How trackers count steps and why they vary This is a key reason that a tracker’s location on your body is very important. However, if you’re moving over an uneven surface, the sensor may pick up wrist vibrations, giving you step counts that may or may not correspond with your actual steps. Thus a wrist-based tracker may not measure activity done while your arms are motionless (cycling, carrying groceries, or pushing a stroller or lawnmower). Conversely, if the sensor can’t detect your changes in speed, it may not count steps. Hence steps for napkin folding (confessed by a waitress), drum playing, and more. (To view great examples of raw accelerometer data for several activities, visit Unfit Bits: Research.) If you wear a fitness tracker on your wrist and you move your arms around (even if you aren’t taking any steps) the sensor detects accelerations, which may be counted as steps. The planes are X, Y, and Z, which are your accelerations from front to back, side to side, and up and down. Devices typically measure acceleration in 3 planes, hence they are known as triaxial or 3D. This detects acceleration, which is your change in speed relative to time. Most popular activity trackers and smart watches (such as products from Apple, Amazfit, Coros, Fitbit, Garmin, Honor, Huawei, Polar, Samsung, Suunto, Withings, and Xiaomi) use an accelerometer to sense movement. Why it’s so easy to trick fitness trackers To rack up fake steps you can sit on a couch and shake your wrist toss your fitness tracker in the dryer or attach your tracker to an electric saw blade, power drill, paint can shaker, ceiling fan, metronome, dog, bike wheel, or hamster wheel. There are videos and tutorials on how to cheat step counters (see video below). The ease with which activity trackers can be fooled into counting steps has turned into an entertaining game for people trying to drum up big numbers to win friendly bets and workplace rewards. Unfortunately, activity trackers can be notoriously inaccurate. What quirky activities have you done that your fitness tracker or smart watch falsely counted as steps? What about playing the drums, folding napkins, or directing a choir? How about opening and closing the refrigerator door or washing your hands? These are all activities that netted people “steps.” If you’re like the majority of people in a survey, you consider accuracy to be the most important feature of wearables.
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