Has anyone experience using the watch series 5 while riding an indoor stationary bike. There is no hand movement on my bike and right now I use a Fitbit Charge 3 strapped to my ankle to count steps. Will the watch (mine is in shipping right now) need to go on ankle as well?
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Apps Using AW5 with stationary bike indoors
- Thread starter rsfrid
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I've been using the indoor cycle app on my AW4 (and AWS0 before that). It uses heart rate to evaluate intensity of the workout. I assume AW5 works the same way. I also use the Outdoor Walk app when mowing the yard. Has always worked for me.
Got my AW5 today and did some testing with a few exercise apps and looks like I will have to wear watch on ankle to get it to count steps on the exercise bike. Even tho there is a setting for indoor bike in WorkOutDoors and the StepsApp counts steps while walking, neither will count when riding a stationary bike. The heart stuff works ok, but not steps. If I strap watch to ankle, I get good step counts and I think heart stuff is good as well.
By wearing it on the ankle aren’t you fooling it to give a higher result ? The indoor biking option is developed with stationary bikes in mind I’d assume.
I'm confused as to why you think you need to count the "steps" when on a stationary bike? The Apple Watch has never been about "steps" but filing the Move, Activity, and Stand rings. Fitbit was all about the steps, but the 10,000 step goal isn't entirely accurate either. 10000-step-goal-is-bogus, 10,000 Steps Not Always Ideal.
It's not about NUMBER of steps but for me counting something. When I ride exercise bike, I like some sort of measure other than time. Setting a goal is a personal thing. I don't measure X number of steps because it equates to X number of calories, but I count the steps to evaluate whether I am above, equal to, or below yesterday's work. I'm not a fitness freak, just want to stay in a reasonable shape. No I don't think this "fools" the count. Riding for an hour with zero stats recorded "fools" the count.
When you’re riding a bike you’re not really stepping therefore that count doesn’t make sense. The health app will provide all relevant measurements based on your exercise. You can even do the monthly challenges to get better at something. I think you’re trying to dumb down a way more sophisticated and complicated system than a mere step counter.
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Your performance metric should be caloric burn, heart rate, etc., "steps" is irrelevant if your routine includes massive changes in resistance (hill climbs, etc.), I might "step" 1/2 as much as you but burn 3X as much if you're basically just spinning the pedals with zero resistance. We've cross checked the AW with several other fitness devices, and the data for a stationary bike / spin / cycle is reasonably accurate. We do a pretty hardcore indoor cycle ride, 55 minutes, usually a ~750cal burn (880-ish total).
Exactly! I don’t get the whole obsession with step counters. Just the count is meaningless if you don’t have the other data to compare against.