I found it interesting that the two watches which had the lower step count were on one arm, while the two that had the identical step counts were on the other. I wonder if that affected them. Also, many of the higher end trackers and/or smart watches use algorithms in the background, which draw inputs from the onboard sensors, like the accelerometers you mentioned in your article; it’s not just as simple as tracking a swing of the arm. For example, if you are mowing, or carrying a coffee in your hand with the watch on it, you would capture no steps due to an arm swinging…and yet, if you look at these watches/trackers, they will track steps. What’s more, they will improve and become more accurate with time as the system takes more data and minimizes the errors that may be seen earlier on.
Just throwing this out there because there are a lot of variables to your test that could have affected the readings from the watches, and you only did a single test. That’s not enough to create any statistical relevance, but beyond that, it’s not enough to create a trustworthy comparison and/or recommendation. I’d really love to see information over a week or two for the watches, maybe varying which arm you wear them on, and in which position, each time. That would generate some truly interesting data and a great comparison!
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