I disabled my phone’s step tracking after finding out how bad the data was

I’ve been tracking my fitness on my wrist for over a decade, starting with my old Amazfit Stratos and eventually leading to my current daily driver, the Huawei Watch GT 4.

I wouldn’t exactly call myself a fitness fanatic, but I make it a point to get my sweat on with home workouts and regular daily walking.

I also like having my step count right there in front of me, which reassures me that I’ve burned enough calories even on days when I skip a proper workout.

While I love having a smartwatch strapped to my thin wrist to keep tabs on my activity, the sheer bulk and weight can be a bit of a chore, even for something as casual as taking the dog out for a quick stroll around the neighborhood or park.

On weekends, when I’m mostly just kicking back and lounging around the house, I often put the smartwatch in the drawer entirely.

Instead, I fall back on my Google Pixel 9 Pro XL or Xiaomi 15T to log my steps or map my routes when I head out for a walk or bike ride.

Doing this has made me appreciate the feeling of having my wrist freed from that extra weight of a smartwatch.

That all sounds fantastic, but counting your daily steps exclusively through a smartphone made me realize there’s one bottleneck: inaccuracy.

To see just how many steps I was losing, I decided to put my smartphone’s step counter to the test. I stacked it directly against a proper tracker to see if we can actually trust the data it spits out.

Step sensors in phones have improved over the years

But their data isn’t 100% reliable

I really appreciate how far smartphone hardware has come over the last few years.

Manufacturers have done an excellent job of utilizing built-in components such as the accelerometer, gyroscope, and altimeter to turn these small slabs into viable fitness trackers.

On top of advanced hardware, brands like Google and Samsung add software optimization and machine learning to improve tracking and precision in smartphones.

But when you get right down to it, smartphones are fundamentally held back by the very thing they are designed to be: a literal slab of glass and metal sitting in your pocket.

Because of this form factor and because you mostly keep your phone steady in your pouch while on the move, the internal sensors and pedometer algorithms can easily miss smaller movements, including steps.

With this, it has a lower chance of accurately mapping my strides than if I were holding it in one hand while swinging my arms with every step.

I’ve also noticed that the discrepancies become obvious during short indoor trips, where GPS or location tracking isn’t actively mapping my route to aggregate the step data with the actual distance traveled.

The steps counter on our phone works

But you need to keep your arm on the move

For the longest time, I shrugged off the minor data gaps, but I recently decided to get a few miles under my belt to see exactly how wide the gap between these devices truly is. The results were surprising but informative.

In one test, I went for a short walk inside the house, holding a plastic bag with one hand while my Huawei Watch GT 4 tracked my activity on my wrist and my phone sat quietly in my jeans’ pocket.

The setup revealed that my smartwatch logged well over 100 paces, while my phone barely reached 80 steps, as measured in the Google Fit app.

I suspect this comes down to the placement of my phone, and it completely misses the arm swing or stride that a smartwatch uses to cross-reference movement.

Conversely, I hit the exact opposite when standing completely still, and my hands kept making movement. My Pixel phone suddenly showed a few more steps than my watch, which didn’t record any steps.

I’m not entirely sure if this is down to my specific handling habits, but the phone’s internal sensors seem to misinterpret them as steps, artificially inflating the final count.

To make the study as scientifically objective as possible, I ran an intensive seven-minute tracking trial, holding the phone in my hand or keeping it in my pocket, even while sitting in a chair, to minimize measurement errors.

Admittedly, the recorded data gap is apparent. My smartwatch recorded 177 steps compared to my phone’s 119.

I even cross-checked the data against my wife’s newer Huawei Watch GT 5, which features an upgraded biometric sensor, and the results confirmed that my Pixel’s built-in step counter had missed the mark.

Not only was the step data skewed, but the derived calories burned and overall distance were out of sync with my watch’s baseline.

To confirm, I mapped out an entire block by walking with my phone in one hand, keeping my arm swing consistent on every step to ensure the sensors would read my movement accurately.

By the end of an 850-meter walk, my smartwatch clocked 1,102 steps while my phone recorded 1,086, a difference of 16 steps.

That surprised me as the errors were minimal compared to the other tests. While I cannot conclude right away, it’s likely that the movement in my arm was more evident.

Should you rely on your phone’s step counter?

Complement your phone with a smartwatch for improved accuracy

Following the test, I can’t recommend relying solely on your phone’s internal sensors if you’re looking for a highly accurate reading of your daily physical output.

While my phone’s step counter generally works, the built-in counter is primarily designed to aggregate and pool other metrics measured by a connected smartwatch to provide more accurate insights.

If you rely on data and want to extract every ounce of accuracy from your daily routines, picking up a dedicated smartwatch or fitness tracker is essential for reliably reaching your daily health goals.

That said, if you don’t own a wearable and have no intention of buying one, your phone’s native tracking is perfectly fine to leave running, although you should take those final numbers with a healthy grain of salt.

9/10

SoC

Google Tensor G4

RAM

16GB

Storage

128GB, 256GB, 512GB, 1TB

If you want more than just a reliable step tracker, the Google Pixel 9 Pro XL also excels in the camera while providing a pure Android experience. It’s now cheaper than ever.