My loyalties to Accupedo have seriously been challenged the last two or three months, namely because I walk extensively throughout the day and access my pedometer rather frequently, but the last couple of months the app hasn't worked for me. The app sensor didn't clock my steps unless I held my cellphone in my hand! How irritating since the pedometer app is my second most used app, and for years I've made a game of getting at minimum 10,000 steps a day!
Several years ago when choosing a pedometer app, I carefully read through numerous online pedometer app reviews and decided that Accupedo, which was repeatedly featured as one of the best, had the qualities I thought to be most useful: nice appearance, quick visual access to the number of steps taken, a step widget so I wouldn't have to open the app itself, a history log of steps taken, and the bonus of seeing the average steps by day, week, month and year. Nice little package! I downloaded it and have happily used it for years ... until about two months ago. Hmmph! [I do think some of my problems were coming from the slow death of my five-year-old Note 4, and then complicated by the app not automatically updating (which I wasn't aware of) when I bought a new phone and switched the data over to it.]
So I went searching for a new pedometer app, and one that would work. Here's what I found:
So I tested these 6 pedometer apps for 2 consecutive days to draw my conclusions (commenting on them in order from left to right). Info included from the Google Play Store is the name of the app, the creator, the rating based on the 5 point scale, number of people rating the app, and the number of downloads:
PEDOMETER (blue)
ITO Technologies, Inc
4.4 (447,939) 10 million downloads
Comments:
This app didn't start counting till I actually pushed the "start" button. But until I push the "stop" button, it will keep counting, day after day. This is the only app among this group like this, and I don't like this feature.
However, hello! This is probably going to be my new pedometer app! Why? It counts the steps well, a little more of a hyper counter than the others, which I don't like, but what I really really like about this is -- everything important is on the face screen -- the number of steps and what time during the day the most activity took place! I don't have to flip to another screen to find out what my day's activity was like! Another great point is this app had some of fewest advertisements, and the advertisements stayed at the bottom of the page, not obscuring the quick access when opening or closing the app.
PEDOMETER STEP COUNTER (pink)
Leap Fitness Group
4.7 (169,403) 10 million downloads
Comments:
Nice appearance but right away I was put off by the pop up advertising to get in and to exit from the app. This totally destroyed my interest in the app, because, as I said earlier, I access this app several times a day and therefore I would be irritated not just in this testing mode, but several times a day. No thanks! That said, it does have a lot of nice features, counts pretty accurately I would say, and has a lot of extra features on other screens, but since it doesn't package the number of steps AND show the activity throughout the day on the face screen while other apps do, this app doesn't "shine" for me.
PEDOMETER STEP COUNTER (blue)
Simple Design Ltd.
4.7 (86,722) 5 million downloads
Comments:
This app is almost identical to the Pedometer Step Counter (pink) although it is made by Simple Design. It has some extra calorie features, something I don't give a care about but which I turned off for the testing. However, the very very big downside is this app has even more pop-ups than the other Pedometer Step Counter. A lot more! As soon as I downloaded this one, I knew that despite it's pleasant appearance I was going to nix it. I did use it, however, as a kind of control group to test out how evenly the steps would be measured across the six apps. This one seemed to measure quite nicely. If the company would minimize the ads, I'm sure this app would become a popular ped counter. It really has a lot of bonus offerings and isn't limited to just being a pedometer.
DAILY PEDOMETER (dark blue)
ZJB Group
4.5 (17!) 500 downloads
Comments:
Erg. This app loads slowly, and then has a full page advertisement before getting into the app, and then a full page ad exiting. Erg! However, I love the face of this app - not cutesy like many apps are heading nowadays. Simple, somewhat elegant and very clean layout. No, the activity does not show on the face screen, but it does have a bar at the bottom that points toward awards earned. I actually like this feature, namely because I'm a big walker and want to have the challenge of some interesting goals beyond the 10,000 steps a day. I'm already motivated but the awards are unique and would make great competitive goals with a few of my big-time walking friends as well! Awards come in three categories: steps per day, combo, and total distance.
The total distance category is what I'd like to earn towards:
Everest - 8848m
Marathon - 42km
Canals of Amsterdam - 100km
F1 Circuit - 305km
Thousand Miles - 500km [sic]
A Fuel Tank - 700km
Million Meters - 1,000km
2018 Challenge - 2,018km
Circle the Earth - 40,076km
PEDOMETER STEP COUNTER (blue)
Pacer Health
4.6 (593,802) 10 million downloads
Comments:
This app does have the two key points I'm most interested in: the total number of steps per day and the walking activity measurement, although that activity is not particularly easy to read. This app has a nice appearance, isn't cutesy, puts a lot of focus on calories (something I don't care about), BUT the counter seems to be rather inaccurately low. Notice the totals on all of the apps in this blog entry and you'll see what I mean -- this app has clocked 1,000 - 2,000 less steps than the other 5 apps, so for that reason, if someone is wanting something with a bit more accuracy, this app would NOT be an option. This app has a clean uncluttered appearance (big criteria for me) and is pretty good for my purposes because of the step counter and activity log on the face screen, but it does have some full screen ads, which are annoying and it's very inaccurate in the step count. So, no, this app, while nice, still needs a bit of development.
ACCUPEDO
Corusen LLC
4.0 (50,452) 5 million downloads
Wow, surprised at these statistics because 6-7 years ago when I was choosing a pedometer app, this app along with Noom, which also isn't so popular anymore, were in the top rankings! Since updating this app for this test, the Accupedo works just fine, but it's a little high in the step count, although I think that can be explained as I kept adjusting the step sensitivity so that it would count ... so it now counts in hyper-sensitivity. Anyway, it works and apparently I just had to get a more reliable phone and update the app! However, because Accupedo didn't work during a 2 month period and I've actively embarked on finding the best pedometer app for my purposes, I realize that there are now better apps (for my purposes) on the market and so I'll be saying goodbye to Accupedo. That said, after I updated it, it now has a map to be used with GPS that logs the daily walking trail. This would suck battery and I wouldn't use much at all, but it is a very nice feature and one which was not included in any of the above apps tested.
So, in outcome, the best app for me based on pleasant and not cutesy appearance, the face screen having both step count and activity log, and minimal advertising is ........ Pedometer by ITO Technologies. I have to say, though, that there are now a huge number of great apps to choose from, and this particular one is just my favorite among the tiny number of 6 tested here.
