How to make your fitness tracker count steps more accurately

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge

How many steps did you take today? Are you sure? How do you know?

If you’re one of the many people who wears a fitness band or smartwatch to count your steps, you may not be aware of one inescapable fact: they lie. Just because they tell you that you’ve reached your daily goal doesn’t mean that you actually took that many steps. The sad truth is that these devices can undercount or overcount the number of steps that you take in a day. In fact, your counts can differ widely depending on which brand you’re using.

Part of the reason is based on how they work. Today’s fitness bands use multiaxis inertial sensors called accelerometers to detect when the device is moving. Some also use gyroscopes to determine the direction and rotational...

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