In order to stay fit and enjoy good health, it’s not mandatory to purchase a gym membership. One of the best exercises you can get is for free, and that is walking. Walking for at least 30 minutes each day can bring numerous health benefits.
Among others, it can help you burn calories and lose weight, strengthen your muscles and bones, reduce the risk of chronic diseases such as heart disease and diabetes, as well as improve your mental wellbeing.
If you want to make the most of your daily walks, you need to start tracking them. By keeping track of your physical activity you can see exactly how much you’re walking and if you’re meeting the recommended guidelines, you can visualize and understand the progress made over time and find the motivation to remain active and stay on track.
You can easily keep track of your walking activity with the aid of a pedometer app.
Here’s a list of apps that you can use to record your physical activity throughout the day.
ActivityTracker
ActivityTracker is a free pedometer app for iPhone, Apple Watch, and Android designed to track your physical activity with a minimum impact on your phone’s battery. This is due to the fact that, in order to record your movement, it uses the built-in motion sensors in your device instead of GPS.
ActivityTracker can keep track of your step count, the distance covered, the calories burned, or the active time. To motivate you to walk more, the app gives you the chance to set an individual weekly target and shows you a daily goal based on that target. You can set a target for the steps taken, calories burned or distance covered, according to your own preferences and needs.
If you want to analyze your progress and history, this is the app for you. ActivityTracker provides details about your hourly, daily, weekly, and monthly activity.
The app also offers progress notifications, customizable widgets, badges to see your step count directly on the app icon, and an option to share your fitness stats with friends and followers on social media.
Accupedo
Accupedo uses an intelligent 3D motion algorithm to identify walking patterns and eliminate non-walking activities, so you can have an accurate report of the steps taken.
You can count your steps by enabling GPS and seeing a map of your route or by taking advantage of the built-in step counter on your smartphone.
In addition to walking, you can use GPS to also track your running and cycling activities.
The app provides easy-to-read charts for your daily, weekly, and yearly activities, so you can analyze your progress over time.
To keep you active, Accupedo allows you to set a daily goal and sends you smart messages and motivational quotes. The app offers various widgets and the option to share with others your daily log.
Pedometer by ITO Technologies
Pedometer by ITO Technologies is a simple solution to count your steps on Android and iPhone devices. The app relies on motion sensors to save battery life and comes with a simple design that makes it easy to use.
With simple taps, you can quickly switch between report graphs regarding various fitness data, from the steps taken to the number of calories burned and your walking speed.
Pedometer offers daily and weekly reports regarding your activity but does not offer an option to set your own goal.
The app places at your disposal approximately 20 themes to choose from and gives you the possibility to share your progress for the day on multiple social media and messaging platforms. It’s worth mentioning that all the features are free, and also that the app is ad-supported.
Pedometer++
Pedometer++ is a step tracker developed exclusively for iPhone and Apple Watch. The app uses the motion processor in your iPhone to record your daily walks, which means it doesn’t affect your battery.
You can easily visualize diverse fitness stats, such as your step count, walking distance, active calorie burn, or the number of floors climbed.
Pedometer++ lets you set your own daily goal and offers various badges once you’ve reached or surpassed it. The app also comes with an interesting system of achievements, which are awarded when you reach certain goals: streaks, lifetime floors climbed, lifetime miles covered, and more.
StepUp
StepUp takes a different approach to step track by adding a social component to the activity. The app, available for both Android and iPhone devices, motivates you to be more active in the company of your friends.
You can compete in step challenges, check the scoreboard, and see in real-time who’s got the lead, support, or tease one another.
StepUp doesn’t resort to GPS to record your walks, which means the impact on the battery is minimum. It’s important to mention that the app is 100% free, with no ads or in-app purchases available. On the downside, it has not received any major updates in recent years.
About The Author:
Mike Cosmin Unguru is the creator of ActivityTracker and founder of Bits&Coffee. Besides ActivityTracker he has also created BatchPhoto and PhotoMarks. He began developing software at a young age and continues to bring app ideas to life to this day. When he’s not developing software, he enjoys spending time with his family and sports like tennis, skiing,
biking, and hiking.