Millions of people use a smartwatch or pedometer to keep track of how many steps they take in a day. The constant monitoring makes it easier to reach your activity goals — and that steps up the health benefits (physical and emotional) you can get from moving more.

But there are two things to keep in mind:

• Trackers may overestimate your step count and/or change accuracy (undercounting or overcounting steps) depending on your speed or the incline you're on. It's smart to frequently check your device by consciously counting your steps (for instance, up to 300) and comparing that with the step count your device logged.

• You can also sharpen your health tracking if you add a measure of your average daily heart rate to your step count.

A preliminary five-year study of 7,000 people found that tracking average daily heart rate (as recorded on a smartwatch for a month) and dividing it by the average daily step count (over a month) might give a sharper idea of a person’s fitness and health risks for diabetes, heart attack, or stroke than step count alone.

According to the study, a quotient 0.0081 or below is low risk. Medium is above 0.0081 but below 0.0147. High is 0.0147 or above.

Give it a try.