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The Conversation — Technology · September 21, 2026 · On the brief until October 5, 2026

The higher your body fat percentage, the less accurate your smartwatch is at measuring calories you burn when exercising – new study

KinesiologyBiomedical EngineeringPublic Health
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Estimating calorie burn from heart rate and movement inputs

Researchers tested four popular smartwatches against a laboratory metabolic analyzer during exercise sessions. All four devices overestimated calories burned, with measurement errors rising alongside the wearer's body fat percentage. Clinicians and researchers cannot treat these wearable calorie readouts as reliable data for weight management.

Summary written by AI Business Lens with an AI model from the article at theconversation.com. It is not the article, and the publisher has not reviewed it. For publishers.

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Proprietary device algorithms obscure how calculations are made, preventing researchers from identifying why higher body fat distorts calorie estimates.

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