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Calories Counting Curiosity

The users manual suggests, that the heart rate is used in the calories estimation:

For the most accurate calorie data during your activity, you should set your maximum heart rate (if known).

After reading this, I'd expected, that Swim 2 will (roughly) estimate the calories in the drill mode based on the personal profile and the heart rate. But this is obviously not the case, since drills don't record calories at all. In a direct comparison with the old Garmin Swim I realised, that for swimming the heart rate probably doesn't count at all in the calories estimations, since both GS and GS2 show the same amount of calories. This means (for me), that the calories are only estimated based on general average values for swimming.

Anyway, since GS2 shows also (in the calories widget) the rest, active and total calories, I thought that maybe I can estimate the drill calories by subtracting the swim calories from the active calories. Since I'm wearing the GS2 only for swimming, this should be pretty easy math ;)

I have the latest firmware (2.30), Move IQ is off.

Observation 1

I grabbed the watch in the afternoon for a swim. The calories widget showed 0 active calories and something around 1400 rest kcal!

Therefore I conclude that the rest calories are only based on your personal data (age, height, weight, etc). It's a pure statistic value.

Observation 2

After walking to the swimming pool (10-15min, GS2 was in my swimming bag), the cal. widget showed 70 active calories!

Therefore I conclude that the active calories (when no specific activity has been chosen) are estimated only based on the data delivered by the accelerometer. The more you shake the watch, the more calories it counts.

I still hope at this point, that during an activity the heart rate counts.

Observation 3

Immediately after the swim, the total active calories showed by the calories widget was 10 less than the swimming calories!!! Remember, I started swimming with 70 active calories.

Therefore I conclude, that active calories are always estimated only based on the accelerometer. There is not even a cross check or correction based on the data generated by an activity!!!

I'm thinking now about experimenting with the cardio activity. To be continued (maybe) ...

PS: Calories counting is nothing I'm using in my personal daily life and is nothing I'm relying on. The post above and my (totally non-scientific) experiments are just a result of my technical interest.