Why is Sweatcoin not tracking my steps? Does Sweatcoin work indoors?
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UPDATE Dec 2017: Sweatcoin just announced they are working on an indoor step tracking algorithm! This means our indoor steps will be counted some time in the future! This is huge news because currently users are not rewarded for walking indoors. This is especially frustrating for people who walk a lot inside for their jobs. Stay tuned for more news to come!
I linked these two questions together because the answer to one often answers the other. The most common cause of Sweatcoin not giving you credit for your steps is due to indoor movement.
Why doesn’t Sweatcoin track indoor steps?
Our phones are always on, always tracking movement. Most people are either at Home or at Work most of the day.
GPS drift is when a phone’s connection to GPS is spotty, which is most likely indoors. It can vary by a few meters to a hundred meters. If you saw your location pin on a zoomed-in map, your pin would bounce around even when you were standing still. This happens significantly indoors, and slightly outdoors. Especially on cloudy days.
The Sweatcoin app doesn’t know if movement is GPS drift or if it’s actual movement. So the developers created a rule: If movement is detected with a building in the center of field, do not count these steps.
Why is that? Because if we were sitting still all day, but our GPS-drift bounced around for a total of 3 miles or 5000 meters, then we’d get about 3 sweatcoins with no effort.
Also, GPS is worse indoors than outdoors. So Sweatcoin created this rule as a hard standard: Only movement outdoors counts, because the movement is more likely to be actual physical movement, AND the GPS can be trusted more.
There may be the possibility in the future for Sweatcoin to count indoor steps. For example, I feel that walking around an Indoor Mall or Shopping Center should count as step tracking, because that is legitimate physical movement. Sweatcoin may be able to differentiate between the types of buildings. Same goes for indoor gyms and running tracks. By the time you read this, they may have already added tracking for these types of facilities. But because it’s still in the “early days” of the app, we shouldn’t expect ANY movement indoors to be counted. However, for the record, I have noticed a lot of my indoor steps counted toward my total. Not sure if this is intentional or a bug.
But I still need help! My problem is not due to being indoors
There are two numbers: Total Steps, and Sweatcoins Generated. Remember, 1000 outdoor steps should reward you with 0.95 Sweatcoin. If you’ve walked around a bunch outdoors and see 0 steps tracked, then there’s a major issue with either your app, your phone, or Sweatcoin account. If this is the case, then you should contact Sweatcoin support immediately. To access the Support Form, click on Profile -> Settings -> Help -> Scroll to bottom -> Contact Us. Tell them that Sweatcoin Guide sent you and that you have a tech support question. They’ll walk you through diagnosing what’s going on and help you get back on track to coin generation.
If you have any other issue, use the email above to ask a question. Because the app is still fairly new, there are guaranteed to be minor and major issues they haven’t found or addressed yet.