I walked 10,000 steps with the Apple Watch 11 and Samsung Galaxy Watch 8 — here’s which watch was more accurate

the Samsung Galaxy Watch 8 and Apple Watch 11 on wrist

(Image credit: Future)

If you’ve been waiting for the Apple Watch 11 to drop to upgrade your smartwatch, you might be interested to know how it compares with its arch rival, the Samsung Galaxy Watch 8. Both launched this year and top our list of the best smartwatches on the market, and are packed with features to help you live a healthier life.

But which is more accurate when it comes to counting your steps? Of course, both watches are designed to track a lot more than just your steps — both will track your heart rate, sleep, and menstrual cycle. Both also have AI workout coaches on board, and the Apple Watch 11 has hypertension alerts, which will alert you if your blood pressure is high — here’s how these hypertension alerts work, and which watches you’ll find them on.

the Apple Watch 11 and Samsung Galaxy Watch 8 on the wrist — (Image credit: Future)

I walked 10,000 steps with the Apple Watch 11 and Samsung Galaxy Watch 8 — here's which was more accurate

For this test, I used my trusty $5 clicker tool from Amazon, and manually clicked each time I took a step. I wore both the Apple Watch 11 and Samsung Galaxy 8 on my left wrist, and held my clicker in the right. Both watches count your steps by using an internal accelerometer, which measures the swing of your arm.

Each swing counts for two steps. It doesn’t matter whether you wear your watch on your dominant or non-dominant hand, or whether you’re walking with your hands in your pockets, or holding something; the accelerometer should still measure your body’s movement.

As with all of the best Apple Watches, the Apple Watch 11 doesn’t tell you the number of steps you’ve taken during a specific workout; instead, you see an overall number of steps throughout the day. You can see your overall steps for the entire day, but not how many steps you took on a particular walk (probably because steps aren’t actually that useful a metric, but annoying for me when writing these articles.) For this comparison, I downloaded a third-party Pedometer+ app onto my Apple Watch 11.

When I got home, I downloaded the data onto my iPhone 16 and Samsung Galaxy Flip 7. Here are the results:

Walk one:

Swipe to scroll horizontally

Manual recording	5,345 steps
Apple Watch 11	5,204 steps
Galaxy Watch 8	5,362 steps

Walk two:

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Manual recording	5,020 steps
Apple Watch 11	4,842 steps
Galaxy Watch 8	4,985 steps

Results:

Swipe to scroll horizontally

Manual recording	10,365 steps
Apple Watch 11	10,046 steps
Galaxy Watch 8	10,347 steps

The Samsung Galaxy Watch 8 was pretty much spot on, only missing 18 steps compared to the manual recording.

As you can see from the results, the Samsung Galaxy Watch 8 was pretty much spot on, only missing 18 steps compared to the manual recording. This is astounding close. That said, we shouldn’t disregard the Apple Watch 11, which was only around 300 steps out, which is a pretty minute difference over the course of a five-mile walk. The average person takes 2,000 steps in a mile, so missing 300 steps isn’t a lot in the grand scheme of things.

As well as being two of the best smartwatches on the market, both watches are packed with workout features. The Galaxy Watch retains all the fitness features tacked on over the years: advanced sleep tracking with chronotype assignments, FDA-authorized sleep apnea detection, a daily energy score, BIA body composition analysis, temperature-based cycle tracking, Advanced Glycation End Products (AGEs) Index of metabolic health, and more. As mentioned above, the Apple Watch 11 has become the first smartwatch on the market to add blood pressure alerts, but it is missing Samsung’s daily energy score.

When deciding between the two watches, the real answer might be a far simpler one — whether you’re part of the Android or iOS ecosystem, as neither watch will work with the other. That said, whichever device you choose to strap to your wrist, know that they’re both accurately counting your steps, so, unlike me, you don’t have to.

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Jane McGuire is Tom's Guide's Fitness editor, which means she looks after everything fitness related - from running gear to yoga mats. An avid runner, Jane has tested and reviewed fitness products for the past five years, so knows what to look for when finding a good running watch or a pair of shorts with pockets big enough for your smartphone. When she's not pounding the pavements, you'll find Jane striding round the Surrey Hills, taking far too many photos of her puppy.

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I walked 10,000 steps with the Apple Watch 11 and Samsung Galaxy Watch 8 — here's which was more accurate

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