how do pedometers work

I think I am right in saying that a pedometer fairly accurately measures steps taken, especially my 3-axes one, but the calorie reading is only an estimate. It can't possibly know whether you are pumping your arms whilst walking, or at what speed you are going, for instance.
I am obsessive about achieving over 10,000 steps daily, often doing more (25,000 last Sunday) and feel great!

In my experience its best not to buy a really really cheap model as they are not very reliable, I have tried them. I am tempted to get a decent one as I am on holiday next week.
I am interested in how much moving about I do at home so the GPS app would not be of much use there.

"I worked it out by walking a distance measured using google maps then dividing that by the number of strides recorded."

That's what I did with my old mechanical one, but the trick is to make the same measurement several times and see whether you get the same answer. The first point with any measuring instrument is that if it's not repeatable it can't be accurate. Mine was giving a different answer every time.

"Crun - love to know more about the accuracy of cals burned - i.e. was it over or under?"

"So if I am walking and using a pedometer for calorie information it is only 35% accurate, is that what you are saying."

If the accuracy of an instrument is specified by the manufacturer as 5% say, then that means that if the true value being measured were 100, then they're guaranteeing that the reading from the instrument will be somewhere between 95 and 105, but the point is that you can't establish the manufacturer's specified accuracy by measuring. If you were to pick up an instrument specified as 5% accuracy, it might be within 2% , but if you were to conclude from your measurement that the accuracy were 2% you'd be making a mistake, because another example of the same instrument may be as much as 5% out an still be within the manufacturer's specification. All you would be able to say from your measurement is that the accuracy is no better that 2%.

So for our pedometers, if the accuracy were 65%, the reading could lie anywhere between 35 and 165. Which say that the figures they are quoting are averages, so the measurements for some pedometers must have been worse than 65%, and as we've seen, another one off the shelf could easily be worse than the measurements.

Roughly translated, it means they're about as much use as a chocolate teapot for measuring calories, but the step counting doesn't look so bad for walking and running.

You are not taking into consideration ambient temperature and atmospheric pressure at MACH 1 * crun*

crun

I've had a Fitbit Zip now for over a year. It's brilliant, very discreet, and I wear it all day. Accurate, and helps me to keep to my 10,000 steps target a day. Wouldn't go back to the old pedometer which wasn't accurate as it wasn't based on gps. If I want, the Zip also links up to my computer and iPhone for a more detailed analysis of steps, etc. Big advantage is, it is on me all day and doesn't have to link to iPhone which could drain the phone battery. I wouldn't be without it.

I have the Pacer app on my phone which is quite accurate on the steps but the calorie count does not go much above 200 even from 10000 steps. Is this right? Last week I did my Fit Steps class and recorded over 4000 steps in an hour but hardly any calories were used according to the app.

Maybe the Fitbit Zip is the answer!

Pedometers might count the steps accurately the problem I have is stopping the gadget working it's way off the waistband of the skirt or trousers you are wearing.

I do use some tape on the pedometer threaded onto a safety pin to stop it getting lost but it never seems to stay attached to the trouser so it moves with each step.

I have just bought an omron pedometer, I'm managing to exceed my 10000 steps most days, but I do wonder how accurate they are, does anyone have one of these. Also where I live it's very hilly so does it count extra calories for walking up steep hills. I only paid £17 for it so perhaps I should have spent more. Fancy one of those Fitbits.

Using a Pedometer helps in keeping track of the steps you take while doing aerobics, running, walking, steps exercise.While starting any fitness activity, You set some goals and would like to monitor it. E.g. If you have to prepare for a marathon which is 2 months away, You make a schedule of running every morning. Now you run everyday and follow the same or different path. Sometimes you feel very tired and reduce the distance or sometimes you increase the distance, But you do not have track of whether your stamina or performance is increasing or not. If you do your activity using the Pedometer, It will capture the details like distance covered each day, Steps taken and duration. You can review your performance after days and weeks to check whether it is improving or not.

richardjohnson, so glad you have a profile. Will be most useful next time we need a criminal defence lawyer in Palm Springs.

Is it too late to start running marathons at 70 richard?

with or without my pedometer which is still in its cellophane wrapping after 18 months