9
How does the
Activ8rlives
Buddy Step Counter
work?
Now to use our
Activ8rlives
Buddy Step Counter
! Attach your step counter to your belt, hang
it around your neck, wear it in your sock or in our arm/ankle strap when you are cycling. It
does not matter where you attach it as long as you wear it all day. Pockets are not great for
step counters—we forget about them and they end-up in washing machines. For this reason
and also the
BUTTONS
on the reverse side get pressed and reset, it is recommended that you
DO NOT
wear your
Activ8rlives
Buddy Step Counter
in pockets.
The
Activ8rlives
Buddy Step Counter
has a 3-axis accelerometer chip and a microprocessor,
which measures how you move (accelerate) in three dimensions and it uses this information
to calculate the number of steps you take. You will notice that the display does not always
update as you move (it has a 10 step filter to eliminate inaccuracies due to non activity-
related movement and bumps) and may even go blank. It has a sleep mode to make the
battery last longer but will wake up and update from time-to-time or if you continue moving.
It also records how much time you spend exercising. Useful as part of a rehabilitation
programme.
If you hold the
Activ8rlives
Buddy Step Counter
in your hand as you walk, you will see just
how accurately it can “sense” your steps and starts counting these after you have taken 10
consecutive steps. Another ability of the
Activ8rlives
Buddy Step Counter
is that it will count
and store your steps for your last 7 days so that you can upload these at any time.
Calories are calculated based on your stride length and your weight. The values are
approximate but gives you a useful indication of how much effort it takes to burn off the food
you have eaten. You will be able to measure how much physical effort it takes to burn-off
even 200-300 Kcal—talk about an incentive to reduce your intake of “junk” calories (a
chocolate muffin at Starbucks is 500 calories—that takes a lot of walking to burn this snack
off!)
Again, an approximate distance value is calculated for you based on your steps and your
average stride length. Useful for estimating how far you walk at work or at school, for
example.
Steps, distance, calories and activity time are all saved to your
Activ8rlives
Buddy Step
Counter
and can be uploaded to your personal
Activ8rlives
account. This is covered in later
sections.
