I can understand how this can cause some confusion if you are on a hunt for a good pedometer.

Just to clarify – ALL pedometers on the market can be used for 10000 steps a day program, as all pedometers count steps! However, there are some pedometers that are much higher quality and offer greater accuracy then other pedometers!

Back to the question – why is Yamax referred to as a 10,000 step pedometer…

The ‘10,000 step a day’ message (read: Why 10000 Steps a day?) became a global fight against rising obesity and major western countries started promoting and marketing their 10,000 step campaign to get people to walk more and sit less – Yamax was the most used pedometer because at the time (back in early 2000) – Yamax Digi-Walkers were the only accurate pedometers available – they were expensive but good! So automatically 10000 steps and Yamax became joined at the hip (no pun intended ).

Now a days, like most things – technology moves on and so be it with pedometers. Accelerometers pedometers are now the pedometers of choice. Even though Yamax have now recently started manufacturing pocket accelerometer pedometers, in our opinion, they are behind the ‘8’ ball – as Yamax were the first and best with pendulum pedometers, Omron, without doubt lead the way with accelerometer pocket pedometers, as they have done for years!

Hope this article has been useful and answered the question.

Happy Stepping