The mystery of calculating calories burned in Pokémon Go

A Pokémon Go player was shocked after finding his wife burned more than 10,000 more calories than him, despite only walking a few thousand steps more while playing.

Pokémon Go is widely known for encouraging physical exercise during gameplay. So much so that the Pokémon game itself has included a calories burned counter since its release in 2016, which aims to track your calories burned based on the number of not that you have carried out.

However, the accuracy of this feature has long been questioned, and now one player has been left in disbelief after his wife burned over 10,000 more calories than her partner, despite performing similar exercises.

Pokémon Go player shocked by how many calories his wife burned

The player asked: “Does Niantic think hatching eggs burns more calories in reality?” He accompanied his question with two screenshots, showing a player burning more than 10,000 extra calories while playing.

Does niantic think hatching eggs burn more calories IRL? byu/UltimateNguyen inpokemongo

“I’m a little confused. My wife and I have walked about 28 km, she has 25.6k steps compared to 18.9k for me. But, how come she burned 12.2k calories compared to 2.1k for me?”

The most popular comment read, “This entire system is a total disaster, don’t even bother checking it,”while many criticized Niantic for the “stupid”feature.

Various users suggested reasons why the calorie burn numbers were so different. One cited the use of different means of transportation, while others said it was due to the use of health data.

“What is your size? Stride length? Heart rate during walks, etc. Doing the same work between two people does not mean burning an equal number of calories,” to which Ultimate Nguyen confirmed: “I am 1.68m and she is 1.60m.”

After also revealing that his wife uses a smartwatch, one player suggested: “If she has her health data connected then this will use it. Pokémon Go guesses a bit and a smartwatch would provide more accurate data.”

“So that must be the difference. That would make more sense than hatching eggs burning the extra 10k calories haha,” Ultimate Nguyen determined.