Most people could do with losing a little weight and engaging in more exercise. You know it is good for you, so why aren’t you doing it? Pedometer phone apps give you the motivation.
A pedometer app counts the steps you take and your phone is probably doing that already. However, not all phones have a step counter app, and even if it does, it may not be very good. For this reason, the Google Play Store and Apple App Store have a large collection of alternative pedometer and walking apps that can be used instead.
The Apple Health app on the iPhone tracks your steps and can tell you the number taken every day. It keeps historical data and can show how many steps you took yesterday or last week. It can tell you if you are beating your average daily or even yearly steps and its analysis is very good.
However, you have to dig down into the health app to uncover the data, there is no Today widget, no reminders to get up and get walking, no achievements, and so on. It is brilliant at counting step, but does nothing to motivate you to take more.
Some Android phones have a health app and some of them are good while others are not so good and some phones have no app at all. Even if your phone can count steps, it often isn’t very exciting and this means it isn’t much use as a motivational tool. Some phones count steps, but offer no app to display them.
There are dozens of pedometer, step counter and walking apps in the Google and Apple stores, but here I look at a handful that are almost identical on the iPhone and Android phones and they range from free to just a few dollars (or pounds).
There is more to losing weight and getting fit than walking of course, but it is a good place to start and anyone can do it. These apps track your activity and show calories burnt, distance travelled and steps. You can enter and update your weight too.
Step Tracker – Pedometer Free & Calorie Tracker
Price: Free | By: Leap Fitness Group | Phone: Android 5.1 or later
Most of the apps here are available for both Android phone and iPhones, but Step Tracker is Android only. It aims to track every step you take, providing the phone is carried in your pocket all day that is.
It is a nicely designed app and the home screen shows the number of steps taken so far today. Around this is a circle that fills as you walk and shows how much further you have to walk to reach your goal for today. Underneath this are the days of the week and there is a star for days you achieved the step goal. You can easily see your good and bad days.
A little further down the screen are different statistics and you can see the number of hours and minutes you have been active, the distance walked and the number of calories burned. There are some fun goals and achievements to aim for like a marathon, Boston to Philly, Sahara desert and walking to the Earth’s core.
Step Tracker records your daily total and you can view your history by day, week or month on a chart. You can also see the calories burnt, time spent walking and distance travelled either daily or the cumulative total.
The app simply reads the steps from your phone’s sensors and this means that no detectable battery is used. However, there is also an option to use GPS tracking and this does use the battery a bit, but it still does use very much. The advantage of GPS is that the route of your walk saved and can be viewed on a map. You can build up a collection of mapped walks and browse your walking history, seeing where you went, how far you walked and so on.
This is a great pedometer app for Android phones and it pretty much everything you would want. It is free if you don’t mind a small ad, but it is cheap to buy at UK £2.79 and this removes the ads. It is recommended.
ActivityTracker
Price: Free | By: Bits&Coffee | Phone: iOS 10 / Android 5
On Android, this app is called ActivityTracker – Step Counter & Pedometer and on iOS it is ActivityTracker Pedometer. The home screen is excellent and it has all the information you need, like the steps taken today, the calories burnt, distance walked, minutes of activity and floors climbed. Across the bottom of the screen is a row of animated circles that show the week’s activity.
Tap the steps and an Hourly Activity screen is displayed containing bar charts showing steps, time, floors and more. Tap at the bottom of the screen and a Daily Activity screen shows a bar chart with the steps taken each day over the past week.
On Android you get a widget for the home screen and on the iPhone there is a Today screen widget. It is the same on both platforms and is simple and clear. It shows the calories burnt, steps and a ring showing the proportion of your target completed, and distance walked.
A weekly goal can be set and the app displays daily and weekly reminders. A badge on the icon shows the steps, so you can see your progress without even opening the app, it’s there on the home screen.
ActivityTracker is visually more attractive than the phone’s built-in steps tracker and it is easier to access the information. Basically, it looks better, is more fun, and encourages activity with notifications. To remove the small advert at the bottom of the screen and add widget customization costs $4.99. (Pro code provided by Bits&Coffee).
StepsApp Pedometer
Price: Free | By: StepsApp GmbH | Phone: iOS 9 / Android 5
StepsApp Pedometer & Step Counter for Android or StepsApp Pedometer for iPhone enables you to track your activity and it encourages you to do more with notifications.
There is a very simple home screen, but it has plenty of information. The number of steps so far today is displayed at the top and a ring shows how much of your target has been completed. Below is the number of calories burnt, distance walked, and activity time.
Right down at the bottom is a chart that shows a bar chart with todays steps by the hour, and a weekly or monthly chart showing activity, with a line across showing your goal.
Not only can you set a daily steps goal, you can also set goals for the calories, distance, time and floors. Notifications can be set for five different things and there are weekly reports and progress.
StepApp Pedometer was the most encouraging of the apps and it often displayed notifications about achievements and progress, like “More than 30 min, keep it up!”, “You have completed 80% of your goal!” or words to that effect.
This is an excellent app that has everything you need from a pedometer. It tracks you, shows your activity over time, and encourages you to meet targets. The Today screen widget on the iPhone is very nice and shows everything – steps calories distance, time and a mini weekly chart. The Android home screen widget is a bit simpler.
Removing the small advert and adding some extra customization options is cheap at $2.99.
Pedometer a – Step Counter
Price: Free | By: ITO Technologies | Phone: iOS 8 / Android 4.1
Pedometer – Free Step Counter App & Step Tracker for Android and Pedometer α – Step Counter for iPhone are completely free and there is no option to upgrade to a pro version. On the one hand, it will not cost you anything, but on the other hand you must put up with a small advert at the bottom of the screen. The ad is exactly the same as in the other pedometer apps in free mode, but you just can’t pay to remove it.
At the top of the screen is a large display of the number of steps taken. In a table below is the calories, distance, time and speed. Tapping each of these shows a chart, so there are five in total. It looks like a simple display, but there is more information than you might think.
There are many color schemes to choose from, but no notifications and no widget for iPhone Today or Android home screen. That is a missed opportunity and it makes the app less useful than the others. It is still good though, and it will not cost you anything.
Pedometer – Track My Steps
Price: Free | By: Zen Labs| Phone: iOS 10 / Android 4.4
Pedometer – Track My Steps for Android and Track My Steps – Pedometer for iPhone is a simpler app than the others, but is worth a look. A big step counter is in the middle of the screen and the ring around it shows how much of your daily goal has been completed. You can also see the distance walked and the time active.
A History screen shows recent daily achievements and a week’s worth of information is displayed in a compact format. You can easily see which days you met or failed to reach your goal. There is a daily summary, but no home screen widgets or other notifications. It is just a simple step counter.
The Android version of this app kept telling me to install Google Fit to track steps, although it tracked them without it. Both Android and iOS apps require payment of $1.99 to track calories in addition to steps, this will also remove the small ad banner at the bottom.
Conclusion
There are dozens of other apps in the Android and iOS stores, but these are typical of what you will find in a pedometer. There are some that use GPS and display routes on maps, but mostly the apps just focus on activity. It doesn’t matter where you walk, it is the steps, time and distance that matter when you want to get fit and lose weight.
My personal favorite is StepsApp Pedometer because it offers more encouraging notifications than the other apps, I like the widget with the mini chart, and it is cheap to go pro, but ActivityTracker and Steps Tracker are also excellent. The iPhone apps support the Apple Watch for even better activity tracking and they pull in your step history from Apple Health.
