A better workaround I think is to focus on cadence. For runners, you typically want to be about 180spm, although some people might want that a little different.
Focusing on cadence should be appealing for “step people,” but you’re now focused on “current effort” rather than “total result,” the latter which can be reviewed after the session.
https://us.suunto.com/blogs/blog/tracking-cadence-heart-rate-and-pace-while-running
If one wants to have an idea of “current total” there’s some easy guessing one might do. For example, if I wanted this, then I’d round up my typical 180spm to 200spm (which I do get at some points) just for easy math. Five minutes of running? About 1000 steps. Want to hit the “10,000” steps” goal (which people should know the history about, here’s a starter link https://hopiumhealth.substack.com/p/the-10000-step-story-what-japan-taught) then 50min is 50 (200) =10,000
But at this point you could just have a goal to “run for 50m” or round that up to an hour to make up for the delta betweeen 180spm and 200spm. I can’t think of any situation where “total steps” is more important than “elapsed time” or “total distance.” Go out with a time or distance goal in mind and then, if curious about total steps, look to that when the session is finished.
Overall though, if you really want steps then you do not want a watch. You step with your feet. I don’t think most of us are wearing our watches on our leg, and on the arm, it can only estimate steps. Get a footpod to have the most accurate step data.
