Phone Apps That Record Distance Walked.

sandyRoe | 11:53 Sun 27th May 2018 | Technology

12 Answers

I've a Samsung phone with an app which records distance walked each day. Recently when walking with two other people each of our phones recorded different distances. My phone showed about 12 km walked, one other 14 km and the third nearly 11 km.
How can I check how accurate my phone is?

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jakep

I will be interested to see the answer to this. Apologies for not providing one myself.
Within my walking group we can get lots of different distances for the same walk.

IJKLM

Pedometers, Fitbits, Apps can count steps, but they don't know how long your stride is.

Also, stride length tends to change if one is going uphill, compared to down.

The smarter Apps can estimate stride length based on weight, height, age, etc, but it will always be an estimate.

You'll need to calibrate it over a long, known distance. Maybe walk around a running track four or five times. Or if you have an accurate GPS meter, they can give a good estimate of actual distance walked.

You need to get to the point where you are just walking, without thinking about calibrating the meter. That way, you will fall into your natural stride length, rather than making sub-conscious adjustments.

Once you know the true distance walked and the distance recorded by the App, you can use the data to adjust the recorded distance, either up or down.

IJKLM

Another point worth remembering...

Multiplying up the average step length by number of steps is unlikely to give an accurate readout of distance in every case.

Just remember that it is only an estimate.

The estimate will be reasonably accurate (probably better than 10 per cent) if the distance was covered over even ground and at the same kind of pace as your calibration walk.

It is likely to be wildly inaccurate (up to 25 per cent wrong) if the distance was done at different speeds or in different walking styles or over uneven ground, where your pace length will vary considerably.

If you are desperate to gey an accurate number, do calibrations over rough uphill ground and separately on a running track, and separately, over other types f ground so that you can vary the calibration according to the type of ground you are walking on.

hc4361

I use this to record distance walked - it calculates the distance using GPS which I think is more accurate than measuring steps alone

http://www.mapmywalk.com/app/android/

sandyRoe

Question Author

I didn't know that the distance walked figure was based on the number of steps taken. In our group that day there was a man about 6'4" in height, myself, 5'10", and a woman about 5'4".
Our different stride lengths would probably account for the different readings of distance travelled.

hc4361

Not all of them do, sandy

Canary42

I have an ordinary pedometer, and have found this website useful in checking my calibration. I find you need to work on a fairly large scale with lots of selection points - but give it a go and see how you get on.

https://www.daftlogic.com/projects-google-maps-distance-calculator.htm

sandyRoe

Question Author

I've just downloaded mapmywalk. If I can get the others to do the same we might all be singing from the same hymn sheet and walking the same distance.

Buenchico

I've recently been looking into getting a suitable app for measuring the distance I've walked. As others have said, most work by trying to count your steps. For genuine accuracy you need one which uses GPS technology, with Map My Walk (as recommended by Hc4361) being the leading player. (So that's what I'm going for myself).

NB: Having GPS permanently enabled uses a phone's battery at an alarming rate. Make sure that your phone is fully charged before starting your walk and try to ensure that you can charge it as soon as possible after your walk (or even during it, if you're stopping off at a pub or cafe). Remember to turn the app off when you're not using it!