¿Alguna vez te has preguntado qué dispositivo es más preciso a la hora de contar pasos: ¿el Apple Watch Series 10 o el Garmin Forerunner 265? Para averiguarlo, llevé ambos relojes en las muñecas y conté mis pasos manualmente para comparar los resultados. Sigue leyendo para descubrir cuál fue más preciso.

Llevo años probando y comparando smartwatches, comenzando por cómo registran tus pasos. Cuando configuras dispositivos populares como el Apple Watch o el Garmin, normalmente introduces tu altura y peso para calibrar las mediciones de calorías. Sin embargo, para contar pasos, ambos relojes se basan en detectar el oscilamiento de tu brazo.

Cada movimiento de brazo cuenta como dos pasos. No importa si llevas el reloj en la mano dominante o no dominante: el acelerómetro en el interior del reloj detecta el movimiento de tu cuerpo independientemente.

Durante mis pruebas, noté que cuando empujaba a mi hijo en su carrito, el Apple Watch a menudo no reconocía que estaba caminando. Para esta comparación, dejé a mi bebé y su carrito en casa. Llevé el Apple Watch Series 10 en la muñeca izquierda y el Garmin Forerunner 265 en la derecha para asegurar resultados imparciales.

I walked 7,000 steps with the Apple Watch 10 and Garmin Forerunner 265 — here’s which was more accurate

For this test, I did several different walks. The first two walks were in the city, as I walked between different meetings in London. I wasn’t in a particularly built-up area of the city, but I still wanted to see how the watches compared in a busy urban setting.

For the third walk, I headed out for a hike with the dog to my local woods. Again, I wasn’t particularly remote, but I walked for two miles in a wooded area.

I’ve done enough of these challenges to know I’m not very good at counting to large numbers in my head, so I dug out my trusty clicker counter. Every step I took, I clicked. When I got home, I downloaded all the data. I used the StepsApp on my Apple Watch, as Apple still doesn’t let you see the step count of your walk, just your overall step count from the day, and I wanted more accurate numbers.

Here are the results:

As you can see from the data, the Garmin Forerunner 265 was only 86 steps out of the manual recording, whereas the Apple Watch 10 missed 465 steps.

Of course, to truly test the accuracy of the two watches, you’d need to do a lot more testing on a much bigger scale, but I was impressed at how pretty much spot-on the Forerunner 265 was.

That’s not to say the Apple Watch 10 isn’t accurate. The average person takes 2,000 steps in a mile, so 465 steps isn’t a huge amount. Interestingly, for the third walk, my Apple Watch recorded the distance as 2.02 miles, whereas my Garmin recorded 2 miles exactly. Again, we’re talking about very small differences here.

It’s also worth noting that both these watches do a lot more than count your steps. The Apple Watch 10 is the best smartwatch on the market and is like having your iPhone on your wrist. The Garmin Forerunner 265, by comparison, doesn’t have as many smartwatch features but is designed to accurately track your marathon training, making it one of the best running watches on the market.

Finally, while counting steps isn’t always the best metric to focus on when it comes to getting in shape and losing weight, it’s a good place to start. A review of 32 studies, published in the International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity found that “10,000 steps/day is a reasonable target for healthy adults.”

Adding more steps to your day might be as simple as jumping off the subway a stop sooner and walking some of your commute, or investing in one of the best walking pad treadmills to walk as you work.

Walking can help you lose weight, build muscle, and feel less stressed, however you track your steps. Don’t believe me? Here’s what 30 minutesof walking each day can do for your body.