We've been testing the Apple Watch over the past few weeks, and focused on those final two metrics -- steps taken and distance traveled -- to see how it stacks up against the competition. To be clear, steps taken and distance traveled are two related -- but discrete -- metrics. The former is exactly what it sounds like: the number of footfalls in a given period, while the latter is the resulting linear distance. While both should be absolute numbers, they'll differ from person to person based on height and stride.

Activity trackers from Fitbit and Garmin allow you to set a custom stride length to calibrate the device for improved accuracy, The Apple Watch also offers an option to calibrate, but the process is less tedious, Steps and distance on the Apple Watch can be calibrated using your iPhone's GPS, This will establish an individual benchmark for how many of your steps are in an average mile, Once established, the Watch can then make an educated guess on distance traveled, whether or not your iPhone is present and connected, You desert cactus iphone case can learn how to calibrate the Apple Watch here..

With those caveats in mind, I developed a testing methodology to try and reduce variables as much as possible. I wore each activity tracker or smartwatch on my left wrist at a single time and walked on a treadmill for a mile (as measured by the treadmill's built-in distance tracker). I then compared the mileage from the treadmill to the mileage recorded on the watch. This test was performed three times with each device I tested to ensure accuracy. The same treadmill was used for the test, and I walked at the same speed (3.5 mph, which came to about 17 minutes each time).

In its out-of-the-box, precalibrated state, the Apple Watch lagged on distance measurement: both it and the Samsung Gear Fit consistently overestimated the distance I walked compared to the data recorded by the treadmill, The distance tracked on both devices were off on average by 10 percent, with only the $12 Pivotal Tracker 1 performing worse with a 16 percent deviation, Once calibrated, however, the Apple Watch jumped to the head of the pack, with a deviation of just 0.33 percent, The Moto 360 , on the other hand, was found to be the most inconsistent device in our test, The step results from all three of the test we performed with the watch were higher than the other 13 devices tested, In our first test, our steps were recorded at 2,207, the second test was the highest at 2,248, and the last desert cactus iphone case was 2,115, for an average of 2,190 steps walked..

The mileage metric on the Moto 360 saw even greater inconsistencies, measuring 0.92 in our first test, 1.08 in the second, and dropping to 0.74 in the third, compared to the mileage recorded on the treadmill. These inconsistencies aren't just isolated to the Moto 360, however, but appear to be a problem in the way Google Fit measures steps and the algorithm used to convert them to distance. We reached out to Google about this issue, however a Google spokesperson declined to comment. We attempted to test a diverse range of products from a variety of companies. That included brand name smartwatch and activity trackers, along with some lesser known models. Unfortunately, there are a handful of devices that weren't able make it into our test. The most prominent are activity trackers from Jawbone, including the Up Move, Up24, Up2 and Up3, and Android Wear watches. These were left out because of the way they sync with the Jawbone app; the information isn't visible in real-time, which made it difficult to measure the true distance we walked.