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.

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Why are we step counting in the 21st century?

[Applehu Akbar]

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.