Are sports apps reliable?

Recently, many people have started using health and fitness apps, and have posted information such as how many steps they have taken today on their Moments, but are the results given by these apps accurate?

When people walk, their center of gravity changes, and the sensors and collaborators in these devices sense the movement of the center of gravity and count it. However, if you don't carry your phone with you when you walk, or if your phone shakes for various reasons when you sit at your workstation, the number of steps recorded will definitely not be accurate.

Regarding the seemingly more professional sports bracelets, the BBC once did a related test report and found that four well-known sports bracelets had deviations in many data such as step counting and calorie consumption calculation. For example, one day the walking distance of a reporter on different devices differed by 23%.

If we don’t care about the accuracy of walking and stair climbing data, we should be wary of these functions: mobile phone apps measure blood pressure, blood sugar, and skin cancer?

According to reports, Apple initially hoped that the Apple Watch could detect physiological indicators such as heart rate and blood pressure, but found that the performance of the relevant sensors could not meet the standards. For example, the sweat hair on the wrist, whether the skin is dry or oily, and the tightness of the watch strap all have a certain impact on the measurement results.

Last year, the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center tested four mobile phone apps that claimed to detect skin cancer and found that even the most accurate app had a misdiagnosis rate of 33%.

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.