Step Tracker: Meaning, Mechanism, Accuracy, Advantages, FAQ

In the growing health conscious world, the digital health apps are getting more and more traction. In this regard, fitness trackers are some of the most commonly used apps in the market today, specifically the step trackers.

In the hustle and bustle of everyday life, while people may not get time to work out, they do commute on a day-to-day level. It paves the way for individual to walk, which is one of the best workouts they get in their regular daily routine.

Here, one must monitor the daily distance walked and concentrate efforts on how to gradually add up the miles. Doing so will help a lot because wellness activities for remote employees or onsite employees like walking is an excellent physical exercise to fight an inactive life.

Owing to this, most individuals find the need to track their walks in the current age. Hence, the need and utility of a wellness tracker like step tracker. So today, let's learn a bit more about this incredibly easy to use wellness app.

What Is A Step Tracker?

A step tracker or a pedometer is a digital tool that calculates your walking distance and step count in a specific time frame. Generally, these apps track your steps per day and stores the information in the app itself for further monitoring. Step Trackers are another examples of technological wellness tools.

The Mechanism Of A Step Tracker- How Do They Work?

The speed at which science advances these days is simply astonishing. Likewise, the curiosity of how certain things work also gets multiplied, and it is the same with a step tracker’s mechanism.. Many people may wonder how a pedometer works.

To know its mechanism, you must understand how a pedometer determines a step. Here, every time we walk, the body tilts to a side as we put a leg forward. It happens as we keep walking, forming a pendulum-like movement. For the pedometers, every one of these tilts of the hip is a step.

The mechanical step tracker of early days worked on this mechanism by working like a pendulum clock. Here, except for keeping time with every tilt, they took it as a step and went on counting.

Fast forward a few years and arrives an electronic pedometer that uses this same technique but in an electronic format. Inside these electronic pedometers, you'd still find a pendulum-mechanism.

In current day and age, a step tracker app on the smartphone uses the phone's in-built GPS to calculate how much distance you've walked. The in-built GPS tracking in smartphones has many varying precisions that helps an app figure out how much a user has walked.

That was a brief on how pedometers worked in the past and evolved from there. Now, behind all this science arises a question; what about these step trackers' accuracy levels counting your steps.

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How Accurate Are The Step Trackers?

A step tracker's measurements are only an approximation, so no, they are not super accurate. Also, there can be some false body movements that the trackers may count as your daily steps, which are not an actual step. In all fairness, these step trackers can be pretty accurate to around ninety-five percent of their count.

Now that we have understood that in a nutshell, let's move ahead to the advantages of using a step tracker.

Advantages Of A Step Tracker

1. Daily Employee Health

Keeping your employee health on track is essential to reduce absenteeism, a major issue crippling corporates worldwide. Having a step tracker can help keep a tab on the physical activity of workers. It will help you eliminate a sedentary lifesyle that is so common in the corporate world. Other than this, it will also help promote a proper corporate wellness culture.

2. Encourage A Healthy Lifestyle

A person's health is a personal matter. As such, individuals must take an adequate amount of accountability and responsibility to maintain it. Using a pedometer will instill the encouragement for a healthier lifestyle. Individuals can set their personal goal of walking distance and work hard until they achieve it.

3. Shareable Content

In the current age, sharing content is a significant want for people all around the world. Understanding this, many modern step tracker apps also let you share your progress on various social media platforms. It helps one engage more with like-minded individuals and bring together a community of health-conscious people.

4. Promotes Walking

Walking is an age-old wellness activity that every individual must practice in their daily life to burn calories. It aids in weight loss, reduces the risks of chronic diseases like diabetes and heart diseases, helps minimize workplace stress, depression, anxiety, etc. All of these being a few of the ordinary office workers’ health problems which needs immediate remedy.

Pedometers do a great job of encouraging individuals to walk and lead a healthy lifestyle to overcome these conditions.

5. Monitor

One of the most critical factors of any undertaking is to monitor the work and measure the progress. For this very vital need for monitoring, pedometers precisely monitor your walking distance and store it for future reference. With time, you can increase your walking distance by weekly and monthly steps to challenge yourself to a more fitter you. This helps one monitor oneself for a fitter life.

These were some of the reasons why you must use a step tracker immediately. Speaking of using a step tracker immediately, we can help you here a bit more.

Vantage Fit- An Employee Wellness App

Our in-house fitness app, Vantage Fit- An Employee Wellness and Corporate Wellness Platform, is the perfect option for promoting employee health with an in-built step tracker and more. Furthermore, it is an excellent addition to corporate wellness programs. With health metrics features like a calorie counter, heart rate monitor, mood-o-meter, health challenges, rewards, Vantage Fit is a sure hit among workers.

Your workers can complete different health tasks and get redeemable gift cards, encouraging them even more towards a healthier lifestyle. In the process, it also increases the engagement levels of the workforce regarding wellness activities. For reasons as such, Vantage Fit is very helpful for corporates.

Moreover, Vantage Fit a cost-effective option. Get a demo today!

Build a Healthy Workforce!

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Now, let’s wrap this blog up with a few of the frequently asked questions about Step Trackers.

Frequently Asked Questions About Step Trackers

1. How accurate are Step Trackers?

Answer: Step Trackers are quite precise in counting the steps, but they are not 100% accurate. You can assume their accuracy rate to be around 95%.

2. Are Step Trackers free Apps?

Answer: Yes, there are quite a few free step trackers in the market. One of the examples of such an app is Vantage Fit. You can download the app for free from Google Play Store and Apple App Store for personal use.

3. How many miles make up for 10,000 steps?

Answer: 10,000 steps makes up for roughly 5 miles.

4. What should be a daily goal of steps count while using a step tracker?

Answer: The daily goal varies from person-to-person depending on the physical activity level. If you are a moderately fit person, then you can take up a daily target of 10,000 steps and so forth. You must increase this daily goal at regular intervals for a better and healthy lifestyle.

5. Can a pedometer help me monitor my weight loss?

Answer: No, because weight loss takes into account many things, a pedometer won’t help you monitor weight loss. Weight loss depends on things like nutrition and exercise as well, besides walking. Since a step tracker will only monitor your walking distance, it cannot monitor your weight loss.

6. Does a pedometer take into account jogging and runs as well?

Answer: Yes, most pedometer in the market also monitors jogging and running as well.

7. Where is a step tracker worn?

Answer: Most of the pedometers are designed for the wrist, but you only need to carry the phone around for an app.

These were a few of the FAQs related to step trackers.

Conclusion

Employee Health is a much bigger issue than it was in yesteryears. With the global outbreak of COVID-19, workers are even more concerned about their wellbeing. In this regard, you must be cautious about their wellbeing as well. To do this, encouraging the use of activity trackers like pedometer apps will be a great start.

This article is written by Jyoti Prakash Barman. He is an in-house Content Marketer at Vantage Fit with interests in music and automobiles. For any related queries, contact editor@vantagecircle.com