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Comment by acjohnson55 | Hacker News Reader

I agree that any real fitness tracking solution should be able to capture a gym workout accurately, but how would you propose the dumbell thing would work? With NFC or something?

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Heart rate is a better indicator of metabolic effort than anything to do with accelerometers.

With the right accelerometers and gyros you can actually do this very easily. I've actually done something similar during a basic engineering course (we were detecting earthquakes, but the math is the same).

Edit: Downvote me all you want, but this is not that complicated to calculate.

How would this work for a 2x as strong person lifting twice as much mass as a normal person? Wouldn't that data look essentially the same?

A number of ways. First, it isn't just F = MA, the different joints and ligaments apply a different ratio of force depending on how strong you are. For example, biceps and hamstrings can get a lot stronger as a ratio of their typical strength than tendons in the wrist. By analysing known biometric data of the athlete (their weight, resting heart rate (athletes have a much lower rate), how fast they can cycle, perspiration patterns) and combining it with the gyros and accelerometers in both the phone and watch you should be able to accurately reverse calculate the weight and the exercise.

Interesting. I'd love to see how accurate this method could be, because it seems like there's a lot of variables to account for, and even then, it might not fully determine the exercise and weight.

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