Using a pedometer app on your Apple Watch can be truly beneficial. By monitoring how much you walk throughout the day, these apps encourage a more active lifestyle, which can contribute to better health and fitness. Whether you’re aiming to hit a daily step goal, stay motivated or simply be more mindful of your movement, a pedometer app makes it easy to keep track right from your wrist.
In this article we’ve compiled a list of ten apps for Apple Watch, ideal to motivate you to keep moving.
ActivityTracker
ActivityTracker is a pedometer app for Apple Watch designed to help you easily monitor your movement. The app will automatically record your walks throughout the day without affecting the battery (no GPS) and provide useful and detailed stats regarding your step count, distance, the calories burned, active minutes and flights of stairs climbed. You’ll be able to set a personal target not only for the number of steps, but also for the distance walked and calories burned and receive notifications for target reached and half-reached.
ActivityTracker offers an independent app for Apple Watch that provides hourly stats, a Today’s overview and a summary of your last seven days. The app offers multiple complications for a quick view of your progress on the Watch face and the possibility to synchronize steps between your iPhone, Apple Watch and the Health app. You can also import your history from Apple Health, choose from numerous widgets, with customizable fitness stats, for your iPhone or share your daily results with others.
- Price: Free (Subscription: $14.99/year)
- Requirements: iOS 15.0 or later; watchOS 8.0 or later
- Download Link: App Store
Pedometer++
If you’re an active person, Pedometer++ brings a series of valuable information right to your wrist. The app offers a variety of customizable complications that can be added to your Watch face for at-a-glance monitoring of your daily step count. The map-based mode, accessible from your Apple Watch, allows you to choose your activity, whether it’s outdoor walking, running or hiking, and see various stats, such as your distance, heart rate and speed.
Pedometer++ allows you to set your own step goals and to review your activity data through clear graphs on your iPhone. To make things more fun, this step tracker gamifies the experience with a system of badges that reward you for specific achievements, such as streaks, lifetime steps or miles. The app integrates with Apple Health to ensure comprehensive and accurate data collection across all your Apple devices.
- Price: Free (Subscription: $19.99/year)
- Requirements: iOS 15.0 or later; watchOS 6.0 or later
- Download Link: App Store
Pacer
Pacer encourages you to be more active by joining a large community and competing with other fitness enthusiasts. The app is equipped with diverse features to boost your motivation, such as the daily step challenge, in which you get to compete with others directly from your wrist. With Pacer you can create your own walking groups with family and friends, compare your stats in real-time and receive motivational notifications.
The Apple Watch app is easy to use and offers a quick overview of your progress through the available complications. You can visualize your steps, distance, active time and calories burned without needing to have your phone on you at all times. The app seamlessly integrates with Apple Health, allowing it to pull in activity data directly from your Watch. You can also enable GPS and track your outdoor walks, runs or hikes on a map.
- Price: Free (Subscription: $49.99/year)
- Requirements: iOS 15.0 or later; watchOS 4.0 or later
- Download Link: App Store
Steps
Steps is a step tracker app for Apple Watch and iPhone developed with a simple, clean interface. Everything is clearly laid out, allowing you to easily set and adjust goals, track your fitness metrics and share your activity with others. The app displays how far you’ve gone during the day in an interesting manner. During your walks, it changes colors and shows the progress made in the form of a sunrise.
The Apple Watch app comes with numerous complications to choose from and lets you set a goal for the steps, distance or perhaps active minutes. Optionally, you can enable the GPS mode and start a walking workout directly from your wrist. If you want to periodically know how you’re doing, the app can send multiple notifications during the day with regard to your progress. At the same it integrates Siri and Shortcuts support. All you have to do is say “Hey Siri, how many steps have I taken today?”, and you’ll instantly receive your results.
- Price: Free (Pro version: $3.99)
- Requirements: iOS 15.0 or later; watchOS 8.0 or later
- Download Link: App Store
Stepz
Stepz is a battery-friendly alternative to count steps on Apple Watch and iPhone. The app uses the motion co-processor to record your activity in the background and hence minimize consumption. Depending on your preferences, you can choose to have an automatic goal or manually set a daily step target and adjust it along the way. You’ll be able to see your step count on an hourly basis, as well as totals for each day, week, month and year.
The Apple Watch app is fairly simple to use and displays all the key metrics. Basically it offers a quick and easy way to glance at your activity levels throughout the day without needing to open your iPhone. Stepz allows you to connect with your friends and unlock various achievements when you complete certain milestones and therefore can help you boost your motivation level. You can fully integrate the app with Apple Health in case you want to have a comprehensive overview of your fitness journey.
- Price: Free (Subscription: $3.99/week)
- Requirements: iOS 15.5 or later; watchOS 5.0 or later
- Download Link: App Store
Argus
This is all-in-one fitness solution created to help you become fitter and healthier. How? By efficiently blending daily exercises with healthy habits. Argus can track anything you want, from your walking workouts to the calorie consumption and your sleeping habits. The app leverages the Watch’s sensors and integrates with the Apple HealthKit to monitor key metrics like the steps taken and heart rate during your sessions. Optionally you can activate GPS and track more activities, such as running or cycling.
Argus gives you the possibility to set a daily step goal and shows you right on your Watch your current progress. One of its cool feature is the social component it embeds. The app allows you to invite friends and family, enter diverse fitness challenges, including 24-hour or week-long step competitions, and see your position in the rankings straight from your wrist. In addition to steps you can see other data, such as the duration of your session, the distance traveled or your cadence.
- Price: Free (Subscription: $29.99/year)
- Requirements: 16.0 or later; watchOS 9.0 or later
- Download Link: App Store
Duffy
Duffy was conceived by Patrick Rills, an iOS developer, to address a missing feature on the Apple Watch – a native complication to show your step count directly on the Watch face. Its main goal is to enable users to easily see their current steps at a glance, without having to open a separate app. It’s worth mentioning that Duffy is completely free and doesn’t contain ads. You’re welcome though to tip the developer via in-app purchases.
Beyond the complication, there’s a full companion app on the Watch itself where you can view data for the current day and past week. You’ll be able to analyze not only your steps, but also the floors climbed and the distance walked. Additionally, you can set a daily step goal and receive a notification on your wrist when you achieve it. If you want to dig deeper into your activity, the iPhone app awaits you with trends and detailed stats over time.
- Price: Free (Tip: $0.99 – $4.99)
- Requirements: 14.7 or later; watchOS 4.0 or later
- Download Link: App Store
Step It Up
Step It Up is an Apple Watch pedometer app to take into consideration. Why? Well, because it’s user-friendly and because it’s equipped with many useful features. For instance, it can track your walking exercises, as well as monitor your sleep patterns. The Watch app offers multiple complications and allows you to quickly see data regarding your step count for the day and the past hour, the distance covered or today’s heart rate trends.
A distinctive feature, also available right on your wrist, is the standometer, which shows you the time spent standing during the day. Notably, the app includes accessibility features, offering to track pushes and distance for wheelchair users instead of steps and walking distance. Step It Up lets you set a daily step goal and provides detailed stats, such as how many steps you’re averaging per day or week or which are your results in comparison to the past months.
- Price: Free (Pro version: $4.99)
- Requirements: iOS 14.0 or later; watchOS 7.0 or later
- Download Link: App Store
Stepwise
Stepwise is a step counter for Apple Watch designed to motivate you to be more active. The app allows you to set a personal step goal, keeps you updated with the progress made and sends motivational messages to keep moving and reach your target. Stepwise supports integration with Apple’s HealthKit, allowing it to share data with the Health app.
The app makes it possible to start a separate workout directly from your wrist and provides diverse complications for a quick look at your activity. You can keep track of your step count, the distance covered, the calorie burn, active minutes or the speed during your workout. The Watch app can merge fitness data with the iPhone app to ensure better accuracy in tracking your activity throughout the day.
- Price: Free (Subscription: $5.49/year)
- Requirements: iOS 14.0 or later; watchOS 7.0 or later
- Download Link: App Store
doSteps
doSteps is our final proposal to track steps on Apple Watch and iPhone. The way it works is really simple: all you have to do is set your goal and then let the app automatically record your movement with the aid of the built-in motion sensors. You’ll receive notifications about your daily results and comprehensive stats regarding your overall progress. These include weekly reports, accessible through modern graphs, as well as monthly totals.
doSteps gives you the chance to set multiple fitness goals directly from your Apple Watch. Depending on your preferences, you can set a target for the number of steps, the distance walked or the floors climbed. You’ll be able to see right on your wrist the results for the day in question, as well as for the last seven days. Additionally you can customize the colors of the interface and share your daily achievements on social media.
- Price: Free (Subscription: $10.99/year)
- Requirements: iOS 15.0 or later; watchOS 8.0 or later
- Download Link: App Store