NHS Active 10 Walking Tracker 4+

Been brilliant for me

I realise I’m a little late to the party but after a small wake-up call in August this year I decided to get serious about being more active and losing some (okay, lots of) weight. I’d tried Couch to 5K a couple years back but always ended up doing my Achilles tendons and the Covid inspired exercise bike was jus too boring. Someone suggested longer walks and Active10 so I gave it a go. I started off small with 1 x 10 minutes per day and as time has passed I increased to the max 5 a day which is now a minimum for me. I am really if a mindset if I miss today I’ll probably miss tomorrow too so I am driven to achieve an hour a day, every day now.
The app itself works fine on my iPhone X and only once has it failed to record my activity, and no matter what I do I cannot get the last Target Chaser! badge but its a moot point now. If you consider what the app does, it does it very well. Don’t expect it to track every detail of your journey to better health, simply consider it to be a fun way of “stopwatching” your walks and you won’t be disappointed. Fancier and more focused apps are available (along with their obligatory upgrades and in-app purchases) for later. I recommend it as a great first step to a healthier lifestyle.

Good idea but!

This app is a good idea and I like the way it shows when you are walking briskly. However, I am not over happy with location services being on all the time and would prefer "whilst using" setting to be allowed. Only used it one day so far so accuracy cannot comment on but what I seen looks correct. It is a basic app though as today I cannot find anyway of seeing what I did yesterday only a graph showing I did 40 minutes above my 10 minute brisk walk goal. This app needs some work on it to give it more features. I have used a different Public Health England app before and that was also rather basic! This app is an excellent idea but I don't think it will be on my phone long if updates are not forthcoming in the very near future to change location services option and giving it a few more features.
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Thanks for responding to my review. I have now upgraded to 4 stars as having used it daily now I can see that the accuracy is correct. I also appreciate that Location Services do need to be on to track my daily activity and also I know now that it is not draining my battery too much which was one of my concerns for this. I would though still like to have some history of my previous days/weeks/months with detail as some other Apps do. On the whole it is a good App and I really like the fact I can see when I am walking briskly. Will now keep on my phone for a bit longer and look forward to seeing future updates.

Developer Response ,

The app requires location services in order to track your activity throughout the day.

Thank you for this constructive feedback. We will take your comments on board for future releases. Please keep an eye on the app store for updates.

Handy App

See below for update.
Logs all activity that involves moving from one place to another. That in itself is useful as it highlights active and sedentary periods during the day. I am not entirely convinced that the logging of the 'brisk' walking periods is totally accurate. Some periods when I know I have been walking briskly have not been recognised whereas other periods where I was not expecting walking to be recognised as brisk have been. I am a little disappointed that brisk periods under ten minutes do not count towards the goal even when accumulated they suggest the target has been reached. I accumulated 20 mins brisk walking yesterday but because they were in small chunks I 'failed' to reach my target. So far as time delay in updating mentioned by some other reviewers I have found updating occurs when the app is on the home page. Easy to swipe between pages and keep up to date. I will continue to use the app if only to get me off the sofa more often.

Not overly keen on redesign. I liked the line graph and the one that showed periods during the day when I had got up and walked. These have now gone. In addition I walked 55 minutes briskly on Monday, received 5 cups and a medal only to find that on Tuesday the whole of Monday’s walking had been wiped completely. Disappointing. The only improvement is that every brisk minute now counts - if the app records and keeps it. I have removed a star.

Developer Response ,

Sorry to hear the app isn't recording your activity correctly. Please ensure your device is kept in a pocket close to your body rather than a loose bag. We are constantly enhancing the app to improve accuracy across devices. Please update to the latest version of the app for the best user experience. Thanks for your feedback.