Regarding step counts, I still think for those who are highly focused on that, getting a waist-based model will likely give better overall accuracy that the majority of watches and is fairly inexpensive. Here’s a quick article to show the style I mean: https://www.verywellfit.com/best-pedometers-4159148
I know people who do activities like knitting or drumming that would get a lot of “accidental steps” if relying on any wrist based model. My own attitude is simpler — steps cannot tell me intensity of effort. The other day I did 5082 steps for one activity, which was a walking effort of 5km with average HR of 92bpm. Then another day I did another 5km effort doing track intervals (100m x 10) which was less steps 4461 but higher average HR of 154bpm. If I were only looking at steps, the second effort seems “weaker” which is the complete opposite result of my own analysis. Of course, the walking session was good for recovery, while the intervals was just a general intense workout.
And today we have thunderstorms outside, and while I’ll get a decent amount of steps just going through the house, my primary workout today will be a rowing session which technically is “zero steps,” and yesterday was an hour long cycling workout that also was “zero steps”. Now I know in the Polar ecosystem they have a feature where they can give you “step equivalents” for things like that, but I dislike that system.
