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Step Counter is Horrible

Night Spring said:
Are you using the cycling workout while riding your exercise bike? If so, ride without starting any workout and see if it still counts steps.
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Yes, using the workout app. I'll try tomorrow to not use the workout app and see what happens.
 
Here is a cycling/step test I did on Aug 9th using the Workout App on Indoor Cycling. I did 22 minutes on a LifeFitness upright bike and did what I consider a good bit of arm swing and I got:

Steps: 448
Distance: 0.21 miles (0.34K)
Active Kcal: 175 (unrelated to test and relative to me)



IMG_0527_zpst8gclpb0.jpg


IMG_0526_zpsgig3ghrl.jpg
IMG_0528_zpslpucuchm.jpg
 
iMacDragon said:
OS 2 Has fixed this bug/nuisance for me at least, since I started using at B5
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I tested it yesterday withou using workout app and I still got 3000 steps during a 35 minutes of stationary bike riding.

I hope watch os2 makes step counting better.
 
OS2 stops steps counting when doing bike workouts, I'm sure it probably still registers if do it without workout, but not tested.
 
When walking with a mower your wrist will still move up and down with each step. The same thing happens when using an elliptical machine. I have found that some wrist based trackers are better at picking this motion up vs others. The AW tends to be less sensitive to these movements than other trackers such as my Surge.

This said, I just put the AW on 'other' and get the calorie credit from mowing. I like taking the focus off of steps and instead focusing on active calories. I am loving the AW as really the only device that will work for fitness and true iPhone integration. I also love controlling the music in my home from the wrist!

I would prefer if Apple would be a little smarter in terms of data fill in for steps with the iPhone. As it stands the health app seems to use data from the preferred device (in my case the watch) when data exists from multiple sources for the same time series. After my first time mowing with the AW I opened up the health app and watched as it synced the watch and removed 2000 steps from my tally. Instead it should use the more reliable data source for the time series. For steps - in most cases if the phone has more steps than watch then the phone's metrics should be used for the time period. The MS Band operates in this fashion and as a result you get full credit for cart pushing and lawn mowing.
 
flur said:
Actually, it's exactly so. You say you don't know/care how it works, but you seem to think it's some kind of magic. It's not. Pedometers can only sense a step if the body part they are attached to makes a movement that indicates the step. The hip is directly involved in the leg movement of making a step. The wrist is not. This is why pedometers were traditionally (not really the right word, but you know what I mean) worn on the hip (belt or pants pocket) or the foot - both are used in the action of stepping. This is also why, when wearing the AW on your wrist, putting your arms on your sides or in your pants pockets gets very accurate results - you're pressing your hands to your hip bones and/or pelvic bones, which move with each step.

Because the AW can sense motion on multiple planes, you can have your wrist in different positions and it can still detect the motion that your wrist makes when you step (aka the "arm swing" that may not be an actual swing, but rather a bob or tilt). This is why it still works when your hands are in your waist-high jacket pockets or caring a bag. But here you may see a decrease in accuracy, as some people actually don't move their upper bodies much when they walk, so if their arms aren't hanging by their sides, the wrist movement *might* not be enough to register.

If you do some searching, you'll find that all pedometers out there have that same limitation - if they are attached to a body part that's not moving or is fairly stabilized, like the wrist when pushing a cart or stroller, they cannot detect steps.
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The iPhone in your pocket or the fitbit you put in your pocket are very accurate and don't use any arm swinging motion to detect steps.
 
BlueMoon63 said:
Very similar to me :) except I am in the northern Midwest and you better use a John Deere :)

Sounds like we may have the same headphones as well. Need it for the noise the mower makes especially when listening to a book.
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John Deere mowers are made by same company as the Walmart ones - MTD. All crap.
 
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