Hi there, for a few months now i own a treadmill for my desk. It does alot for my overall wellbeing, but reliably counting steps there is quite a challenge.

One thing that seems to come close is my old iPhone, but as climate in this room is getting hotter as spring approaches, this is not a fun solution. (phone will annoy in lighter pants)

Things that heavily over and undercount include:

  • Garmin HRM Pro (count way too low)
  • Fenix 3HR in pants (both directions depending on chosen pants and pockets)
  • Fenix 3HR on ankle (way too low)
  • Stryd Pod (oh well that exposes no steps at all, darn it)

I read from time to time how at least Apple finds step counting and goals to be a bad and lowprio metric. I see that at least the Athlytic app does not use steps but rather the heart for calculation of target exertion and reached exertion (eventho i wonder sonetimes if exertion is too high on the treadmill).

This leaves me with the question if i should just ignore that a stepcount exists at all. I wont be filling any rings while regularily wearing the Apple Watch at all anyway.

Is there some important metric i might be missing that would suffer?