I use Pacer on my phone and have it on my Apple Watch, but Pacer doesn't work unless I have my phone with me. I'd like one that would count my steps on its own and then sync with the app on the phone once it's close. Does anything like that exist?
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Apps Suggestions for a Pedometer App
- Thread starter webitorgal
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Are you sure that's not just a limitation of the Pacer app? 3rd party apps are currently reliant on the phone as they don't have access to the watch's hardware until the WatchSDK is released.
I thought the watch measured steps anyway.
I thought the watch measured steps anyway.
Didn't realize that. Any idea when WatchSDK is going to be released? The watch measures calories (based on movement) and the amount of exercise, but not actual steps. Why isn't there a watch version of the Health app? THAT measures steps.
I just tested it and it does. If you look in the Activity App on your phone, go to today's activity (hit today's rings) and scroll down to the bottom, below all the bar charts and awards. Your step total for today is listed, with total distance. I just wandered about without moving the phone and the steps updated. There is a few minutes delay so presumably it updates every now and then from watch to the activity and health apps. Possibly every ten minutes as it does that for the heart rate as well.
EDIT: I couldn't find anywhere on the watch itself that shows today's steps total though, if that's what you were after. That would be nice to have too.
EDIT: I couldn't find anywhere on the watch itself that shows today's steps total though, if that's what you were after. That would be nice to have too.
Just go into the activity app on your watch -- where you see the rings, and scroll down (north south). It has steps, calories, and distance.
Thanks, found the step tracker. It doesn't match Pacer, though. I guess I have to wait until it CAN sync? Is there a setting that you can sync the two?
Pedometer++ is what I use for tracking steps. It doesn't do anything other than that, but it does it well. Offers a nice glance for the Watch as well.
ETA: I believe the watch app tracks steps when you don't have the phone with you, but I'll have to test it to be sure.
ETA: I believe the watch app tracks steps when you don't have the phone with you, but I'll have to test it to be sure.
Have you made sure that Pacer is able to share steps data with the health app?
Edit: I have just downloaded Pacer to test this. Despite being able to share steps data with the health app, it only seems to display iPhone steps. It should be trivial for them to update this so that the app uses the overall step count from the health app.
The 
Watch as a pedometer is going to be FAR more accurate than any iPhone pedometer app. It is fairly easy to count steps based on arm swing and for the most part at nearly the same angle every time. One arm swing = 2 steps. With the iPhone it is much more of a guesstimate since it can be at any angle and accelerate by any moment.
As of now no 3ed party app can use theWatch's accelerometer to count steps. Any 3ed party app is using the less accurate iPhone and just displaying iPhone info on the Watch.
Watch as a pedometer is going to be FAR more accurate than any iPhone pedometer app. It is fairly easy to count steps based on arm swing and for the most part at nearly the same angle every time. One arm swing = 2 steps. With the iPhone it is much more of a guesstimate since it can be at any angle and accelerate by any moment.As of now no 3ed party app can use the
Watch's accelerometer to count steps. Any 3ed party app is using the less accurate iPhone and just displaying iPhone info on the Watch.The
As of now no 3ed party app can use the
Uch. Was hoping to leave phone behind now at the gym but oh well.
Is there any reason that the Activity/Health app step counts aren't sufficient until developers catch up?
Few of my friends and colleagues use pacer together to see what we're all doing and challenge each other. It's great motivation.
Fair enough. It may be worth dropping a note to the developers of Pacer to ask them to update the app to use the overall number of steps from Health, rather than the iPhone only steps. I'm surprised developers haven't already done this, I don't believe that the Apple Watch is the first device to measure steps and sync with the Health app.
Sent in to them. All other pedometer apps seem to also only use iPhone steps. We'll see I guess. Thx for the suggestion.
Yeah, I looked at MyFitnessPal and it uses my iPhone 5s steps. I'm glad there is an easy mechanism to put this right, though.
Huh. I really would think that simply taking the overall step count from the Health App would be the best solution, especially since the AW will not be the only iOS pedometer device that people use. Oh well.
I thought this as well.
If you go to the Health app, click on Steps, and then go to 'Show All Data', you can see which steps it took from the watch and which ones it took from the phone. It seems that all of the apps out there are only able to tally up the data from the phone-recorded steps. I tried 6-7 apps tonight and they all seem to ignore the data from the watch, even though they're grabbing the steps from healthkit.
Another thing that seems strange. The 'Activity' app for the watch only accounts for steps taken since I got my watch today, the 1500 steps I took before that aren't showing in the app, even though they're all in the 'Health' app. So even though the watch communicates with the 'Health' app it doesn't seem to by sync'd properly with it today. I'm guessing after today this won't be an issue since they'll be paired together from now on.
I use the FitBit app to track my calories eaten and how many calories I have left in the day. It factors in my steps taken into the calories. However FitBit refuses to use HealthKit so I'm ditching that app (also selling my FitBit scale, since it won't send my weight to HealthKit). I'd like to find a similar app that used HealthKit for steps, and that shouldn't be a problem, however none of the apps account for steps recorded by the watch, so if I want an accurate calorie count I need to keep my phone with me at all times of the day.
It sounds like an issue with the SDK not allowing devs to grab all steps from HealthKit, only steps recorded by the phone. I'm hoping Apple has fixed this in iOS 8.4.
Interesting CNet pedometer comparison.
http://www.cnet.com/news/smartwatch-step-counter-and-distance-tracker-accuracy/
http://www.cnet.com/news/smartwatch-step-counter-and-distance-tracker-accuracy/
I switched to the Withings Body Analyzer, which syncs perfectly with the HealthKit in my iPhone 6 Plus. I had the Fitbit One which served its purpose but I lost several of the little suckers.
