Positively Pedantic about Pedometers

[pluckyduck]

We've got a few newbies in the steppers club.....just picked up a message iin the club from one of our new folks who said, and I quote "this thing can't be counting right".

Well, it might not be counting right. If anyone can help figure out if it is or isn't or why, it would be our crew here.

So, if you've got questions, we've got answers (some of our answers are even right). Yes, we do have the 4 page long "Pedometer r Us" thread. Nothing wrong with that thread when you're shopping, but maybe we could run this thread like a little diagnostic clinic.

This is Fraiser Crane. I'm listening.

Andrea
who has been accused of being like Diane,

[taurusmoon]

Judy!

I just read about your problem in the Pedometers 'R Us thread.

I have one word for you: underwear!

Yep. Clip it to your underwear. I find that no matter what you're wearing it works best when it's closest to your body and the clothes you wear over it help to keep it stable. Waistbands tend to flop around a bit.

The only drawback is that it's a little tougher to check it obsessively when it's hidden like that. But, let me assure you, that you learn to do it with grace.

Sara

[jenninca]

What she said.

Seriously, I always clip mine to my underwear. I don't feel like explaining what it is all day long, and being on my underwear it's completely un-noticeable. Plus, I have found that it counts most accurately there.

Cindy

[pluckyduck]

I'll echo the "underwear" advice, and expand the advice to "close fitting elastic waistband". I actually feel more secure with it on the waistband when I'm wearing tights and I wear it on the outside with confidence when I've got on stretch pants or skirts. (All of my outer clothes are "close fitting" ) As long as it is snug, mine counts fine. I used to wear it on the outside of my again close fitting jeans, but after a few days of feeling like it was undercounting my lifestyle steps, I decided why risk it?

Beware of position. It is my unconcious habit to constantly check or adjust the pedometer's position, making sure it is flat against my body and straight. Sounds like a pain but it isn't.... I'm just used to doing that. Make sure it is lined up in position with your knee. The pedometer counts by picking up hip motion, so it needs to be snug to your body and lined up with the knee to catch every hip swing.

Test. Test. Test. Test. It won't be necessary to test obsessively once you are confident in the pedometer count, but I tested quite a bit the first few weeks. I was convinced it was the pedometer's plot to cheat me out of steps I was due. I found instead, that for me, my Digiwalker was counting every step pretty much perfectly, from lifestyle to actual exercise.

Count out 100 steps and check, how did it do? If you feel you are being cheated out of lifestyle steps (harder to pick up than exercise walking), make sure you do the 100 steps with same stride or impact as lifestyle and see. Again, my Digiwalker picks up everything, but not everyone has had the same experience.

Feel the whirrrrrrr. When the pedometer counts there is a little thingamabob inside that whirrrrrs around. You can put your hand, gently, on the outside as you are walking and feel it counting. You can also hear the whir if you listen closely. Both are quite reassuring!

Andrea
Positively Pedantic about Pedometers

[lynnzop[$]]

Yesterday I got fed up with the ped from h*ll. So I did what any normal right-brained person would eventually do. I fiddled with it. Here's what finally worked:

1. Wear ped clipped to OUTSIDE of blue sweat pants. Not the grey ones, not the black ones. The DARK blue ones.

2. Move ped to LEFT side of body. Right side must have some strange magnetic force because it causes the ped to refuse to count lifestyle steps.

3. Wave a dead chicken and mutter strange incantations over the ped. (No, not really, but we DID have a fox nail one of our chickens yesterday, so I thought maybe it played into the overall scheme of things.)

4. Walk around the house COUNTER clockwise - like the left v. right, this seems to have some special meaning to the otherwise personality-less pedometer.

I swear to you...this is true. I put said ped on right side of body, walking around the house clockwise and registered ZERO steps. Moved it to the left side, walked counterclockwise and counted 57 steps in one round. Additional tests proved that lifestyle steps are counted accurately just by making the simple changes above. I racked up over 3000 steps just putting away the laundry (piece by piece )

The underwear thing depends (pun intended HAHA) on what I am wearing over my underwear. If a tighter skirt or jeans, doesn't work. If a loose jumper, works.

Go figure. I'm still going to buy a new ped if I can ever find one in this god-forsaken town.

Lynn

[jgibson2[$]]

Makes sense that clipping the pedometer to underwear would work. Actually, I did that went I went to church yesterday. No place to clip it on my dress, and I was determined not to leave it behind. Obviously I couldn't obsessively count steps, but it sure was buzzing away.

[AmyLEnsor]

I personally find that when I clip my pedometer to my underwear underneath loose clothing, it tends to overcount steps. I'm afraid that if I clip in on my underwear underneath tight clothing like jeans that it will undercount and I won't know it since it would be too difficult to check. I just went downstairs to the kitchen and back up again, 86 steps and it counted it as 98, so only 12 steps over.

Since the underwear set up works well for so many people, give it a try at home where you can do some trial runs to make sure it is working correctly before braving out into the big world. My concern with my new pedometer is that the reset button is on the face and protudes enough that I'd be worried that rubbing against the waistband of my jeans might reset it.

Something else that has worked for me is to clip it on the pocket of my jeans. I have gotten really accurate counts that way, but it depends on the pants and the construction of the pockets.

[AmyLEnsor]

I think part of the reason I have problems is that the pedometer doesn't quite fit flat against my rounded midsection. The top of the pedometer is leaning in towards my body while the bottom is thrust out a bit. When I sit it starts to ride up after awhile I guess because of pressures exerted on it from below, and then when I bend over it gets knocked off because it has ridden up. Maybe that's why the pocket trick works for me.

I notice that it counts more accurately on my right side than on my left, maybe because I make more steps to the right when I'm just doing stuff around the house.

[lynnzop[$]]

Amy, I'll take over counting over under counting any day. It's really discouraging to KNOW I'm putting in more steps than what's being recorded!

Argh. Time to mutter more incantations. The darn thing's not working AGAIN. I think it's the "ped with a brain" just when I think I've gotten it figured out, it changes on me.

Lynn
(Who wants to know which ped Amy has...getting ever so close to ordering online because no one in town appears to have anything but Sportlines!)

Originally posted by lynnzop
Wave a dead chicken and mutter strange incantations over the ped.

Reminds me of the old ABC O&O IT Coordinator who kept saying that sometimes the new Disney systems worked on Voodoo and that you'd have to sacrifice a chicken to make it work.

Too bad it didn't work best with the blood of dead managers. Then I'd have been one happy guy.

[pluckyduck]

I get my chance to be Positively Pedantic about Pedometers.

I got an Omron today! (waited forever, remind me to pay for express shipping next time! )

Meanwhile, , according to very preliminary evaluation, my Digiwalker which I have sworn was 100% accurate, is undercounting.

Important question:

Is it possible that pedometers get less sensitive when the battery wears down?

I have noticed that it seemed to take longer and be harder to get steppage, but I figured it was all in my brain. I'll confess that the Queen of Testing hasn't tested the Digiwalker in weeks, really, to make sure it is accurate. But I tested it so many times the first few weeks, it started to be silly to even try to trick it.

Anyway, very preliminary testing had the Ormon matching my manual count and the Digiwalker undercounting by 10%....but that was just some lifestyle steps around the kitchen.

Andrea

[taurusmoon]

I told you so.


That's why I use the Omron 24/7 and supplement with the Digiwalker for certain activities.

I find that the Digiwalker tends to dislike slower stepping (i.e. indoors) and prefers to be taken on deliberate walks. At faster paces it closely matches the Omron in performance.

And, no, I don't think the battery has anything to do with it. But, a dying battery will affect the display. If you see yours dimming, change batteries asap.


Sara
Who thinks Andrea will love the 7 day memory feature

[pluckyduck]

I find that the Digiwalker tends to dislike slower stepping (i.e. indoors) and prefers to be taken on deliberate walks. At faster paces it closely matches the Omron in performance.

First of all, let's pause for a moment to realize that on some days 75% or more of my steps are lifestyle type steps.




Okay, now that I'm beyond mourning the loss of all my uncounted steps

I still remain

because I did test the dang thing a buncha buncha times.

Oh well, the good news is, if the Digiwalker has been undercounting by as much as 10%, I should be able to make my 10% goal, yes?

Andrea
still secretly mourning the loss of uncounted steps

[jenninca]

Uh oh. If your Omron is counting higher than your Digi-Walker, and my Digi-Walker is counting higher than my Sportline, what on earth is my Sportline counting???

I've been wearing both pedometers since I got them. My Digi-Walker has been pretty consistently about 1000 steps higher than the Sportline. However, there have been times when the Sportline counts higher than the Digi-Walker. It's very confusing.

My Digi-Walker seems to like my left side better. That's good, because the Sportline definitely likes my right side better. They both ride clipped to my underwear, except for days like today when, um, space limitations within pants don't allow for both to be worn.

I just can't figure out which is more accurate. "Field counting" always has one overcounting and one undercounting, but it's never consistent which one is doing what. I've been going with the add together and divide by two method for my daily counts.

I can see it now.... A crazed EA stepper carting around half a dozen pedometers, clipping and unclipping them based on each one's "specialty" (lifestyle steps, power walks, leisurely walks, etc.).

Cindy
who apologizes for rambling

[AmyLEnsor]

I don't mind a little bit of overcounting, Lynn! I just don't want to fool myself into thinking I'm getting more exercise than I am, so I want it to be accurate! A girl can hope!

I have two Sportlines as that is all my sporting goods store carries. I wore both of them on Saturday and Sunday and although the 343 far surpassed the 350 in counting steps, but I wasn't obsessively checking the 350, doing the tests and moving it around like I normally do.

Today I did some trials with the 343 on my underwear with nothing else over top. It was pretty accurate, I think because the clip makes for a tighter fit. The one place I knew I could make up for undercounting with my 350 was jogging around the house in my underwear (not a pretty sight).

I want to buy the Omron, but I also considered the Accusplit brands (Accusplit, Eagle and Alliance) and the Sportsbrain (whose website seems to be gone). I didn't think about the digiwalker, but now that Andrea has the Omron too, I'll just get that one. So where can I buy one? Is there a good site?

Oh, I wore the pedometer under my jeans and it didn't count any of the steps in that trial, so it will only be on my underwear if the outer clothing is a little looser.

[AmyLEnsor]

Oh, my Sportline 350 really started working well after I dropped it on the tile floor the first time. I am not kidding! Maybe that loosened up the counter or something.

[pluckyduck]

For buying fitness equipment, I can recommend this site:

http://www.bodytrends.com

Here are their pedometers:

http://www.bodytrends.com/prodpedo.htm

Beware: I wandered in the site and wandered out with a really big ball, resistance bands and a new Ormon.

Cindy -

I don't know what to tell you. My Digiwalker ended up 1000 steps under my Omron, and that was the end of my wearing my Digiwalker for at least a bit. I can't wear two pedometers. That was driving me crazy!

I still don't believe my Digiwalker has consistently been undercounting that much, really. At that rate, I would have been under 2000 steps a day.

I'm going to watch my Omron for overcounting. I'd rather be undercounted (a little) than overcounted a lot. The Omron has a sensitivity switch which is visible (I think there is one on the Digiwalker, but I never looked for it). I might have to adjust the switch.

Sigh.

Andrea

[taurusmoon]

If the Digiwalker has a sensitivity switch, I've never found it.

As far as the Omron goes, I find that the center position of the switch works best for me on just about any walking surface. Oddly enough though, it took a couple of days of use to adjust itself once I found the correct setting and left it there.

I wore both models together for about a week until I was satisfied with the Omron's reliability.


Sara

[AmyLEnsor]

Thanks, Andrea! They should give you a commission.

[AmyLEnsor]

Ooh, I just noticed the Cardio Trainer is really cool and has a digital pacer. But I can get both the Tanita SyncWalk and the Omron for less money than the Cardio Trainer, so I guess I will show some restraint.