Walking steadiness does not work – or does it?
You can find plenty of posts related to the setup and activation of the walking steadiness, that works with more modern iPhones and more recent versions of IOS. It uses data from the sensors in the iPhone together with number of steps, step length and walking stability to calculate a walking steadiness index number, that translates onto: OK (best score), low or very low (worst score). The idea is to monitor your walking patterns and predict if you have a heightened risk of falling, as injuries from citizens age 65+ is a problem in growth. So the intention is good.
The problem however is that it appears not to work! I have followed every instruction on how to switch on the walking steadiness to minute detail, and re-done it over and over again: no result. Then I tried to google if others had the same issue, and yes! But no solution.
What to do? I waited!
I do not know how the software or the logic works, but suddenly my iPhone (a 12 with IOS 15.1) generated a walking steadiness score! It was on a Thursday. And after that? Silence. No update. Until it became Thursday again! New update!
So currently it looks like my iPhone calculates the walking steadiness once every week!
The strange thing is, that my wife who also has an iPhone with the IOS 15.1 installed gets daily updates! Not real time updates though, but daily updates. The only difference I can spot between the two is that I have a Garmin Phenix 3 connected to the iPhone and she has a Garmin Vivoactive watch. I doubt however, that this is the cause of the difference, as the waking steadiness is based primarily on data generated by the sensors in the iPhone.
So what to make of all this? My point is that if you experience lack of data and results when it comes to the walking steadiness function in the iPhone, maybe a bit of patience is all you need. Keep walking with your iPhone in your pocket for a week or so, and see if it results in scores generated.
As you can see from the image below, a few weeks later, it is confirmed that the updates follow a weekly pattern. Every Thursday the data is updated. I am not sure if the Thursday is the day of updating, or of it is a coincidence that is more determined by when I started to log data. But it does confirm that when you have turned on walking steadiness, patience is key, subject to what tracker you use to collect the data.
Please let me know in the comments how you are doing and what frequency your iPhone has in updating the steadiness score – it seems to me there is very little data on the subject out there, so it would be great if we could fix that via this post.
Here’s another data point. iPhone 11, iOS 15.2, no watch. iOS 15.2 installed less than a week ago. Metrics like double support time and asymmetry are being collected and reported but walking steadiness always says “no data”. I hope I remember to come back and update this report when it’s been a week.
Much appreciated. Mine updates on Thursdays! Could be a coincidence or a function of what day in the week it started collecting data. Look forward to you next comment!
I received a notification on January 21 that my walking steadiness is low. I didn’t know my iPhone was monitoring my walking steadiness until then. I can see weekly data points that start in September 2021.
Thank you for sharing Alan! I am not sure if you can stop the iPhone from collecting data, I can only see that it gives an option to turn off the notifications.
I have an iPhone 13 Pro Max and I’m not getting any walking steadiness data, all the other categories in mobility is getting data except walking steadiness.
Yep, exactly what I experienced. Then after a few weeks the results started to show up. It seems like it needs to gather data for a while before it is ready to report. And then for reasons beyond me, it only reports and update on Thursdays. Strange. But consistent.
My iPhone X has weekly data points from late September, but I didn’t receive a notification until a few days ago. My walking steadiness went up and then down. I wonder what that means.
Oh, I’m not a doctor, so of you are worried, then maybe good to talk to your GP. I think the walking steadiness tries to assess if you will be subject to a fall accident, and that the risk is raised if your score is less than OK.
Mine updated every Wednesday and then suddenly just stopped which is really annoying as I want to keep track after a surgery. Then I turned on the notification and two weeks appeared. It seems to track my steadiness even when it doesn’t show. And now it’s gone again and nothing seems to help.