Good pedometer watch, to track running and walking
December 25, 2011 10:27 AM   Subscribe

Can you suggest a good pedometer watch, for less than 100 dollars?

something that will track both walking and running, and is accurate. If it does other things (heart rate etc) then that is a bonus, but tracking miles/steps/speed is what I am after - both walking and running. Any suggestions?
posted by raghuram to Health & Fitness (10 answers total) 3 users marked this as a favorite
 
Does it need to be a watch? The best pedometer I know of is Fitbit. You can wear it clipped anywhere on your torso, and it tracks steps, miles, speed, elevation, calorie burn, and sleep quality. I have tested it against other pedometers and found it very accurate.
posted by decathecting at 10:43 AM on December 25, 2011


Heh. I was also going to suggest the Fitbit, especially since the new model does include a watch function.

It's not 100% accurate — I find that when I'm on my bike it tends to give me credit for having climbed stairs, at a rate of about 1 flight of stairs per mile biked — but fairly so, and it's certainly motivating to try to get my numbers higher.
posted by Lexica at 11:08 AM on December 25, 2011


Response by poster: @decathecting
my first choice is a watch, but if fitbit is accurate enough, I don't mind getting it.

@lexica
you say fitbit is not accurate, decathecting says it is :(

I searched amazon, there are quite a few timex/casio watches in the 60-80$ range. not sure which to pick though
posted by raghuram at 11:16 AM on December 25, 2011


The Garmin FR60 (includes watch, footpod, and HR monitor) is around $100 on Amazon. I've had it for a few months and love it. In addition to giving you realtime feedback (via the screen and optional audio alerts) on distance, pace/speed, HR, and calories burned, it syncs with Garmin Connect so you can track your data over time. I highly recommend it.
posted by rebekah at 11:18 AM on December 25, 2011 [1 favorite]


No pedometer is accurate when riding a bike — it's inherent to the technology. If you want something that will accurately measure both movement on foot and movement by bicycle, you're looking at something GPS-based (and correspondingly more expensive and using more battery power).
posted by Lexica at 12:18 PM on December 25, 2011


Response by poster: @Lexica
I'm only looking for walking/running. I don't even have a bike :)
sorry if I wasn't clear before.
posted by raghuram at 12:36 PM on December 25, 2011


I was a beta tester for the Striiv pedometer. It's a tiny bit outside your price range, and it's a clip on, not a watch, but it is both accurate and fun. I run a few times a week and its measurements for steps and mileage match up pretty well with my known routes. Plus it has what I found to be surprisingly motivating tools like little trophies for beating your averages, or earning a small donation to a charity as you accumulate steps.
posted by gubenuj at 2:07 PM on December 25, 2011


Response by poster: @gubenuj
Striiv looks interesting, but does it work with running too? website mentions only walking. I understand from a device perspective, it is almost the same, just want to make sure.
It does look neat though, thank you for posting about it.
posted by raghuram at 2:21 PM on December 25, 2011


The Striiv can tell if you are running vs walking, though I'm not sure what the threshold is for when it decides you're walking vs running really slowly. This morning I went for a 4 mile run which included some hills that I was going pretty slowly up, and it logged about 5,700 steps as running and 2000 or so as walking (or really just "steps"). It doesn't separately count "trips" or "laps" and just accumulates miles and steps throughout the day. It also can tell if you go up stairs, and counts those as a subset of all your steps. Once I ran up a super steep trail and it counted those as stairs.

It keeps track of your averages, personal bests, all time totals, and can give a graph of steps, miles and calories burned each day going back a week or a month. I wish it had a way of accessing historical use back further than a month, but that's all it gives you right now. I am pretty sure it uses the accelerometer technology to figure out what you're doing, so you can actually carry it in your bag or keychain and it still "knows" what you're doing.
posted by gubenuj at 10:12 PM on December 25, 2011


Response by poster: @gubenuj
oh okay, got it. Will check it out. Thank you for telling me about it
posted by raghuram at 5:01 AM on December 26, 2011


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