Your smart watch is deceiving you.. A study reveals that it does not give you correct data
If you look around, chances are that most of the people you see are wearing a smartwatch or a smart bracelet on their wrist. Wearable technology that also gives a certain touch of elegance or even that boom that comes with smart rings, leaves no one indifferent.
Now, a new study has revealed that these devices aren’t always as accurate as you’d like to believe. While they’re great for measuring heart rate and estimating VO2 max, their accuracy starts to wane when it comes to other metrics like calories burned and sleep quality.
Research shows that wearables can overstate or understate the number of calories burned during exercise, which can ultimately lead to errors or the belief that you’re losing more weight than you actually are. To give you an idea, they’re talking about an inaccuracy of about 15 to 21 percent.
Likewise, the sleep data provided by wearable devices is often inaccurate. The duration and quality of sleep recorded by these devices may differ from the results obtained through professional sleep tests.
This is because wearable devices use sensors that measure movements and heart rate to estimate sleep, and the truth is that they are not really accurate.
With all this, in the end we must also take into account the limitations of these devices. None of them will have the same capabilities as professional devices dedicated entirely to measuring one data or another, so, as a wearable user, you should be aware that those 700 calories you burned during your run may be much less.
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Also keep in mind that notifications about sleep quality or calories burned can create anxiety in those who are not able to reach the goals recommended by their devices. This constant monitoring can lead to a phenomenon known as “health anxiety,” where a person becomes overly concerned about how they are doing based on the readings on their smartwatch.