Using iPhone for counting steps
ReenieHJ
Posts: 9,724 Member
Is it pretty accurate? I just figured out I can do that. 
Most of the time I use the treadmill so it's all figured out for me. But when I start walking outside, I'll need something reliable.
Thanks!
Most of the time I use the treadmill so it's all figured out for me. But when I start walking outside, I'll need something reliable.Thanks!
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Accurate for steps or accurate for distance or accurate for calories?0
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Well, normally I’d say yes, very accurate.
But I noticed several weeks ago there’s an issue with the transfer from iPhone to MFP. It’s shorting me 10,000+ steps a day.
And in the past week, the negative calorie function has flipped out. Last night it deducted 406 negative exercise calories, plus shorted me the 10,000.
Something is haywire between apple and MFP all of a sudden.0 -
It changed it to negative 360, and shorted me 8000 steps.
I’m confident with the phone/ watch record, because I count steps when I’m bored. Plus I know I’m roughly 10,000 steps per five miles and I walked a mile to/from yoga twice yesterday on top of recorded dog walks.
What’s transferring to MFP lately is totally wrong.
That 8,000 shortage and 360 just seems to be an extravagant disconnect. A punishment, in fact.1 -
The steps is obviously an issue, I don't recall that usually being shortened with iPhone being used as step-counter.
But calories usually has - because MFP's estimate of extra calories from steps is without time-stamp, so all those workouts are assumed to have caused those steps (right or wrong), therefore to remove double-counting gotta subtract the known workout calories.
This is exactly what happens with linked Fitbit, Garmin, couple others that send Total Daily Burn figure to MFP.
If any workouts are logged on MFP, MFP knows they must be in the TDEE figure sent, therefore they must be subtracted to prevent double-counting.
But on those devices, the workout calories could have had no steps associated with it, only calories, and it all works out right.
It's when MFP is left to do ALL the math with no time knowledge that things go awry.
MFP is almost to point of being an activity tracker using other devices for step figures.
But the expense of storage of info for time-stamping steps, and the very rough figure of turning steps into distance into calories being done by the service not a device already, and the inaccuracy when the device isn't really on ya - I'm glad they haven't attempted it yet.
I frankly think it's bad enough they attempt to get calories from steps and use that in math.
Just a get a step figure - and make alerts to the user that there seems to be a better activity level to try out. But even then, some of the steps are part of logged workouts, so changing activity level isn't right.0 -
I find steps pretty useless beyond a very rough idea but your mileage may vary - mine misses a lot of the small movement steps such as around the house or garden (is fine on a steady walk though), mine also interprets cycling as steps if I have it in a back pocket so I get thousands of extra "steps".
Distance should be as good as any other GPS device IF you are using GPS for distance. Converting steps to distance is fraught with problems as stride length varies. Extreme example - I trained for a hill walk by walking up and down 14 floors of stairs repeatedly so lots of steps but not much distance.
About the only use I've found for roughly counting steps was to show I was at least Lightly Active setting when I had a desk job and that increased to Active when I retired. Avoided linking any trackers/devices to MFP as they seem to cause more problems than they fix!1 -
@heybales I know you keep up with this stuff.
FYI, MFP was set up to transfer steps from my watch to MFP. It was only recording about half my steps. I changed MFP settings to to transfer steps from my iPhone, then changed back to transfer from my watch again.
It seems to have burped something in the system. It’s now recording most of my steps.0 -
springlering62 wrote: »@heybales I know you keep up with this stuff.
FYI, MFP was set up to transfer steps from my watch to MFP. It was only recording about half my steps. I changed MFP settings to to transfer steps from my iPhone, then changed back to transfer from my watch again.
It seems to have burped something in the system. It’s now recording most of my steps.
Great to know - Love those gotcha's - while the setting said iWatch, it must have been using the iPhone in reality, so switching to what it was doing, and then to what you wanted, actually worked.
I wonder if it lost ability with iWatch and reverted to the iPhone automatically, and just never auto-recovered? I wonder which system would do that automatically?
So strange, and one to keep in mind.0 -
Hmmm, ok. So I use the iphone along with my treadmill. I trust the treadmill would most accurately give me my distance? I came up .25 mile short on my iphone yesterday when my treadmill told me I'd walked a mile. Is there info I need to put into my phone to make it more accurate? Or would the discrepancy lie with the treadmill?0
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Neither your treadmill nor your Apple device(s) are going to get distance correct unless they ask for stride length.0
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cmriverside wrote: »Neither your treadmill nor your Apple device(s) are going to get distance correct unless they ask for stride length.
Oh dang, not sure if I know how to do that. I tried with a cheapo step counter I bought quite awhile ago and could never get it right so now it collects dust. I am so ignorant when it comes to anything like this. Will have to check it out.
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Most treadmills know the length of the belt they are running, the rotation of the cylinder running the belt, and easy to know the math (though they have calibration routines too usually for after a belt change and stretch that occurs). Unless you have tons of slop and a belt sliding around on you. But walking? Not likely that bad.
I'd trust treadmill - but I don't think Apple gives ability to adjust stride length to tested figure, never had anyone say they found it.
If it does - you want to enter a walking stride length that is middle of the road of the walking paces you may do - from grocery store shuffle to exercise pace (so it's valid for majority of your day, not just 30-60 min of exercise). For most that is about 1.8-2 mph.
Walk a known mile at that pace and log a workout for it - while the workout distance may be wrong the steps are what you want. Math it out for stride length. 5280 ft in a mile / steps0 -
When I first started exercising (ie, before discovering delightfully distracting podcasts) my OCD self counted steps during multiple daily walks and compared them to iPhone and then to Apple Watch. I found both to be amazingly accurate.
This explanation of stride length explains:
discussions.apple.com/thread/6860574
I have found only a few things that affect step count on Apple Watches, and they involve a very particular kind of wrist movement. For example, crochet records as steps. Needlepoint does not. Different wrist action.0 -
And, as stated above, there seems to be an issue with Apple Watch accurately recording steps to iPhone lately. It seems to come and go.0
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Hmmm, ok. So I use the iphone along with my treadmill. I trust the treadmill would most accurately give me my distance? I came up .25 mile short on my iphone yesterday when my treadmill told me I'd walked a mile. Is there info I need to put into my phone to make it more accurate? Or would the discrepancy lie with the treadmill?
The treadmill should give you an accurate distance, it knows how far the belt travels.
They might sometimes be programmed to give misleading calories (that's a PR exercise and not just exercise exercise!) but you should be able to trust the distance.
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springlering62 wrote: »When I first started exercising (ie, before discovering delightfully distracting podcasts) my OCD self counted steps during multiple daily walks and compared them to iPhone and then to Apple Watch. I found both to be amazingly accurate.
This explanation of stride length explains:
discussions.apple.com/thread/6860574
I have found only a few things that affect step count on Apple Watches, and they involve a very particular kind of wrist movement. For example, crochet records as steps. Needlepoint does not. Different wrist action.
Wow - so that discussion seemed to have some pretty strong examples that the claim of using GPS is wrong. Used inside it couldn't possibly.
Now, perhaps that was misunderstanding - and it uses GPS when it can verify it's good accuracy (and that is known generally), and from that and steps calculates a stride-length figure that it uses at other times when GPS is not good or available.
Smarter would be a table of turnover rates and corresponding stride-length, at the least.
That would easily explain the differences in distance with phones in pockets for the couples - their GPS was bad so it was using stride-length setting method, or combo.
Fitbit site claims in current FAQ but I still wonder if they would downgrade like this - that it's the swing of the arm that registers a step and distance. (despite fact you hold arms to chest and walk and get steps and distance)
It used to be the impact (a study or two examined the accuracy of this method), and the accelerometer chips (only a few manufacturers back then) had built-in algorithms for taking the stated weight of the person and a known stride length figure to know mathematically what the expected impact would be.
A different impact meant a different stride length it would spit out. (running included hang and arc time)
Turned out to be pretty accurate for level walking if stride-length setting was corrected, incline/decline could fool it though.
I think Garmin must do the same from my testing. The wrists devices just include the difficulty of trying to remove the swing of the arm from the data, or perhaps they do both now. Mine's on-hip, and I'm pretty sure I don't swing my hips that much!
But several comments in that Apple thread stated they knew steps could be effected by phone not held firmly - loose pants. Seems like Apple might be using impact method - which is good potentially.
Or they use both, deciding which seems better to use for the motion seen.
Interesting all these new methods might be getting used and it really hasn't help much in the average use case scenarios, nor the extreme examples.1 -
I'll have to check out the above link later but 3 uses lately have me even more befuddled. I went for a 3 mile walk the other day, and my iphone registered exactly 3 miles. Great! I hopped on the treadmill yesterday and walked 3 miles, according to my treadmill, and my iphone only registered 2.1. The other day my sister and I walked together, her apple watch and my iphone both registered the same 2.5 miles.
If I'd counted steps on my iphone, instead of miles, on my treadmill, it would've been only 7K+.
IDK I'm so old school I can't seem to figure any of this out. I'll just keep on walking.
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The time to walk 3 miles and 2.1 miles is going to be very different if it felt like the pace was even close to similar.
What was the timing difference between iphone 3 miles and iphone 2.1 miles?
Should give a clue to accuracy.
Sister's walk outside? Both devices probably using GPS.
What was that pace?0 -
The time to walk 3 miles and 2.1 miles is going to be very different if it felt like the pace was even close to similar.
What was the timing difference between iphone 3 miles and iphone 2.1 miles?
Should give a clue to accuracy.
Sister's walk outside? Both devices probably using GPS.
What was that pace?
Guess it doesn't take much to confuse me or else I need more coffee.
I'm at the point where I'm only guessing how fast I'm walking outside now. I always walk 3.5 mph according to my treadmill but seem to have a much slower pace outside, what with hills and such. So I estimate 3 mph then. And that seemed to make sense the other day when I walked 3 miles and it took me an hour; I know the distance was exactly 3 miles due to having measured the distance by car in the past.
I can remember fast walking at 4 mph back in the day. I'm definitely slowing down. I'll keep walking and estimating the best that I can. I'm not going to stress out so much about it for now. I was curious as to why there was such a discrepancy between all the ways to measure distance.
Thank you everyone!!
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@ReenieHJ
Communication between my watch and MFP is disintegrating. It wasn’t recording all steps. Deleted/reinstalled and it worked fine for about a week, and reverted back to only reporting about 60% or so.
The negative calorie adjustment has become so brutal that even though I’ve added a workout a day and have been eating a bit less to knock of few travel/holiday pounds, it’s showing me over goal most days.
It won’t let me turn off the negative adjustment now, either.
So I slog along recording calories and posting to diary, even though the diary is clearly out of sync and it looks like I’m overeating and I’m getting frustrated.
It’s screwing with my mind. I “had” this for months, and now, digitally it’s trying to say I no longer do. I don’t deal well with confusion.
Something’s up with data transfer but I can’t put my finger on it.0 -
"I'm at the point where I'm only guessing how fast I'm walking outside now."
GPS will give you accurate distance outdoors and your clock will give you accurate time so you don't need to guess.0 -
"I'm at the point where I'm only guessing how fast I'm walking outside now."
GPS will give you accurate distance outdoors and your clock will give you accurate time so you don't need to guess.
True. I’ve walked the same circuits several times a day for two or three years now. Occasionally it will burp and do the One Mile alert maybe 50 or a hundred yards earlier or later, but then I generally remember I had to cut down an alley or change directions because the High Anxiety Dog spotted something triggering he wanted to avoid.
The GPS is pretty reliable on all our routes.0 -
Check all your settings carefully. I thought I had checked every conceivable possibility, but Support suggested yet another.
Go to >more>steps and make sure it’s set on recording steps from your Watch and not iPhone or vice versa.
Mine was inexplicably changed from Watch to phone.
I don’t always carry my phone, so this explains s why it’s been shorting me thousands of steps every day.
I changed it and it immediately corrected today’s steps and gave me back a hundred “negative calories”.
I’m going for a walk later this afternoon after the gym and am curious to see what will happen.
I’m hoping this will sort out the wild fluctuations with the negative calorie adjustment.1
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