According to Apple, the Apple Watch bases your calories burned on personal information you provide while setting up your health details in the iPhone’s Watch app. You’ll need to provide your age, gender, height, and weight to ensure the reading is as accurate as possible.
Unfortunately, that’s as detailed as Apple gets in explaining how its calorie counter works. Though it explores the importance of activity in reaching your desired caloric burn, it doesn’t touch on how its devices achieve this number. For that, we can look to Fitbit, a leading provider of fitness wearables, where we finally start seeing things like basal metabolic rate (BMR), a core component of calculating calories burned.
Apple may not state it outright, but the personal information you provide is typically used to determine your BMR or the rate at which your body burns calories when at rest. What Apple does confirm is that the user’s heart rate is one of several factors used to measure activity levels. This could mean that, like the Fitbit and similar devices, readings like your blood circulation, pulse, and heart rate will factor into the number of calories burned.
What we know for sure is that all of this happens on the backend, and the Apple Watch simply presents you with a number. That leaves us wondering: is that number accurate?
Jessica Irvine is a tech enthusiast specializing in gadgets. From smart home devices to cutting-edge electronics, Jessica explores the world of consumer tech, offering readers comprehensive reviews, hands-on experiences, and expert insights into the coolest and most innovative gadgets on the market.
