The Best Android Apps For Counting Steps

Only 9,947 steps to go! Pacer Pedometer & Weight Loss Coach is a great app, but getting rid of the ads will cost you. Ten thousand steps. Conventional wisdom says that's how many you should take every day to stay fit and healthy. OK, but how do you keep tabs on your step count, Simple: Buy a fitness band. There's another device that can tally your steps, and you already carry it everywhere you go. It's your phone, of course. Thanks to built-in accelerometers, the phone can easily pull pedometer duty. All you need is an app that records the results (and, ideally, syncs them with other apps). Let's take a look at some of the best step-counter apps for Android. More than a mere pedometer, Google's fitness app is designed to track just about any activity: running, cycling and, of course, walking. It also allows you to set up goals, including things like walking 10,000 steps per day. Unsurprisingly, Fit plays nice with a wealth of third-party apps and products, including watches, fitness bands, even seeming competitors like Runkeeper. And you can monitor your progress not just on your phone, but also on the web via Google's Fit portal.

Although there are other apps that put a stronger focus on step-tracking, if you prefer to keep within Google's ecosystem as much as possible, Fit fits the bill. With its clean interface and walker-friendly features, Pacer's app is a great option for steppers who want simple tracking, mapping and analytics. It also has a social element, with local groups you can join to immediately get (and share) fitness encouragement. Because battery life and accuracy are among the chief concerns with any tracking app, Pedometer offers four different modes designed to help you get the best balance between them. By default, it relies on your phone's built-in step counter, which provides the most power-saving. One of the oldest apps in the phone-powered-fitness game, Runkeeper was obviously built with runners in mind -- but it's just as adept at tracking walkers. With so much time and development under its belt, it's no surprise that Runkeeper offers a wealth of advanced features. It can help you set and achieve goals, provide audio cues as you exercise, play tunes from Spotify, sync step data to the likes of Fitbit and MyFitnesspal and much more. That's all great stuff, but perhaps more than the casual walker really needs. And, annoyingly, you must create an account before you can use the app. At first blush, it's hard to tell the difference between Walk with Map My Walk, Run with Map My Run, Map My Ride and the various other apps from MapMyFitness. But the big draw here is integration with MapMyWalk, a crowd-sourced collection of mapped routes.

It is therefore a good idea to disable your Phone’s location based services and enable them only when you actually need to use them. Most of the Android phones come loaded with hardware features like Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, GPS, NFC, LTE etc. now-a-days. You use all these service every now and then and have a tendency to keep them switched on all the time. However, these services drain out your Android Phone’s battery faster than you can ever imagine. It is recommended that you switch off these services when not in use and actually turn them on when you need to. While the widgets on your Phone’s home screen may look completely harmless and inactive, they suck a lot of power from your Phone’s battery and are actually power hungry. The Google Play Store offers some good quality battery saver apps that can save you the trouble of going through all those settings and closing apps and processes manually. These apps can actually manage the battery consumption professionally and help you get a lot more out of your Smartphone’s battery.

Just type battery saver in the search box in the play store and you will see a large list of battery saver apps. Use your discretion to download and install an app that suits your requirements. There could also be some specially designed apps for your smartphone. When you have very little battery left in your smartphone and you need to save it for later, you should just switch off your smartphone and save that little bit for later. The best and most basic way to save battery is to turn off your smartphone. Well, if all the above tips fail to give you sufficient back up from your Android Phone's battery, perhaps it is time to contemplate changing your Phone’s battery and look for a replacement. Buy a battery with similar specifications as your Phone’s old battery or the battery recommended by your Android Phone’s maker. Sign in or sign up and post using a HubPages Network account.