Alex Flint: Body Torque Personal Training founder on the new research revealing smartwatches aren't that reliable

Millions of people around the world rely on their smartwatches to track their calories, sleep hours and workout stats, but new data has raised concerns.

Reports indicate that smartwatches don't measure most of these metrics directly, with many common metrics just being estimates.

Body Torque Personal Training founder Alex Flint says things like calories burned, fitness scores, and hours slept aren't accurately tracked.

"I use it as an overall guide, I think probably the best thing that I would use it for is just to see how I feel - compared to what my watch is telling me."

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Together do to see out nineteen past five. Now there
is a warning that your smart watch might not be
as accurate as you think it is. Apparently it may
miscount your calories burned by as much as twenty percent
and your steps taken by as much as ten percent.
And this is just on your regular book, not even
counting when you're pushing a pram where things get real weird.
Founder of body Talk Personal Training, Alex Flint, is back with.

Speaker 2 (00:19):
Us high Alex, Hi, Heather, Hell are you? I'm well?
Thank you? Do you use one?

Speaker 3 (00:24):
I do? I do? I do think they've definitely got
a place, you know, and they've been top of the
pops in terms of a fitness trend for almost a
decade now. It's just that we've got to be careful
that we use their information with a grain of salt
rather than completely relying on them.

Speaker 2 (00:38):
Well, well, then what's the point if they are this inaccurate?

Speaker 3 (00:40):
What's the point they do give us, you know, a
really healthy set of data. There's some amazing things out
there now that you know, Apple and Garment and all
these other brands, such as tracking your heart rate, even ECGs,
which are a fantastic thing to see if you've got
a regular heartbeat. But what we do know is that
things like your calorie earn, even your fitness scores, how

(01:02):
well you've slept, they're just not accurate enough at the
moment for us to really rely on them.

Speaker 2 (01:08):
So then what do you use it for?

Speaker 3 (01:11):
I use it as an overall guide. I think probably
the best thing that I would use it for is
just to see how I feel compared to what my
watch is telling me. Sometimes I feel like I've had
a terrible sleep and my watch is telling me I'm
ready to go vice versa. I think the biggest thing
that we've really got to be careful about is just
becoming reliant on a digital watch to tell us whether

(01:34):
we're eating the right amount of food, whether we're doing
the right sort of training, and actually overall how we're
feeling about our training. You know, it can potentially take
the joy out of it as well.

Speaker 2 (01:41):
Yeah, this is a very good point, actually, Alex, thank
you very much mate. Look after yourself.

Speaker 1 (01:44):
This is Alex Flint Flint Body Talk personal training Founder.

Speaker 2 (01:50):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:50):
I mean, you know that sleep thing is crap, right,
you know, because it's just because your arm is lying still,
like you could be lying still wide awake, staring at
the ceiling, and that goes, you've had a fantastic sleep mate. Now, yeah, Evan,
you've just been doing the corpse position. But where because
because then, as I was saying to you earlier, then
the crew who don't own smart watches here got real
weird about it and like like unusually emotional about how bad,

(02:11):
how much they wouldn't want to wear one, and they
were like, why would I want to know that my phone?
Isn't it You don't have to have your phone texts
going off, Like my friend Rachel, I'm naming her, Rachel
has that every text She's like, don't have to turn
that on because that's just that's like too much dopamine.

Speaker 2 (02:28):
You're getting addicted to dopamine.

Speaker 1 (02:29):
And you called us all levels around, yeah, and you're
all like addicted to it on you But it's quite
handy for it for people like me who sometimes have
my phone on silent and then I don't hear it,
but then my phone is my watch is going your
phone's ringing, that's quite handy. Oh look it's somebody important
or it's a lega from the National Party, So you
want to take that phone no, I'm joking. None of
them called me obviously not I called I.

Speaker 2 (02:48):
To hassled them.

Speaker 1 (02:50):
Also, also, the other reason it's great is because when
you're really busy as a mum and you're just burning
carrots left, right and center because you've got too many
things on the go, you can go Siri, see time
for one minute, and then you don't forget to burn
your carrot. You don't forget to take your carrots off.
It can literally save your house five two.

Speaker 2 (03:09):
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