I’ve been struggling with fitness trackers recently trying to figure out which ones are accurate. Turns out the issue isn’t always with the trackers, but where we wear them.

Why do we wear them on our wrist? Who’s bright idea was it to track steps by putting something on your arm?

If your fitness tracker has a clock or shows messages, then wearing it anyplace else would be silly, but if it’s just tracking steps, why isn’t it lower? Like around your ankle?

The issue is that my arms don’t represent all the steps I take. Maybe I’m pushing a grocery cart, holding a bag, walking a dog, or even talking on my phone. There are tons of things we do with our hands when we walk that cause step counters not to count steps accurately.

The easiest way to fix this is to put your activity tracker in your pocket. That’s where my phone is quite often and it’s always tracking higher than my wrist tracker. Course, then you miss out on the extra  information your tracker provides. The question is, did you buy it for the other features or the activity tracking? I know, probably both.

I’m thinking putting mine around my ankle once I figure out how to get it to stay there. That way it counts every step and I don’t have to worry about it when I sleep. If it’s in my pocket, chances are I’ll forget it in my pants pocket before bed. Then the sleep tracker will be way off.

Granted, if it’s around my ankle then it’ll be a tracking bracelet. Maybe that’s why we wear them around our wrists. Some marketing department is scared that they can’t sell them if they look like something that the police uses to track criminals. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

In your pocket, around your neck, or around your ankle are much better locations to track steps in my opinion than your wrist. There must be a reason, but I’m not sure what that is.