Today my Samsung Health app informed that i've done over 10000 steps and I do not recall much walking today 😉
I checked when the steps where counted - exactly at the time when I was cycling. Cycling was being tracked on GW4 while my S21 was in pocket of my shorts.
Is that possible that phone was counting steps even though I specifically chosen cycling as an activity in my watch? Is there no communication on this matter between devices within one app?
By looking at this issue i have another question - if I wear watch and my phone, does it count steps on both devices and adds them together so the steps number is duplicated?
To answer your question, No doesn't sum the two up, your phone will know when you take off your watch and when you you put it back on. So when it's not on, your phone will count the footsteps, when your watch is on, watch sends footstep data over to phone ever 1hours or 30minites (not sure of the sync period). For the cycling, your watch counts both the activity workout and the activity workout footsteps, like how many footsteps you have made in that specific workout in whatever way still counted as footsteps.
"like how many footsteps you have made in that specific workout in whatever way still counted as footsteps"
I do not a agree with that after doing tests. I can do an hour of cycling without any stop, not taking a single step and step counter shows 1000+ steps after that. It seems that it counts all bounces during the ride as steps event though cycling is being tracked as activity. As we know we cannot walk and cycle at the same time 😉
No solution, same case on today's ride. I believe that phone is not aware that watch is tracking cycling so if you have phone in your pocket or on your bike it will count every move of your leg or bump on the round as a step.... even though you are moving with a speed o 40km/h 🙂
Only workaround I can think of is leaving your phone at home which sucks as it limits functions of your watch and doesn't make much sense.
I had the same questions, then I googled and found (1) this post and (2) hundreds of articles on "how to count steps when cycling". Then, I understand Samsung does this conversion and adds the steps, as a way to count the biking as a low/mid intensity activity to our days. I can't say for the preciseness or their exact formula, but I that seems like a good bet.
I also noticed both devices count the steps similarly - if you go to the steps screen on your phone, you'll see on the menu an option to show just the phone's steps. In my case, I had 16XX when I biked for ~2km, and 17XX when the watch steps were enabled on that graph.
