By using the gyro mechanism inside to simulate the old style pedometers which used an arm and a spring to bounce with your walking movement. The detected movement would be counted as “steps”.
Modern devices also use GPS to determine if you are actually moving and how fast so that it can more accurately track walking and not give out free “steps” when you are exercising in place, riding a bicycle or driving in a car.
They have an accelerometer chip in them which measures the change in speed. As your arm swings forward and backward, like a clock pendulum, the acceleration can determine a step. For example, when your arm at the end of the forward swing it is essentially stopped, so that can be considered one step, then when your arm is stopped on the back swing that would be another step.
I have a relatively new model Fitbit and honestly it’s full of shit. It pretty evidently can’t tell the difference between me gesticulating enthusiastically while teaching and actually walking around. Thankfully I don’t take it too seriously but it does give me a jolt when it starts buzzing all of a sudden, congratulating me on 10k steps, and I’m just …doing a little dance about Tutankhamun, I guess 😂
They use an accelerometer. When your foot hits the floor, there is a spike of deceleration and this is counted as a ‘step.’
Generally it won’t make a difference how fast you walk or how long your stride is. If you walk so slowly/smoothly that there’s no significant deceleration though, it won’t count them.
When people walk there is always a small movement of the upper body and arms as well. So your smart watches are actually counting how many times your arm moves forward and backward.
This is pretty much unrelated to your stride length and walking speed as you always move one leg and the opposite arm together. So one arm movement equals one step.
Based on the assumption that when you walk you swing your arms opposite your legs, the number of arm swings should roughly equal the number of steps. The count can be thrown off if you’re walking and *not* swinging your arms… ie: pushing a grocery cart or holding the handles on a treadmill. And, it might over-count steps if you are swinging your arms but not actually walking… like if you’re raking leaves or waving your hands in the air like you just don’t care.
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