In today’s era of wellness and movement, what’s the one thing you strive to achieve every day? For me, it is closing my activity rings and achieving my goal of 10K steps a day.
Although this started as a marketing gimmick in 1965, personally, it is an achievable goal that helps me move more with a desk job.
Now I rely on my Apple Watch to count my steps, but it got me wondering, is it even accurate? And how does my Apple Watch know how many steps I take in a day? After a little digging, I set out on an experiment to find out the truth. Let’s dive in!
How does the Apple Watch track steps?
The Apple Watch is equipped with built-in sensors that help the watch track steps and other metrics. It also uses GPS to track the distance, route, and pace.
- What helps the Apple Watch differentiate between walking, running, and other motions is the accelerometer.
- Another sensor, the gyroscope, tracks the rotation and wrist orientation. This is useful in differentiating between walking, running, and other forms of movement.
- The Apple Watch also uses GPS, especially on outdoor walks, to track distance, pace, and route.
- Personal information that the Health app asks for, such as height, weight, age, etc., also helps in improving step count accuracy.
The more you use your watch with different types of workouts and walks, indoors and outdoors, and in different environments, the better it gets at detecting your movement patterns. Therefore, the better it gets at accurately counting your steps.
Make sure to recalibrate your Apple Watch and keep updating your personal information in a timely manner to keep it up to date.
Is step tracking on Apple Watch accurate?
A research published by Penn State Berks, titled ‘Tracking Steps on Apple Watch at Different Walking Speeds’, found the Apple Watch’s step count to be very close to manual counts on the video they recorded. The error was minimal, 1.07 steps (0.034%), with a strong correlation (r = 0.98). This indicates that the Apple Watch has a very high accuracy in counting steps.
But since I have trust issues and I wasn’t going to let one study convince me, I set out on my evening walk with a clicker in one hand and my Apple Watch on the other. I took 6000 steps while clicking my clicker with every step, and my Apple Watch recorded 5,798 steps. I took my watch for this experiment for a total of three days before I was happy with my conclusion.
| Days | Manual Step Count | Apple Watch Step Count |
|---|---|---|
| Day 1 | 6,000 | 5,798 |
| Day 2 | 1,000 | 987 |
| Day 3 | 2,000 | 1,979 |
Not that far off from my manual count. Obviously, I don’t expect any electronic device to be 100% accurate, but this little experiment gave me the satisfaction that I needed. It may overestimate or underestimate my steps, but I know it won’t be very far off from the real thing.
Wrap Up
The Apple Watch counts my steps and does so flawlessly. Well, not exactly flawless, but you get my point. It also counts my steps independently, meaning that I don’t need to carry around my phone with me in order for my Apple Watch to track my steps.
Although the step tracking was a little off from my manual count, it is still a great indicator of the number of steps I strive to finish every day. Therefore, no matter which fitness tracker you choose, every device will display a slightly different step count. The Apple Watch just seems to have much better overall value for money.
