How to correctly use a running watch and how to make your fitness tracker More Accurate? Many people use it wrong, this article will help you get the best out of these great gadgets!
It’s 2023 and people are greatly inclined towards healthy eating and keeping their bodies fit. All credit goes to increased awareness of social media exposure. People are now watching their plates and eyeing their bodies as well.
Here is a related article that might interest you on Best Smartwatches & Fitness Trackers With VO2 Max – Top Choices In 2023.
This has helped the health industry thrive a lot. As in order to cater to the needs of these fitness lovers, the health industry has to be equipped accordingly. One such example is Fitness Trackers.
How To Correctly Use A Running Watch And Make Your Fitness Tracker More Accurate and Useful?
What is a Fitness Tracker?
A fitness tracker is a wearable electronic device or an application in your gadgets that tracks fitness metrics like distance covered via running or walking, heart rate, number of calories consumed or burnt and even quality of sleep and swimming patterns.
Examples For Popular Fitness Trackers
Some of the most popular fitness trackers are:
And many more…
Basic Features in Fitness Trackers
These fitness trackers come with different features, these are the main ones:
- Accelerometers: This type of tracker track the acceleration rate of your body in various directions using predictive equations in order to estimate the total energy expenditure of your body.
- Heart Rate Monitors: These trackers make use of equations that are based on height, weight, age, resting heart rate and physical activity level in order to track the total number of calories burnt by your body during activities.they are favorite among endurance athletes.
- GPS: Some of the trackers come with a built-in GPS and others are able to connect to your phon’s one.
It is important to note that not all the trackers come with these features, some of them will have part of them and others will have them and many more additional features such as ECG test, VO2 MAX, sleep tracking, and the list goes on.
Methods to Make These Running Smartwatches/Fitness Trackers More Accurate:
These trackers are always on point but there is a slight chance of error in every electronic device. So, do these trackers experience some glitches in their performance.
It may depend on many factors. Here are some useful ways that can make your fitness trackers more accurate and thus giving you accurate results:
- Provide Accurate Information:
The first step when you get a fitness tracker or an application is entering your information like weight, height, age, and weight. Many people do under-reporting here intentionally or unintentionally. But this is a very important tact to tame your trackers. If your information, your tracker will calculate your steps, calories and distance right.
- Always wear it the right way
Whatever gadget you are using, make sure you always position it on the same place like on your hip or around your upper arm while you are monitoring your activity. This reduces the probability of error in your calculations as wearing it on the wrong place can lead to both under calculations or over calculations.
The fitness trackers measure data from your wrist using various sensors and so it is important to tighten the strap enough so it will be able to continuously track data from your wrist but not too tight so it becomes uncomfortable.
You should also wear it above your wrist bone as this image from TomTom’s website shows
- Tell your Tracker about the Activity:
Always enter the right information about the activity you are going to perform like walking, swimming, running or weight-lifting. The reason is that these trackers use specific algorithms for specific activities. Thus in order to achieve accurate results, it is a useful tip. Many of the new trackers are able to detect your activity automatically.
- The Right Calibration:
Another useful tip is calibrating your device beforehand. Almost all of the trackers allow this to its users. For example, you can enter your stride length yourself. This may seem useless to many but it has significant results on the accuracy of your tracker.
- Keep Your Tracker Up-to-Date:
The technology is moving at light’s speed nowadays. There are newer updated versions of everything before you get used to the previous ones even. Likewise, these trackers need to be updated on a regular basis. As the algorithms are getting smarter too. So, this useful tip is often ignored due to laziness but it is very important.
- Sort things out for your Tracker:
If you are using the heart rate monitor, make sure you enter some additional information on your track. For example; if you are taking any caffeine-based product in your pre-workout meal, you need to enter that information too as this will definitely affect your heart rate during the workout. Some apps and devices even allow you to enter your v02 rate too just to provide you with no less than accurate results.
How To Make The GPS On Your Fitness Tracker/Smartwatch More Accurate?
The first and most important parameter is how many networks the watch supports? Many 2018 models and later (especially by Garmin) support three networks, and this is compared to one network that other watches support. GPS is the American network, Galileo is the European network and Galunas is the Russian network.
As the company invests more in navigation precision technology, its products connect to more satellites, which can also help to obtain more accurate data and also “tolerate” less environmental interference that interferes with the reception of satellites.
Manufacturers claim that the newer the watch the more accurate it is since it is very important for companies to improve the accuracy of the GPS.
In some of the watches, it is possible to choose how much time the GPS samples from the satellite. Those who care about it should choose the best option, but it should also be understood that it shortens the battery life.
If it is important for you to get accurate data about your instantaneous pace in each second because you are in the middle of a quality workout like Tempo or Intervals, it is important that you choose to do them in the most GPS-friendly conditions.
The more turns there are, not to mention traffic circles and 180-degree turns, we lose the shortest route and our GPS will be confused because it doesn’t like turns and zigzags.
It is very difficult to get accurate data on all watches because of environmental obstacles like tall trees and bridges. Therefore, it is recommended to perform the intervals, if not in the stadium, then in a more open area, with a few objects as possible between us and the sky.
It is recommended to update as much as possible the watch against the various applications or sites of the manufacturers, it helps for sure.
Avoid passing under bridges and always prefer a more “open” route.
Final Note
Now that you are familiar with the few prominent tips to make your fitness tracker more accurate, you would surely be able to get the most use out of it. It’s the minor things really, but these help a great deal in improving the accuracy.
I hope that this article has helped you to understand how to correctly use your running watch and fitness tracker and that you will get the best out of it.
As a professional trainer and a gadget lover, I’ve spent a lot of money and time buying wearable activity trackers, smartwatches, and gadgets, and checking them out. My site is focused on helping you with your activity tracking and smart technology journey. I try to provide the most helpful updated content on this subject. Hopefully, you will love my blogs and be a regular around here.