Nokia Step Counter beta launched: track how much you walk or run during the day
Guest blogger: Ole Kirkeby, Nokia Step Counter team
Nokia Step Counter does what it says on the tin: it counts the number of steps you take by analyzing how you ’shake’ your phone. Since most people have their phone with them everywhere they go, it is natural to use the accelerometer in an S60 product to track your daily activity.
Most commercial step counters require you to attach the measuring device to your belt. We have made an effort to ensure that Nokia Step Counter is accurate regardless of how you carry your phone. It should work fine if you have it in a pocket of your clothing, or a handbag you wear over your shoulder. The most challenging case we are aware of is when you have the phone in your hand while walking because then you ’shake’ it in a way that is not representative of how your body’s center of gravity move!
We are particularly interested in feedback on two topics. The first is the accuracy of the step counter. Can you fool it so that it picks up false steps, for example while you are driving a car with an unforgiving suspension, or can you make it ignore real steps, for example while you are shifting sideways along the shelves in your local supermarket? The second is the feature set of the application. Would you like to see more statistics in graphical format? Or perhaps a more profound summary which goes beyond the obvious steps/calories/distance numbers?
Last, but not least, we would like to hear from women! How do you carry your phone around with you during the day? If you don’t have any pockets in your clothing, or a belt, is it an inconvenience to use a mobile phone as a step counter?
- Ole
Known issues: (don’t worry, we’ll fix these)
- If you have the Activity Monitor from research.nokia.com on your phone, remove it before installing the Nokia Step Counter (added 12.05.2008)
- Height and weight must be entered in cm and kg regardless of whether Metric Units is chosen in Settings -> User
- If the scheduler is disabled and the Step Counter is run past midnight statistics might be incorrectly allocated to different days
That’s neat, nothing odd happened yet.
But why it isn’t included in Sports Tracker? Or is that the plan?
Comment by Fernando — May 9, 2008 @ 6:55 pm
I’ve installed it on my E60 and when i try to start it i get the message: “unable to start engine. exiting”
why????
Comment by yaron — May 9, 2008 @ 7:01 pm
Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaait never mind my last comment.
Comment by Fernando — May 9, 2008 @ 7:20 pm
Ole,
I have been looking to buy a pedometer somewhere this month but I bought N82 before that and I knew I won’t be sorry for the purchase. Now I have a great, intelligent pedometer on my belt whereever I go. There are few suggestions I want to make after my first 5 minutes testing the application.
1. Please allow the application to show the daily number of steps and whether I’ve met my goal on the front desktop page of the phone. This should be optional, not to anger purists or people who have enough ticker publishing apps.
2. Please add options to erase the total step counter history or the current history only. This is good in cases where I’d give the pedometer a try, test it whether its fool proof, but then I don’t want that test to mar my true step counting history.
3. Can’t you guys calculate an average step size based on weight and height so I have to actually measure it? I know you can’t have perfect data based on perfect body shape calculations, but it’d help people who aren’t gonna measure their step.
I hope this app gets few feature releases before you guys move on better application ideas. Thanks for the great work!
Comment by Apostol Apostolov — May 9, 2008 @ 7:30 pm
@ Yaron
The step counter is for the Nokia N95, N95 8GB, and N82 only. These have the built in accelerometer. I’m not sure if your Nokia has one of those…
Comment by Solitaire — May 9, 2008 @ 8:11 pm
Is this a new version of “Activity Monitor?” Does it have the same feature set?
Comment by Jeremy — May 9, 2008 @ 8:57 pm
Isn’t it the same like Activity Monitor???
Comment by Oli — May 9, 2008 @ 9:07 pm
I have Activity Monitor installed, v 0.11 and when try to install Step Counter, I have an error. “Update Error”
Comment by Fedelosa — May 9, 2008 @ 9:12 pm
It is the same as Activity Monitor, I can’t understand why can’t update it. I uninstall Activity Monitor and the installation of Step Counter was OK.
Sorry for my english.
Comment by Fedelosa — May 9, 2008 @ 9:17 pm
@ Jeremy, Oli and Fedelosa - the Nokia Step Counter is indeed a new version of the Activity Monitor that was published on research.nokia.com in December 2007. You need to remove the Activity Monitor before installing the Step Counter (you won’t loose your workouts, they are read by the new version). This problem will soon be listed in Known Issues on the main page but I forgot to do it at the launch this afternoon. My mistake, sorry.
@ Apostol
1. We wanted to show some status data in the main screen but the Symbian OS does not allow the application to write there. The restriction is most likely intended to prevent applications to ‘fight for attention’
2. You can delete individual workouts by selecting a workout from the Diary, then go to Options -> Individual workouts, highlight the one you want, then select Options -> Delete
3. Step length: go to Settings -> User and enter your Height (in cm) and Weight (in kg), and a default Step Length is calculated for you. You can override it and enter your own value if you want. The Step Length is for moderate pace. The algorithm actually adjusts your step length according to the step rate, so if you walk fast, or run, the estimated distance and energy expenditure are updated accordingly
Comment by Ole Kirkeby — May 9, 2008 @ 9:34 pm
I just installed it on my N82, and am now counting my steps as I write this via my wireless keyboard. It’s also compatible with Symbian screen readers if one opts to use the “individual workouts” option as the graphs themselves aren’t readable.
Comment by Amir — May 9, 2008 @ 9:40 pm
Will this work on N78?
Comment by Jorge Dinis — May 9, 2008 @ 10:15 pm
[…] iskoristi. Nokia je nedavno izdala novu verziju svog Nokia Maps programa, i uz druge servise, poput Nokia Step Counter-a ili Nokia Sports Tracker-a, takođe nudi i online maps servis na […]
Pingback by Nokia planira prodaju 35 miliona telefona sa GPS-om do kraja godine | Moderne komunikacije počinju ovde! - Mobilize.rs — May 9, 2008 @ 10:23 pm
Why don’t you integrate this to Sports Tracker ? Why 2 different products ?
Comment by Ludo — May 9, 2008 @ 10:58 pm
[…] la settimana delle release ai Beta Labs e oggi è la volta di un’altra nuova applicazione. Nokia Step Counter è un software che fa […]
Pingback by Spaziocellulare News Magazine » Beta Labs: Nokia Step Counter — May 10, 2008 @ 2:21 am
@Ludo — my guess as to the reason why this product is separate from Sports Tracker is that you need an accelerometer to run Step Counter and not all of the models that can run Sports Tracker have the accelerometer built-in.
Comment by Ted — May 10, 2008 @ 2:33 am
@ Ole
This is really bad restriction on Symbian OS. I think people should ultimately decide whether they want applications to show information on desktop or not. This is one reason why Android OS is going to kick Nokia’s ass, but then again competition is good and we’ll see more development on the very stale condition of Symbian.
Just my rant here, I know people will disagree.
Comment by Апостол Апостолов — May 10, 2008 @ 10:57 am
Really impressed… great stuff… would love to see more apps taking advantage of the accelerometer like this.
Comment by Niran — May 10, 2008 @ 10:48 pm
[…] Step Counter beta released 11 05 2008 Certo che quelli di Nokia Beta Labs lavorano come dei […]
Pingback by Nokia Step Counter beta released « - NokiaSpace - — May 11, 2008 @ 2:28 am
[…] post by admin Posted in 1008 | Leave a […]
Pingback by Nitrio Mobile Blog » Blog Archive » Nokia Step Counter beta launched: track how much you walk or run during the day — May 11, 2008 @ 3:54 pm
Some more suggestions to Ole about this great application:
1. Sound notification. I want to know how many steps I have made and I want to know when I reach my goal, but I do not want to be constantly looking at the screen of my phone. Implement simple sound/notification when the user makes each X steps (where X is default 1000, but can be modified in options). Also, implement an option to have sound notification only when wearing a headset (wired or bluetooth) in order not to attract unwanted attention. Sounds can be either internal, voice synthesis (”You have made 5000 steps so far. Keep walking”) or chosen by the user. I prefer the second method, but I think the third would be easiest to code.
2. Intensity Mode. In order to lose weight and burn fat, a user must burn around 300 kcal or spend about 30-40 mins using intense activity - power walking (High Intensity) or running (Intense Intensity). Step Counter can help people do this activity with encouraging and monitoring fat-burning walking/running in Intensity mode. Intensity Mode is a mode where the phone constantly encourages the user to keep walking faster or to slow down in order to remain in an intensity group of his choice (Slow/Moderate/High/Intense). The program checks whether the last 5 (or whatever period you are using) minutes are in the required intensity window and notifies the user using sound (see 1) to walk faster or to slow down. Intensity mode can have optional timer - when the user-set time’s up, the application leaves Intensity Mode and notifies the user - or calories counter - once Intensity Mode starts, the application monitors all burned calories until they reach the required amount, at which point the application Intensity Mode. You can rename Intensity Mode into Fitness Mode, which is more appropriate.
3. Email to a friend or yourself or upload daily/weekly/monthly/total report in XML. It would be nice to have the results imported in a dedicated social network/social network application for Facebook/MySpace to allow sharing data. It would serve as a great viral advertising of Nokia accelerometer phones among the sports-aware active consumer base.
Comment by Apostol Apostolov — May 11, 2008 @ 5:18 pm
First off, great app and it actually helped me realise I was not getting enough ’steps’ in a day due to sitting a a desk all day.
As for can it be fooled, yes. I noticed it recording steps in my car when ever I went over a speed bump.
As for the discussion above about data on the main screen, could it not show data as a standby app like wifi/cal/etc?
Comment by Darren — May 12, 2008 @ 11:00 am
Many apps I have used, like Share Online, Ultimate Voice Recorder and MobiGenie, manage to show data on the front page of the phont. I do not understand why there’s limitation for Steps Counter.
I would like to ask Ole something: can we believe the calorie count of Step Counter? Does it take in account the intensity of the walking or it just multiplies each step nominal to the number of steps?
More feature requests:
Few additional views for the Step Counter main view. With Left/Right the user can switch from the standard step counter screen to alternative views showing additional data such as speed of walking, number of steps in reverse count (how many more to do), etc.
Comment by Апостол Апостолов — May 12, 2008 @ 12:08 pm
Review so far…
Been using it over the weekend. So far I’ve spotted no bugs.
Next test is to run the step counter with the Sports tracker side by side. First to see if they both run together and to see if the distances match up over my journey. So I can check to see if my step length is correct…
I agree with a few of the posters that the step counter should be avalible in the Sports tracker. I’m not a programmer, but could the install not detect if there is the accelerometer in the device and then install / not install the step counter accordingly?
At worst there could be 2 versions 1 with the step counter for Accelerometer equipped phones and one without.
Comment by Solitaire — May 12, 2008 @ 4:34 pm
Ok Update..
you can run Sports Tracker + Step counter with no problems
Sports Tracker’s step count was 8166 while Step Counters count was 9179
There’s a 1013 difference probably due to either being inside a supermarket while they were running.. But it’s close.
also running Sports Tracker + Step counter + Music Player causes the phone to freeze after 13mins. I had to remove the battery to turn it off. Note MP3 playback had static bursts every 2 seconds or so only happened when all 3 were running…
my walk:
http://sportstracker.nokia.com/nts/workoutdetail/index.do?id=182460
Comment by Solitaire — May 12, 2008 @ 7:49 pm
[…] tavalla pelaamista liippaa myös Nokian beta labsin askelmittari puhelimeen. Juu; myönnän, myönnän, naureskelin aikanaan enemmän kuin vähän erilaisille […]
Pingback by Oikeita totuuksia » Step by step — May 12, 2008 @ 9:48 pm
[…] Nokia Step Counter beta launched: track how much you walk or run during the day Nokia Step Counter for all enthusiasts. Just wonder how it works with Sports Tracker? (tags: beta health mobile nokia s60 symbian pedometer) […]
Pingback by links for 2008-05-12 at Ip’s. — May 13, 2008 @ 3:23 am
Great to see some discussion here. I have divided my post into three parts according to topics.
1. STEP COUNTER VERSUS SPORTS TRACKER
- Why two separate applications? Practicalities aside, the Step Counter is not intended for the same user group as the Sports Tracker. The sports crowd is prepared to make a big effort to record their exercise as well as finding new gear that can help them improve their performance. With the Step Counter we want to reach a much larger group of people who, for whatever reasons, are not prepared to make such an effort. Let me ask you this: why are YOU reading this blog? What does a step counter mean to you? Do you want to improve your health through moderate exercise or are you a technology addict?
- Step count discrepancies. The algorithm in the Step Counter is slightly more sensitive than the one in the Sports Tracker, and that is why you don’t get the same results (thanks to Solitaire for reporting some numbers). As mentioned above the use cases are different. You wouldn’t use the Sports Tracker to record a trip to your local supermarket but the Step Counter is suitable for that.
2. NOTIFICATIONS FOR THE USER
- Sound. Yes, you can use sound to indicate how well you are doing during the day (suggestion by Apostol). For example, you can play some sort of triumphant tune for every 1000 steps. Personally, however, I would probably be more in favour of ‘nagging’ the user so that if you haven’t moved for, say, two hours you will hear a nasty beep that tells you to get out of your chair and walk around for a couple of minutes. We are treading a fine line here, though, because you could easily end up making this the most annoying feature ever.
- Main screen. This is slightly off-topic but anyway, it is of course possible for a phone manufacturerto put anything they want on the main screen. My point is that different applications have different priviliges, and if you make a downloadable application for research purposes, like our Step Counter, you are not automatically given priviliges to write to the main screen. If your application is shipped with the phone it can do absolutely anything but that is not the case here.
- Sharing of data (also from Apostol). Lots and lots of opportunities here. Just wait.
3. FEATURE SET
Plenty of good suggestions have been put forward on this blog but let me again state our basic belief: the Step Counter MUST be a simple application that is easy to set up, use, and understand, otherwise we are going to put off the majority of the people we are trying to reach. We are open to all suggestions but please realise we need to be very selective about which new features to implement.
Comment by Ole Kirkeby — May 13, 2008 @ 5:40 pm
I’m loving the app so far - couple things I’ve noticed.
The display doesn’t refresh when the keys are locked on my N95-4 while leaving the app running. I can also definitely tell that the step counter seems to count double when I’m holding it and walking. Otherwise, I’m quite impressed! Great app so far!
Comment by Jon — May 13, 2008 @ 11:59 pm
It looks like battery life is pretty seriously affected on my N95-3. The standby current is almost twice what it is without the application running. Have you considered powering down the accelerometer (and waking it for 1 second in 4 or so) if motion hasn’t been detected in a while?
Comment by Matthias Granberry — May 14, 2008 @ 10:30 am
Ole,
I think nagging the user to get out of the chair and walk around a little is just not practical. What if I am in a business meeting or I am taking a quick nap at home, or I am playing World of Warcraft (LOL, okay, you get the drift)? Sometimes we cannot be bothered to stand up and walk, and we don’t really benefit from walking a little all the day. People who are forced to turn ff step tracking in order to not be nagged will be the people who will eventually remove your application. I am still in big favor of sound notification and voice synthesis, and I am little sad that Fitness/Intensity Mode won’t find place in the Step Counter, but perhaps it’s better suited for Sport Tracker.
Comment by Апостол Апостолов — May 14, 2008 @ 12:17 pm
I agree with the nagging aspect..
But would it be possible to have something like having music played that match your walking / running pace?
I know that the Nokia media player had an option to calculate the b.p.m. could something like that be tied into either the sports tracker of the step counter? set it to play a random song from your library that closely matches your pace?..
just an idea…
Comment by Solitaire — May 14, 2008 @ 7:56 pm