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Calories calculation based on? (quite different from Polar)

Does anyone know about the calories calculation? Ever since I received my Fr235 5 days ago, I tracked all activities with the FR235 AND with the Polar H7 chest strap (with Polar Beat app).

With Garmin the calculated calories are between 10-40% less than what Polar calculates.

For example today i did a brisk 3k/30min walk bringing both devices, HRM was close on both. However Polar says I burned 236 calories while Garmin says it was 146 calories.

Does the calories calculation soleley depend on the HR (besides other personal data, which I set both the same in Polar and Garmin) or do the zones play a role as well?

On Polar Zones seem to be purely calculated as %HRmax, on Garmin I use %HRR which gives me different and as I find better zones. On the walk mentioned, Polar put me in zone 2, while with Garmin I was just at the lower end of zone 1.

0 Former Member over 5 years ago in reply to philippe.berini

This is an old thread, but maybe this will help someone.

I just got a Polar OH1 arm band monitor, and it connects both to the Polar app on my phone and to my Garmin watch. I did a strength workout yesterday with my heart rate feeding to both devices: both showed the same heart rate on their screens at all times, but Polar converted it to a full 50% more calories burned than Garmin. This is significantly more than can be accounted for by my BMR.

I suspect that Garmin is more accurate ... Polar seems to be focused more on image and creating a nice presentation (their app is very nice!), while Garmin seems to worry more about the science; but in the end, they're both just estimates. Although it's better than using just an empirical value of calories per kilometre per lb·bodyweight (for running, for instance), you can't directly estimate calories from heart rate data.

I would suggest that you might consider what you're intending to do with the data, and base your selection on whether you would prefer to use an over-estimate, or an under-estimate.

Since I'm trying to cut fat right now, and am already losing weight more slowly than I normally would, I do not want to over-estimate calories burned. I'm going to go with the lower (Garmin) estimate.

If I were trying to bulk, or was otherwise more worried about optimal nutrition for recovery after exercise, I would not want to under-estimate calories burned. I might be tempted to go with the higher Polar estimate ... though it is pretty far off from Garmin, and I'm not sure I trust it. That said, my comfort with Garmin's estimate is probably just based on my using it for the last few years, and I have no reason to say that it's more accurate than Polar.