Is your fitness tracker lying to you?

The following is an informative, thought-provoking and benefical article and research from Which? in which they tested over 85 fitness trackers, watches and smartwatches to identify which are the most (and least) reliable. Each is challenged to accurately track steps, distance based on steps, heart-rate and calories burned. The fitness trackers are put through their paces, during everyday activities such as loading the dishwasher through to indoor and outdoor walking and running.

From the research it seems that if you’re relying on a fitness tracker to measure your distance during marathon training, the bad news is that you may not have been hitting the 26.2 mile mark after all. Which? tests have found that some trackers can be wildly inaccurate – over or underestimating distance covered by up to 32%, which on a marathon route could could mean you miss the finish line by eight miles. Even picking a big brand is no guarantee – Samsung models, for example, could miss the finish line by four miles on average.

Their reserach suggests that:

Fitness brands / Actual distance at 26.2 miles / Percentage difference (whether above or below 26.2 miles) 
Samsung                    22.28                                                         -14%

Polar                          24.85                                                         -4% 

TomTom                    25.09                                                         -4% 

Fitbit                          25.25                                                         -3% 

Misfit                         25.42                                                          -2% 

Garmin                      25.48                                                           -2% 

Huawei                      25.73                                                           -1% 

Withings                    27.3                                                             0.05 

Apple                       27.88                                                             0.07 

Pebble                     30.42                                                             0.17 

​You can view the full article with all the data and findings by clicking here https://www.which.co.uk/news/2018/04/is-your-fitness-tracker-lying-to-you/. It is a really interesting read and thank you to Grace Kindred for the article.

​High 5,

Matt