Samsung Galaxy Active 2 Watch not accurately tracking calories burned

[knichols_]

I purcahsed a Samsung Galaxy Active 2 watch a few months ago.  I used to be a FitBit user.

This watch was sold to me as a fitness tracking watch.  I track my workouts daily and calories burned are significantly lower (100-200 calories) than what they were with my FitBit.  I have also used an Apple watch so I'm aware there can be differences but the workouts are always very similar so should not be seeing this much difference.  I read an article somewhere that said Samsung don't use heart rate to calculate calories burned although the watch does track your heart rate throughout the work out but I cannot find this anywhere officially on any Samsung pages/write ups.  Could someone please advise if this is the case or if there is a possibility of something off in my settings?

If this is the case, super dissatisfied and do not believe this can be classed as an active/fitness watch as I have little idea of how many calories I am really burning throughout the day and for a $700+ watch I would have thought it would be able to accurately calculate calories burned. 😞 

[vlgarton]

No matter what i do, when its on a certain setting it always says i burned the same calories, it just amends based on length of time of the workout. I do HIIT classes (currently on zoom) so use the circuit training function as thats the closest to the workout, whenever I get to 30 minutes it always pops up with "calories burned 153" no matter how much energy i put in, if its intense burpees or something much less energetic its always the same. I want to know roughly how many i actually burn when im spending 10mins in the top zone (zone 5) id expect to burn more than if i spend those 10mins in zone 2. So i did a test... I completed a 45 minute "circuit training" class and as per at 30m i got the 153 calorie notification, (for context) at the beginning of the class the first section was 10 rounds of 6 burpees followed by 10 sit ups one after the other with around 10 secs rest in between - so it was intense.  In total for this workout i burnt 225 calories and spent most of the time in HR zone 3 and 4 with some in 5. Once i had calmed down i put it on the same setting but sat on my bum doing nothing, i even took the watch off and had a shower for 10 mins. Yet i still burned 153 calories at 30minutes. 

Its really disappointing that a Samsung Active watch doesnt do the basics of measuring activity and for the cost of it and it being called "active" i'd expect more. 

[DK16]

Yes it's very surprising to me and extremely disappointing. Does anyone know if the Garmin watches actually use heart rate and level of activity to get a more accurate reading? I'm strongly considering making the switch. 

[Mitch053]

My wife has the same exact complaint with this watch. I had a crappy Fossil Sport running Wear OS and even that watch did a good job calculating calories but had many other issues. I decided not to replace it with the Samsung and I recently got the newly released Amazfit GTR 2e.  It's cheaper than the Samsung and does a great job on heart rate zones and calories and the battery life is incredible.  I was pleasantly surprised and would never have considered this watch until I saw the reviews coming out of CES 2021.  I thought they were affiliated with Amazon but they are not.  I hate to plug another product on a Samsung forum and they will probably remove this post but this problem goes almost 2 years and Samsung has done nothing about it.  

[Sarah1125]

I’ve been questioning the calories on my Samsung Galaxy watch for a while.... but I realized when I use the “other workout” feature on my watch, I burn the same amount calories, no matter the workout. And then the calories go up by 20, everyday 5 minutes. For someone who depends on the watch for fitness 100%, it’s annoying. You’d think Samsung would be better than this. 😞

[vlgarton]

it's so frustrating isn't it, I do (did) HIIT classes and other women are burning sometimes double my calories, it's so frustrating. I've since realised it works out calorie burn based on your weight and average I think as I used to burn 155 per 30 mins, since losing weight (4lbs) I'm now only burning 152. they just use a basic algorithm. I do hope they fix it 😔

[lokeshsahal]

I've the same issue. I use Active 2 to track my workouts and I typically do weight training and choose Circuit Training from their list of options. No matter how intense my workout is, I am always shown a burnt calorie count of 187 calories in 30 minutes and 365 in an hour. So, it seems Samsung has programmed workout types and then show the calorie count based on the workout you select and not your intensity or heart rate.

[danemery]

Hi! I'm having the same problem with my Galaxy Active 2. Every time I track a workout, it says I burned 129 calories at the 30 minute mark. Did you ever find a solution to this? Thanks!

[Sarah1125]

Samsung told me to remember that they are just estimates... 

[vlgarton]

Hi! no, unfortunately not. I've got another device to track my calories burned and I still use my watch, for a workout the other day I burned over 400 calories but the Samsung Watch said 243. it's so frustrating! I hope they will update it soon 🤞

[Mesosphere]

I used to have a Samsung Fit2. For that watch it was definitely activity*time. Heart rate was ignored. However, that has NOT been my experience with the Active2. At least for cycling and elliptical trainer, it is not purely a function of time. Workouts with higher average heart rates result in higher reported calories burned for equal time.

This is just based on use over the past month or so though. Was there an update?