Many people underestimate the use of their smartphones. They don’t know the capabilities of the device they are holding in their hands. Smartphones are not used only for Calling, Messaging, using Social Networking apps or taking pictures. They are way more powerful than that.
In this post, I have stated one of the many effective ways of using your smartphone.
Basic Info Regarding Fitness Trackers:
Fitness Trackers are made of few sensors like an Accelerometer and some smart algorithms. An Accelerometer is basically an instrument for measuring the acceleration of a moving or vibrating body. Most smartphones these days already come with an Accelerometer.
A usual fitness tracker has a Step Counter and Sleep Tracking Functionality. Much more expensive trackers even come with a Heart Rate Sensor and GPS.
Making Your Smartphone a Step Counter:
Many smartphones these days come with a built-in Step Counting Sensor. I recommend trying the following apps with a smartphone having a Step Counting Sensor. Otherwise, the following apps may not work for your phone.
To check if your smartphone has a Step Counter, download the following app:
On Google Play Store, you will find many pedometer apps but only a few of them work perfectly. Below, I have created a list of three apps which based on my experience, I feel are the best pedometer apps.
1. UP – Jawbone
Possibly the best tracking app I could find. It tracks your apps quite accurately. The UI (User Interface) of this app is quite good and easy to use. You can manually log workouts and sleep timings. You can even play duels with your friends.
The best feature about this app is the Smart Coach. Smart Coach uses AI (Artificial Intelligence) to give you information about yourself and other cool tips to get healthier. You can also log food to know all the nutrients it contains.
If you already have a Jawbone Fitness Tracker, then you can avail more features with this app. If you don’t have a Step Counting Sensor, the app won’t work in your smartphone. This app is available for both Android and iOS.
To know more about Smart Coach, check the following video by Jawbone Support.
A Year With Smart Coach – Jawbone Support
2. Google Fit
This is a very well-known app among fitness fanatics and rightly so as it very good for tracking steps. This is a very good Pedometer app which I found to be quite accurate. You can manually log workouts with variety of sports and other activities supported.
The benefit of using this app is there are many partner apps you can use. Overall, Google Fit has a very good UI and tracking of steps is quite accurate.
3. Under Armour Record
This app is not known to many people but is a good app for tracking steps. Although I didn’t like the UI that much, I got used to it as I used the app more. Just like UP you can manually log workouts and sleep timings. This app can also help you track your workout.
There are many partner apps and other fitness trackers you can connect to. Overall, this app doesn’t have any other notable features other than tracking your steps.
Do note that…
None of the above apps will work if you don’t give the apps the necessary permissions. Also, the app should be running in the background to track your steps. Other than Google Fit, the other two apps are available for iOS too. To track more accurately, keep your GPS on.
techyvinay 
Thank you for this post! I have tried a few different step counters on my phone but was not happy with the results. I can’t wait to try your tips.
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I come up with new articles every week. Stay Tuned!!
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Any articles you would like to post on Good Drive and its entities would be helpful as well. The benefits and pitfalls of thumbdrives and how to add/edit images in Microsoft Word would be helpful. In addition if there are trick to saving files at a smaller size that I could share with my students would be great. We have a very small upload limit for our online submission software.
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Will work on it. Will try my best to help you out.
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You had asked me if there were any tricks to save files at a smaller size. Well, there is one for Excel.
Whenever you have a Excel file too big to email it, you can reduce the size by changing the extension to “. xlsb”.
So for example, if I have an Excel file which is quite big with name “Intentergy”. To reduce the size, I will rename the file to “Intentergy.xlsb”
I read this trick on life hacks. I hope it helps you. If you have any doubts, do reply.
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That is terrific! Thank you!
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It’s nice to learn something 🙂 unfortunately my phone doesn’t have the step counter
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Having a Step Counting Sensor only helps an app to track your steps more accurately. Try Google Fit, it works even without a step counting sensor.
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I post new articles every week. Perhaps a follow?
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I’ve never believed in having many devices. My laptop and smartphone only. Nice tips. Keep the good job.
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Same belief. Smartphone and laptop only.
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