You told us: Most of you think your fitness tracker data is good enough

Fitness trackers generally need to be reliable, as the last thing you want is for your accrued kilometers, steps taken, and more to be completely incorrect. But just how trusting are you of your tracker’s sensor data?

That’s the subject of our latest poll results article, as we asked Android Authority readers whether they thought their fitness tracker’s sensor data was accurate. Here’s how you answered it.

Do you trust your fitness tracker’s sensor data?

Results

We posted the poll on Thursday April 29, and it accrued over 2540 votes. A grand total of 56.6% of respondents felt that their fitness tracker data gave them a good general idea of their metrics. Most polled readers clearly don’t expect perfect results then, but are still happy with what they’re getting.

Meanwhile, just over a quarter of respondents said they were actually skeptical of metrics from their fitness trackers. We’re not surprised so many people felt this way, especially after devices like the Fossil Hybrid HR and Amazfit GTS 2 and GTR 2 demonstrated sketchy readings of some kind in our reviews.

Finally, 17.4% of polled readers felt that their fitness tracker data was indeed accurate. And it’s understandable with devices like the Apple Watch and Garmin vivoActive 4 earning praise for accurate tracking in our reviews.

Comments

• saimin: My Garmin watch with built-in GPS is a lot more accurate than my girlfriend’s Fitbit that relies on her phone’s GPS. Distances on my watch are always within 5% of what Google Maps calculates, while her distances are always 10% to 30% high, even when we are running the same route together.
• Phil Gartman: I have the Samsung gear fit 2. The only thing I really use it for is as a heart rate monitor while I’m working out. And for that I know for sure that it’s actually very accurate. I go to dialysis three times a week where my blood pressure and heart rate are checked every 30 minutes. More often than not my tracker is dead on or within a couple of BPM. As for other metrics, I don’t really care. For cycling I have a dedicated computer and Strava. I trust those far more.
• perico_jones: Let’s assume they’re off by a bit, but I just care if I’m arbitrarily over or under 20K steps in a day, not whether I did 20,000 or 20,005.
• Albin: ‘ll leave the general fitness data tracking (for oneself and for multinational companies) to others, but did buy a non-networked consumer-grade SPO2 fingertip reader follwing the big NYT article a year ago, as warning dangerous low blood oxygen for otherwise asymptomatic COVID-19, for early treatment. The professional tests are routine at medical check-in. The home device is affordable and accurate to the extent mid-90 readings are “safe” and sudden drops would mean call the doctor.
• Bryan Hill: Definitely, Apple Watch has had some wrong reading for me especially on step count and “exercise” as it uses a very lenient count.

Thanks for voting in our fitness tracker poll and for leaving comments. What do you make of the final results? Let us know below.