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Study: Smartphones Just As Good As Fitness Trackers For Counting Steps
jfruh writes While dedicated fitness trackers that you wear around your wrist have any number of functions, many people are focused on a single metric: counting steps, which serves as a proxy for determining how active you are. But a recent study from the University of Pennsylvania showed that if that's mainly what you want out of a fitness tracker, then you almost certainly have a device in your pocket that can do the same thing as well if not better: your smartphone.
But smartphones are a lot more expensive than fitness trackers. Moreover, they tend to be far more complicated devices. Moreover, they are quite big and inconvenient to carry along when practicing fitness. So, actually, they are not so good at all for this purpose.
From the article:
Researchers gave participants an iPhone 5s running three fitness apps, a Galaxy S4 running one fitness app and six wearable devices, including products from Fitbit, Jawbone and Nike.
The people doing the test probably collapsed under the weight of all these devices...
The point of fitness trackers isn't that they do something a smart phone can't, it's that you can have them attached to yourself all of the time with little inconvenience. I don't know about you, but sometime I put my smart phone on the table for extended periods while I move around!
Or As Bad As ...?
Right.
I have a "step meter". It's one of those inferior devices with a waist clip that weighs virtually nothing and does one thing really well. Clearly, I'd rather be lugging around half a pound of glass and silicon with a quad core processor and a gig of RAM just to give me a shitty readout of my step count and then upload that information "anonymously" to the cloud because I signed away my life when I agreed to the 82 page EULA/TOS.
No thanks. I'll stick to my $20 step meter. Last I checked, I didn't have to worry about that thing crashing, running out of battery power, or uploading my data to a third party. I grab it and it works, which is more then I can say for our iPhones since iOS 8 seems to have broken a ton of apps (including the free step meter app my wife insisted on using, even though I wish she'd buy a proper step meter and leave the damned phone at home when we're out walking together).
Its much convenient to have small fitness tracker on your wrist or pocket. Phones barely fit in pockets now-a-days. Added bonus almost all fitness tracker now-a-days come with HR monitors.
Many people do not do 'fitness' with a smart phone in tow.
I've used my iPhone to track my steps as well as a FitBit to do so. I can agree from experience that they both track just as well as the other. The difference? My phone is much larger and is much more expensive to replace. I like that I don't have to bring my phone with me to track my activity when I'm out doing stuff (and no annoying calls). I also track my stats when playing ice hockey. What kind of fool would bring a phone for that?
They may be the same in terms of counting steps, but in terms of appropriateness in more situations the small, wrist based tracker wins.
"It's a tarp!" -- Dyslexic Admiral Ackbar
Looking at the graphs in the study a more accurate report would be:
Of the dedicated devices the "Fitbit One" and the "Fitbit Zip" where super accurate, but the average for dedicated devices was brought down by the abysmal performance of the "Nike Fuelband". The various apps tested gave a reasonable performance, as did the other dedicated devices tested
Some fitness trackers have a horrible battery life, needing to be recharged daily. A phone typically has the same problem. Tracking steps mean another part of the OS is awake, eating battery.
There are quite a few low power devices that are interesting. There's a Chinese one for 20 bucks that I see on deal websites.(subsidized by Bluetooth backdoor exploit?) I think misfit can go a week.
I just use my pebble watch instead. It seems to handle tracking steps and it's something I already have on me anyway. And it does 100 other things.
I use Sleep As Android to wake me up optimally. It uses the accelerometer to estimate and track sleep phase - quite effectively to. But it eats my battery like mad - if I let it track sleep all night long, I can expect a 40-60% drain. It basically can't let the phone go into deep sleep so it can keep on getting accelerometer data.
I also have a MiFit band, which cost around $20 with shipping and has a 41mah battery which looks like it's easily going to surpass the expected 30 days of usage per charge. It tracks sleep and steps and gets the heavy lifting to be done by the associated phone app. As an added bonus, it can also vibrate for notifications, which I can control thanks to a community-modified version of the app. It can also give me a simple reading of how far I've walked today via leds.
Long story short, my MiFit beats any step tracker app that someone could come up with, without breaking a sweat.
Phones are inconvenient compared to a fitness tracker. First, I have to charge my phone daily, and my tracker can go at least a week. Second, I don't have to keep my phone in the bedroom. I suppose I'm just showing my age for not wanting my phone in my bedroom. My tracker can silently wake me up! I'd have to actually sleep with my phone for that. Finally, I don't like running or exercising with my phone. My tracker weighs so much less, and I don't have to worry about it getting sweaty. Phones can do so much, but sometimes you just want a device which does less.
Make love, not reality television.
I'd like an opinion from you as a FitBit user (or any other FitBit users out there)...
Yes, FitBit's advantages include the fact that it follows you everywhere since it's more easily worn anywhere, including the shower nowadays for some of the newer models.
I got a FitBit as a gift for a good friend of mine. She was appalled by how it asks for permission to send very private info, and was really hesitant about starting to use it. (And I thought *I* was the one always warning people about society being apathetic about the insidious encroachment of privacy by software!) I did some digging and found articles on the web nothing that "Ira Hunt, the agency's chief tech officer, had this to say about fitness bands: 'What's really most intriguing is that you can be 100% guaranteed to be identified by simply your gait - how you walk.'"
Also, apparently FitBit asks for permission to access your Contacts info on the iPhone, purportedly just so it can contact all your friends who own FitBits and tell them how excited you are to have gotten one.
Would it be true that, with a smartphone app rather than a purpose-built device, you'd have more control over the privacy settings and what the fitness program does with its data? At least, presumably, there would be a choice of apps and you could choose one that is less invasive of privacy. I don't know because I use a Linux(Maemo)-based phone and don't have access to the wonderful world of Android/iPhone. Any comments in this regard would be appreciated.
Epilogue: My friend started to set up her FitBit but got scared enough about per privacy that she decided to return it. Concerned about the company harvesting her data after she returned it, she hid it in a place for two weeks to guarantee that its battery would run out before she returned it. (Not sure if this is the way to do it.)
404555974007725459910684486621289147856453481154 in hex is "You sank my Battleship?"
[GPG key in journal]
I rigged my PC with an accelerometer, gyroscope and compass. Time to strap this baby to my waist and go for a jog!
Something my fiancé pointed out is that phones can never work quite as well as fitness trackers for women. Women's clothes often don't have useful pockets if they have pockets at all. So if she's walking around the house in a dress without a purse those aren't steps are likely not getting tracked. Though that might be a small number of steps so it might not make a difference overall.
But smartphones are a lot more expensive than fitness trackers.
Depends on how you measure it. I've already got a smartphone. It's a sunk cost. A fitness tracker would have minimal benefit to me at significant additional cost.
Moreover, they tend to be far more complicated devices.
Because they do a lot more. I don't think that is news to anyone.
Moreover, they are quite big and inconvenient to carry along when practicing fitness.
This is the one and only meaningful benefit to fitness trackers. Instead of carrying a full computer you are just carrying the sensors and some storage to log the data.
I know I am counter to popularity, but I don't carry a phone that often. I am not allowed to use it at work, I only use it for tethering at school, and more often than not, I find myself trying to get away from the thing than keeping the annoyance of a device around. As opposed to my fitness tracker, no one questions me having it on, I don't get points deducted in class if I look at it, and no one every asks me to remove it.
Perhaps I am the niche, but in my case, the fitness tracker makes sense for me.
Place something witty here
Phones are inconvenient compared to a fitness tracker.
Only in some circumstances. For general use as a pedometer I normally have my smartphone with me anyway so a fitness tracker would be redundant. The only time a fitness tracker is helpful is when the bulk of a smartphone makes carrying one prohibitive or when there is a risk of damage to the phone (sweat, impact etc)
First, I have to charge my phone daily, and my tracker can go at least a week
I charge my phone daily anyway. Not really seeing a problem here. Doesn't really cause me any problems
Second, I don't have to keep my phone in the bedroom. I suppose I'm just showing my age for not wanting my phone in my bedroom.
I use my phone as my alarm clock so different strokes for different folks I suppose. It's the only alarm clock that I can program to go off on a weekly schedule so that I don't have to remember to set it every damn night (I can be forgetful about that) and it's portable so I can have it with me easily no matter where I sleep.
Finally, I don't like running or exercising with my phone. My tracker weighs so much less, and I don't have to worry about it getting sweaty. Phones can do so much, but sometimes you just want a device which does less.
I don't like to carry anything while I exercise either so I can appreciate that. That is to my mind the primary use case for a fitness tracker. Actually I think it should be the primary use case for a smart watch. Basically a sensor suite that you carry with you that can give you some basic info.
The fitbit is in my pocket frome when I get dressed in the morning until I get home and go pants free.
The cellphone lives on my desk while I am at work.
So the cellphone utterly sucks at counting my steps while it's on my desk.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
That's kind of the ENTIRE point. All that is required is ONE use case for which the phone is woefully inappropriate and the advantage goes to the dedicated device.
Umm, no. It doesn't work like that. I know folks here on slashdot just love to find the one corner case and then declare that invalidates everything else but the real world doesn't work that way most of the time. I live near a park where people go running every day. Probably the majority of them are carrying some sort of smartphone with them, usually listening to music while they run and in cases like my wife as a safety measure. Not everyone of course but lots of them. They didn't all say "OMG a fitness tracker would totally be better here" and leave their smartphones behind. The fact that a fitness tracker would be more convenient in some cases turns out to be kind of irrelevant since they are going to take the phone with them anyway.
Dedicated cameras are far better at taking pictures but smartphones are good enough for most that it doesn't matter and you don't see a lot of point and shoot cameras anymore as a result. Fitness trackers have some use cases but for most people those use cases are better served by a smartphone even with the extra bulk and problems. Honestly a fitness tracker is really serving the same purpose that a smartwatch should serve. It's really nothing more than a sensor suite with some storage and a limited interface. That's a useful thing but in most cases the more general purpose device is going to win the day unless the use case is really unforgiving. For most people that is not the case here.
If you already have a smartphone, the story is a bit different, I agree.
And the sales figures for smartphones say that odds are far better than not that you do have a smartphone. I don't think I've met a single person who has a fitness tracker who does not also have a smartphone. The target demographic for fitness trackers is very close to a subset of the demographic for smartphones.
If I would just like something that monitors my fitness, I would not be tempted to buy a device that can do a lot of other things as well.
Please point me to a fitness tracker that is usable as a standalone device without either a smartphone or a PC. I've certainly never seen one.
And I would not like to take the time to get acquainted with a smart phone, while I could master a fitness tracker in a few minutes.
If you haven't actually tried a smartphone how do you know they are harder to use? Honestly my fitbit took more setup time than my phone did and I find the interface considerably less intuitive.
Counting steps is stupid.
My wife has exactly this problem, she clips her FitBit One to the strap on her bra. Works just fine. Yes she could wear a wrist fitness tracker but she hates things around her wrists.
I've had a step counter running on my iphone 5, and it drains the battery faster than normal. It's also not something I care to wear when I'm doing cardio. My Garmin band (vivosmart) weighs essentially nothing and the battery lasts for days. Winner: Garmin.
Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms should be the name of a store, not a government agency.
Step-counting is fine in the gym, but on the street a smartphone can do what no fitness tracker can: track how far you are walking/running and, combined with map information, over what hills and at what altitude. The old-style pedometer relied on your being able to calculate an average stride and stick with it under all conditions.
At least that has been my experience with fitness tracker apps.
But they do seem to work fine otherwise.
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
In my case, my employer gives me Health Care Spending account money based on how many steps I log on my fitbit. So even if my phone can do the function, it won't get me my money.
Phone, fitness tracker, music player, camera, video-player, GPS-locator, internet browser ....
Why have another device?
If I'm running (yeah, like that happens a lot), a phone's annoying, though an armband helps. A well-designed small pedometer wouldn't be as annoying, but the basic $5 waist-band-clip step-counter pedometers fall off.
For walking, though, I'm normally wearing clothes with pockets, and the phone's not an problem; if I wanted to track motion with it it would be fine. (The basic $5 waist-band-clip step-counter pedometers? Still fall off.)
Bill Stewart
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