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Ketsjap

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jan 5, 2007
118
131
For the past year I've been using an ebike (electric bike) to commute to work. I'm tracking each trip with the Workouts app on my Apple Watch, using 'outdoor cycling'.

I am not sure how accurate calorie count is, though. With an ebike you still have to work the pedals to move, but not as hard as you'd be doing on a 'normal' bike.

Does this make the calorie count inaccurate? Does the 'outdoor cycling' only use heartrate to calculate the calories burned, or does it also use parameter such as gps signal, speed, elevation.... ? In that case the electrical assisance provided by an ebike would distort the data...

Any thoughts?
 

HengenJL

macrumors 6502a
May 27, 2007
700
285
Rochester, NY
Outdoor Cycling does use heart rate, speed, and gps data from what I've read in the past. With an ebike your calorie count is going to be much less than what the workout records due to the assistance of the motor in the ebike. A buddy of mine stopped tracking his ebike commutes as the calorie count was very inaccurate.
 
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gtjeta

macrumors member
Mar 31, 2012
94
51
I also have an e-bike. I was asking myself the same as you. So I checked using a well known calorie estimation based on hr (I found it on a web I now cannot remember) and it was precise to the calorie.
So I am quite sure Apple Watch only uses hr (and height, weight and age) to estimate calories for cycling.

This is perfect for e-bikes, as the actual effect of it for your calories is taken into account through the sharp reduction of the hr. With e-bikes I have typical average hr of 100-120, while with no assistance I have 120-150.

Of course, hr based calculation has its own problems, but having an e-bike does not increase them.
 

Tiggy2

macrumors newbie
Sep 21, 2021
2
0
Has the issue of exercise minutes been verified by Apple yet? When I was logging in my Outdoor Rides using the Work Out app it calculated way more exercise minutes than when I just let the watch recognize the increased HR as exercise. Which is more accurate?
 

deeddawg

macrumors G5
Jun 14, 2010
12,223
6,351
US
Probably would have been better to create a new thread, @Tiggy2, as your question doesn't seem related to the nearly two year old thread you resurrected.

What is this "issue of exercise minutes"? If you log a 60 minute Outdoor Ride, the Workout app logs 60 minutes. Haven't seen any inconsistencies here. Now if you spend 30 of those minutes sitting at a cafe and don't pause the activity, you'll end up with an overstatement of "active" minutes but that's not really the watch's fault. Auto-pause should help with that though.
 

Tiggy2

macrumors newbie
Sep 21, 2021
2
0
Probably would have been better to create a new thread, @Tiggy2, as your question doesn't seem related to the nearly two year old thread you resurrected.

What is this "issue of exercise minutes"? If you log a 60 minute Outdoor Ride, the Workout app logs 60 minutes. Haven't seen any inconsistencies here. Now if you spend 30 of those minutes sitting at a cafe and don't pause the activity, you'll end up with an overstatement of "active" minutes but that's not really the watch's fault. Auto-pause should help with that though.
I thought it was related, sorry :( didn’t know it was improper to ask on an older post if anyone had found rhe answer to ebikes and accurately logging exercise on the Apple Watch. I did find the answer elsewhere though,and it seems logging the exercise using the indoor cycling setting may get the most accurate measure. http://franceskfit.blogspot.com/?m=1
 

deeddawg

macrumors G5
Jun 14, 2010
12,223
6,351
US
I thought it was related, sorry :( didn’t know it was improper to ask on an older post if anyone had found rhe answer to ebikes and accurately logging exercise on the Apple Watch. I did find the answer elsewhere though,and it seems logging the exercise using the indoor cycling setting may get the most accurate measure. http://franceskfit.blogspot.com/?m=1

People often don't notice the date of a post that pops up as "new", and would waste their time answering the two year old question when the person who asked it hasn't even been here in months.

So while improper may be a strong term, many would say it's at least discourteous. Just something to think about for future.

Glad you got your matter solved.
 
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