Wednesday, September 19, 2012

Things to Know Before You Buy a Pedometer


A pedometer is a device that can sense the motion of a human body and thus can be used to count footsteps of an individual. If the length of a person's stride is known, the distance covered by a person can be calculated with the help of his footstep counts. Thus, a pedometer can be a great motivating tool for a walker giving him a precise idea how much distance he covers during his daily walks.
A pedometer is a wearable device and one can wear it while going out for a walk. There are several types of pedometers available in the market but before buying one, a person needs to have some brief knowledge about pedometers and its uses.
Essential Feature of the Best Pedometer:
There are different types of pedometers and all can give you step counts but you need to choose one that can give you more accurate results. In fact, the accuracy of a pedometer depends upon their functioning mechanism. They use different methods such as coiled spring mechanism, hair spring mechanism and accelerometer. In general, an accelerometer is considered to give the most accurate results. On the other hand, hair spring models are often considered as notorious, giving inconsistent footstep counts.
Besides this, you need to select between a dedicated walking pedometer and an all-day tracking pedometer. A dedicated walking pedometer will track your daily workouts. An all-day tracking pedometer can keep running throughout the day and can measure your total daily steps. Depending upon your needs, you can choose between the two.
Your pedometer 's display is another important feature and you need to make sure that its display is easy to read and you need not to remove it from its waistband every time you wish to read the display. There must be a reset button allowing you to configure the display results when you wish to do so.
Wearing a Pedometer:
If you buy an old-style pedometer based on the spring mechanism, you need to be always conscious that you are wearing something to count your footsteps, because for getting the best results you need to keep it in an upright position. If it gets titled anyway, it might not be in a perfect position to measure your footsteps. On the other hand, if you get a pedometer with accelerometer mechanism, you will get accurate step counts even when it gets tilted. You can wear such a pedometer on your waist or can keep in your pocket, but it will keep counting your steps consistently. There are several wear-anywhere models available today that you can wear on various body parts such on your wrist, arms or on your waist.
The size of your pedometer is another crucial aspect that you need to give a due consideration. If you are planning to buy a pedometer to count your total daily steps, you will preferably choose a small one that can be perfect for your all-day wear. It needs to have clips and a safety strap to keep it in its place safely and restrict it from falling.

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