I have an iPhone X. It has a built-in “Health” app that reports, among other things, my walking distance each day. The app doesn’t require me to calibrate the length of my stride, so I assume that it determines my walking distance by GPS positioning.

But accuracy is poor. This morning I walked out a ways, and, at the far point of my walk, the app reported a distance of 1.0 miles. I returned home via exactly the same route, and the app reported total walking distance as 2.7 miles. Can’t be right! I’ve seen similar errors many times.

I’m on a health kick, and have considered getting an Apple Watch to report my daily walking distance. But I suspect that the watch uses the iPhone GPS. If so, the Apple Watch wouldn’t be any more accurate.

Do any of you folks have experience with the Apple Watch walking distance accuracy?

I am a runner. I used to use a Garmin watch for my runs. It sucked. Took forever to find satellites. Family bought me an Apple Watch 3 two Christmas's ago. Pretty much boots up instantly and running distance shows the same as my old Garmin.

It will work great for what you want. You need a 3 or 4 though. The earlier versions require the iPhone to go with you to use GPS. The 3 and 4 have built in GPS. Biggest difference is that the 4 actually can have its own cellular service so you can make calls, text, etc. out on your walk regardless of where your phone is.

I don't need all that. The 3 is great. They are also completely waterproof if you want to swim.

The Health app isn't using GPS data, it uses motion data from the accelerometer and is horribly inaccurate as far as exact distance traveled.

For tracking specific activities rather than steps-per-entire-day, you might start by trying a GPS-based activity tracking app on your phone like Runkeeper or Strava. They use GPS data and are very accurate.

Why not just use GPS for all movement tracking? Because computing position from satellite data uses a lot more power. Your phone wouldn't last all day any more.

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Thank you! Very helpful – just what I wanted to know. I’ll look for a GPS walking distance logger in the App Store. I’d only need to have the app active while I’m doing my daily exercise walk, two hours, at most.

“Walk” app works well for me.

quote:

Originally posted by Pipe Smoker:
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Thank you! Very helpful – just what I wanted to know. I’ll look for a GPS walking distance logger in the App Store. I’d only need to have the app active while I’m doing my daily exercise walk, two hours, at most.

A heads-up on this: Depending on what the app’s designer decided, the app might let you set a preference for using location services (GPS) when the app is in the background. As a previous poster said, this will cut into your battery life. You might want to totally kill the app when you’re not using it.

You can always download MapMyRide. I use it to track runs, walks, and bike rides. It’s worked well for me, even measures changes in elevation.

I haven't tried this on my iPhone, but I did on my old Android phone and it worked: I used the built-in nav/map application.

But all I really cared about was knowing the distance of a fixed walking route. Once I established that (1.5 miles, btw), I bothered with it no longer.

There is an "Activity" app on the Apple Watch that works with your iPhone. You can set goals for Move, Exercise and Stand, and the watch will pester you to meet at least the Move and Stand goals. You can track your progress on both the watch and your phone. For exercise there is better than a dozen activities from which to choose. (I use "open rowing," "indoor running," "elliptical trainer," "stationary bike" and "open exercise: strength training.")

As an aside: I've found the heart rate monitor on the Apple Watch to be remarkably accurate for a wrist-based device. In all the reviews I ever read of other wrist-based HRMs, the big criticism was they were fine at low exercise intensities, but wildly inaccurate at high levels. I wore my Apple Watch along with my Polar HRM (which uses a chest band) last Friday, while doing high-intensity interval training. As long as I wasn't pumping my arms it was always w/in 1 to 2 BPM of the Polar--if not right on.

Monday I wore just the Polar chest band, so I'd get readings on the machines, and my Apple watch. Again: Except when I was pumping my arms, it was right on.

I use RUNKEEPER on my iPhone 7. It is a very easy to use app, and it even accesses the music on my phone during walks.

As noted by some folks above, Apple Health uses stride/accelerometer, rather than GPS, to determine distance, so accuracy isn’t very good. I was advised to look for a GPS enabled walking distance app.

I tried several of those. I didn’t like most of them, for various reasons. One required me to establish an account (chuck that). Others had awkward controls. Some had displays that didn’t clearly provide the info that I wanted most (walking distance and elapsed time) because there was too much extraneous stuff (e.g., social media crap) displayed.

But I finally found one in the Apple App store that suited me perfectly: “GPS Odometer”. Simple, useful controls: Unlock, Start, Pause/Resume, Reset. Simple, clear display of the info I want: Distance (walked), Time (elapsed), Displacement (straight line distance from start point to current location), Average Speed. Also two GPS parameters: Accuracy (feet), Time Since Signal Received (seconds).

No map display, but I have Apple and Google Maps for that. You can also listen to Internet music while GPS Odometer continues tracking (I have Apple AirPods).

I initially got the free “Lite” version of GPS Odometer, but now have the “Pro” version, which adds a few features for a modest price.

BTW – GPS Odometer uses very little battery power. And none at all in its Paused or Reset state.

ETA: Very accurate too. I determined accuracy by walking exactly the same 2.7 mile route many times, and noting the consistency of reported distance.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Pipe Smoker,

I do really like my gen 3 watch. Heart rate is very accurate. I use "cardiogram" app for heart rate. The base program is free but there are add-ons for extra cost. I'm cheap so I've only got the base program and it's pretty good as is. It graphs your BPM with bar graphs and you can choose the intervals your BP is measured. Every 3 min, every 15 min and every 30 minutes. Between these intervals you can tap it to get an instant read. it's interesting to see the ups and downs as you do weight sets and how long it takes to return to close to your resting rate. All good things to know.

As far as distance tracking, look at the Strava app which is GPS driven. Free at the app store. I don't use it much as most of my walking is done on a treadmill where gps is useless.

quote:

Originally posted by Spiff_P239:
You can always download MapMyRide. I use it to track runs, walks, and bike rides. It’s worked well for me, even measures changes in elevation.

I use this for my walking and bike rides with my iPhone X and it works well.