What's going on with active calories?

6560304 said:

The active calories counter shown during an activity is sometimes different from the number shown in Garmin Connect after the activity is synced, and not just by a couple of calories here and there. Why is this?

One possibility is that you are confusing total burned Calories during the activity (Resting + Active) and Active Calories alone. You'd need to post some photos and screenshots demonstrating the issue with concrete data, if you'd like that we tell you what could be the problem.

You have to sync the watch, in order to have the same data online and on the watch. Repeat the sync, if it is not up to date.

Another possible reason could if you used multiple devices - I believe there is currently a bug in the Calories syncing between multiple devices (possibly only if one of them is an older model, not compatible with the new data exchange system).

6560304 said:

It's impossible to set active calories as a daily/weekly goal. Instead, I have to rely on much worse metrics of physical activity like steps and floors climbed. Is there a way to use active calories instead?

Hm, I do see the option to set Calories as the target in Goals. Are you sure you do not have it there?

https://connect.garmin.com/modern/goals/new 

6560304 said:

I couldn't find a way of showing active calories on the Watch Faces. Although, some third party faces can show their own active calories count which is different from the "official" one. Is there a way to get the official counter to show up?

Sure, Calories are one of the fields available for the customization of the buil-in watchfaces. If you are not familiar with the customization, check out the manual here: Instinct 2 Series Owners Manual - Customizing the Watch Face (garmin.com)

As far as I remember, I think only Total Calories are available as a data field for the watchface, but since the Resting Calories are more or less constant, it should not matter much.

Thanks for the reply!

1. Not sure what I could be confusing the calories with. I've set up the activity Data Screen to specifically show "Active Calories" in one of the fields. And the number it shows towards the end of the activity is sometimes different from the "Active Calories" reported in Connect. I'll try to grab some screenshots.

2. You're right. I can set "Calories" (not sure whether Active or Total) as a custom goal. But it's not a Daily goal like the steps/floors climbed (see below).

3. I'm aware of the customization options and I indeed chose to show total calories on my Watch Fact. However, there's a big difference between showing Active Calories and Total Calories. Active Calories allow you to quickly see how active you were that day. Total Calories require some mental math and a knowledge of what the "normal" total is at different points in the day.

6560304 said:

1. Not sure what I could be confusing the calories with.

Neither me, but since you did not give any closer description, or screenshots, it is hard to guess.

6560304 said:

But it's not a Daily goal like the steps/floors climbed (see below).

The Calories "daily goal" is calculated automatically from your target weight, if you connect GC to MyFitnessPal and enter the Calories intake there. Other than that, only the longer Goals are availble. Feel free to request anything else at Share Ideas | Garmin

6560304 said:

Total Calories require some mental math

Then set the Calories Glance as the second screen, and you can access it rapidly anytime by pressing a single button. Or use a Connect IQ watchface - that's exactly what they are intended for - to fill the gaps left in the out-of-the-box watch.

Yeah, I have been after the same for over a year. the only thing I figured working, was custom watch face letting you set active calories daily target (Instinct Pro, but maybe there is some other counting it weekly?). This way I can see my daily active calories vs set target and tbh this is the best I could figure out. If you manage to find something better I'd be eager to learn, good luck

Thanks.

The Calorie glance is what I ended up using, but it's odd that I can't get the watchface to show the same information.

From what I understand, third-party (Connect IQ) watchfaces don't have access to the active calories counter.

Thanks. I'll try Instinct Pro. Though another watchface's developer (Glances) told me that Garmin doesn't provide access to its active calories counter to third party watchfaces. So maybe Instinct Pro has its own calculation which may or may not agree with the Garmin one.

6560304 said:

Though another watchface's developer (Glances) told me that Garmin doesn't provide access to its active calories counter to third party watchfaces.

That's true, but there are at least two ways how to get the Active Calories - either by incrementing the counter by the delta of Total Daily Calories, whenever the HR is above the 7 days average Resting HR, or by estimating the Resting Calories (for example by observing the delta of Total Daily Calories while the HR is equal of below the Resting HR avg), and then deducing the Resting Calories from the Total Calories. There may be also other creative ways, like for example estimating the Resting Calories from user's body information data (in the same way as the watch does). Yet another possibility, though not too probable on my mind, could be, if the developer had also the access to the Health API, and got the information about the Resting or Active Calories over a companion app, or over the web.

True, Instinct Pro uses calculation and in my case for some reason is always 7 or 8 calories less than official calories glance, but to me it's negligible. Instinct Mission also does Active Calories and is spot on vs glance - but has no option to set daily target.