity trackers have a transparent effect on most individuals.”

She says that it can be crucial to know that the very best effect we learn about from using fitness watches, is that they make you more lively.

“When you go in depth on the numbers it provides, nonetheless, it’s removed from certain which you can trust the metrics”, Benedikte Western says.