If we were to explain what a pedometer is, we could say that it is a fairly small device that counts the number of steps you take. In more complicated terms, a pedometer is a device that has a very smart mechanism that can recognize when you have made a step, and register it through different signals, either mechanical or electric. Here are some other important aspects you should know about pedometers.
What are the Benefits?
Many articles cover the topic of how many benefits of exercising there are. Some of the most common ones are that it promotes mental health and that it helps fight off diseases such as diabetes, elevated blood pressure, and even cancer. The general recommendation for the amount of time you should be exercising to keep yourself healthy is about five or more days per week, for at least half an hour. Even though most people are aware of these key aspects and suggestions about daily exercise, they fail to do them in the suggested period, and some people don’t exercise at all. One of the most reassuring ways to help people work out is to make it easy for them to track their progress. This is where pedometers come into play. They allow you a simple estimate of your activity level through the number of steps you took on a given day, and the number of calories you burned off in the process. The best news is, the activities that pedometers record are very simple to perform, such as running and walking.
How Do Pedometers Work?
There are two types of pedometers that are generally used. These are the spring-levered pedometer and the piezoelectric pedometer. Spring-levered pedometers use a sort of a spring-suspended lever arm which is placed horizontally. This arm moves up and down depending on the movement, also referred to as vertical accelerations of your hips as you either walk or run. The movement at hand opens and closes the electrical circuit within the device, and a step is registered whenever the lever arm makes contact. This type of pedometer is placed perpendicular to the ground if they are to work. Piezoelectric is a material that can generate an electric charge when it’s mechanically deformed. This kind of pedometer uses a horizontal cantilevered beam which has a weight on the end that squeezes the piezoelectric crystal when it’s moving such as during walking. This compression of the piezoelectric crystal generates a voltage proportional to the acceleration (walking), and the inherent voltage oscillations are used to record the steps.
Are Pedometers Accurate?
Two aspects can be discussed when talking about the accuracy of pedometers. The first one is the distance and the second one is the number of calories you have burned in total.
Another thing to consider is the accuracy of these factors in different types of pedometers. As we’ve said before, piezoelectric pedometers show better accuracy than spring-levered pedometers because spring-levered pedometers have a mechanism that depends on the position, which can be easily skewered.
So piezoelectric pedometers have better accuracy in general, however, if you’re referring to distance accuracy, they can fall short for about ten percent. If we’re considering the number of calories burned, the measurement can be about twenty percent off. However, pedometers are made to count steps for a reason, and they are almost unmatched in this category. To have a better insight into how accurate they are, this review covers the most important pieces of information. The step measuring mechanism is, especially for piezoelectric pedometers, very carefully designed. The only thing that you should do is measure how long your step is to have the maximum length measurement accuracy.
Which Type is a Better Choice?
As we have mentioned before, there are two most commonly used types of pedometers, the piezoelectric pedometers, and spring-levered pedometers. The piezoelectric pedometers are known to be more sensitive at slower speeds than their counterpart, the spring-levered pedometers, making them more suitable for people who tend to walk more slowly. In addition to this, the tilt of piezoelectric pedometers is not as critical for performance as it is with spring-levered ones because the piezoelectric effect does not depend on the position. This can be especially beneficial in certain cases. For example, a pedometer can tilt forward into the horizontal plane if the person who’s wearing it on their waist is pregnant or has a bulkier abdomen for whichever reason. It’s been recorded that this kind of tilt in a spring-levered pedometer can make spring-levered pedometers appear to have a value twenty percent larger at faster speeds, and as much as sixty percent at the slowest speed, making it hard for someone to track their real mileage.
A pedometer is, without a doubt, one of the smartest gadgets ever created. They have a genius mechanism that helps track the activity of the given person, however, this is not its main ingeniousness. Pedometers have made it easy for people to track even the simplest activity that will keep them healthy, thus promoting the workout however simple it may be.