I have a 2 week old vivosmart 4 with the latest firmware 4.60. Bought it primarily to track my active calories burned while cycling. I cycle 3-4 times per week, so I set myself to an activity level of 7 in the settings of the Garmin connect.
I compared the Garmin estimated calories burn after 1 hour of a moderate cycling session (heart rate 91% in zone 4). Per Garmin, I burned 832 calories.
However I simultaneously ran Samsung health (built in app on my Samsung Galaxy phone); this app uses height / weight / activity time and distance to estimate calories burned. In this app, I only burned 594 calories.
I realize that different apps use different algorithms to estimate calories burned, and that in theory the Garmin should be more accurate since it has my heart rate, but why are the figures so far apart? Which is a more accurate representation of actual calories burned?
(Side note: I already disabled Move IQ since I read it may interfere with calorie estimates).