How Does Ki Fit Count Calories?
Everything starts with the Ki Fit multi-sensor armband. The armband takes a broad 24/7 view of your life by ‘reading’ your body from five different perspectives.
- The armband contains an "accelerometer", a device that we use to measure many aspects of motion. Your car air-bag system uses an accelerometer to know when you have been in an accident and deploy the air-bag.
- We count your steps, using the distinctive walking and running motions measured by the accelerometer.
- We measure your "Galvanic Skin Response". The two stainless steel plates on the back of the armband are the GSR sensor that determine how much you are sweating.
- We measure your skin temperature using an electronic thermometer inside the armband.
- We measure the rate at which heat is being dissipated from your body. This is your "heat flux". Exercise physiologists are interested in the heat energy produced by the body, your muscles are fairly inefficient and we all produce a lot of heat energy when we perform physical work.
How Does the Ki Fit System Determine Your Activity?
The characteristic signals from the sensors allow us to determine what type of activity you are doing. This is important because the human body burns calories differently depending on the activity.Crunching the numbers
When your armband data reaches the website, the signals from each different sensor are analysed by algorithms which match them to calorie burn levels.
Different algorithms measure different activities. The running algorithm, for example, knows how the motion and temperature sensors relate to calorie burn when you’re running; while the resting algorithm matches another set of sensors and their relationship to calorie burn when you’re resting.
If you have a Ki Fit Display, you’ll be able to see up-to-the-minute calorie values. Your armband contains a miniaturised set of algorithms that can calculate calories and send them directly to the display every minute.Calorie Burn
The calorie burn is displayed and stored on the Ki Fit website. The diverse data recorded by the armband gives a comprehensive picture of what your body is doing and its level of exertion. This, in turn, provides a more accurate measurement of the calories you’ve burned under the varying situations and circumstances in which you find yourself every day.
How does Ki Fit count steps?
The characteristic signals from the accelerometer motion sensors enable the Ki Fit System to identify both natural walking and running. An algorithm in the armband looks for these characteristic signals and records the step count per minute.