Made for Apple Watch

A gold star every hour you move.

250 steps an hour beats one big goal at bedtime. Fitbit knew it, and Apple Watch still has nothing like it. Hourly Step Tracker puts your current hour on your watch face, and when the hour is slipping away it tells you the exact number of steps left.

  • No account, no server
  • Your data never leaves your devices
  • Free tier, forever
The Today screen on Apple Watch: a progress ring reading 198 of 250 steps for the current hour, the line "52 steps to go this hour", and three tiles showing 6 of 14 stars, 3,819 steps and a 4-day streak.

Hourly Step Tracker · now

Only 52 steps to go, and you have 10 minutes. You can do this.

Why this exists

One small feature people still miss years later.

The 250-step hourly goal worked because it was simple, predictable and honest. You either moved in that hour or you did not, and the star meant something.

Apple Watch tracks a great many things. It does not do this one. The Stand ring credits you for standing up for a minute, which is not the same as moving, and nothing on the watch tells you near the end of an hour that you are 52 steps short with ten minutes to fix it.

So I built it around one rule: every decision has to be predictable, encouraging and honest. Step counts can never be edited, because that would make the star worthless. The app never scolds, because nobody needs a wrist that nags them. And when an hour is running out, it gives you a number you can act on rather than a vague reminder to get moving.

My wife Camille switched from a Fitbit to an Apple Watch, and there was exactly one thing she missed.

The 250-step hourly goal. That small nudge near the end of the hour telling her how many steps were left. Apple Watch had nothing like it, and she brought it up often enough that I told her I would just build it for her.

So I hired it out. Months went by, a good deal of money went with them, and what kept coming back was never the thing she actually wanted. Eventually I stopped, because I did not have the time to finish it properly myself.

I have the time now. This is that app, built the way it should have been built the first time. It is stubborn about a few specific things: step counts you cannot edit, a notification that stays quiet when you are already fine, and a plain admission on this page that watchOS controls the timing and I cannot promise you :50 exactly. I have already watched software promise her more than it delivered. I am not doing that to her, or to you.

It is still just me building this. If something is broken or wrong, you are emailing the person who can fix it.

Rustin, founder

How it works

Two questions, then it runs itself.

Setup asks exactly two things. After that the app lives on your watch face and you mostly forget it is there, until it saves your afternoon.

Answer two questions

Steps per hour, and your active window. The defaults are 250 steps and 7 AM to 9 PM, which works out to 14 tracked hours a day. Change either one any time in Settings.

Add the complication

Put it on your watch face and the current hour is always visible: 198/250, then a gold star the moment you cross the line. Circular, corner, inline and rectangular are all supported.

Collect your stars

Confetti and a haptic the instant an hour is won. Clear every active hour and you get the three-star day screen. Miss one and nothing bad happens, you just go again next hour.

On your wrist

Five screens on your wrist.

No feed, no social tab, no coaching upsell. This is the watch app, where the tracking actually happens. There is a thin iPhone companion too, for history on a bigger screen.

Onboarding screen with a large gold star and the heading "A star every hour", explaining that 250 steps an hour beats one big goal at bedtime.
OnboardingTwo questions, and you are done.
The Hours screen listing each hour of the day: 7 to 8 AM with a gold star and 526 steps, 8 to 9 AM with a star and 635 steps, and 9 to 10 AM marked Excused, Charging.
HoursYour day, hour by hour, stars and all.
The Streak screen showing a 4-day streak with the line "That's your best run yet", 81 total stars, 5 perfect days, and a strip of the last 7 days.
StreakCurrent run, best run, perfect days.
The History screen with a week range selected, 81 stars, 5 perfect days, and a per-day strip showing which hours were won or excused.
HistoryDay, week and month, plus the star collection.
The Settings screen showing Steps per hour set to 250 and Active hours starting from 7 AM.
SettingsThe same two questions, changeable any time.
On your watch face

Four states, no guessing.

The complication is the product. Everything else supports it. Here is exactly what you see, and when.

Hour in progress

Live count against your goal, with a ring that fills as you move.

Hour complete

A gold star with today's completed-hour count inside it.

Every hour won

Three stars and Great Work when you clear the whole day.

Outside active hours

A quiet tally of the day, so evenings stay calm.

The feature this app exists for

Near the end of the hour, you get the exact number.

"Get moving" is ignorable. "Only 52 steps to go" is not. That difference is the entire app.

Hourly Step Tracker · now

Only 52 steps to go, and you have 10 minutes. You can do this.

Fifty-two steps is a walk to the kitchen and back. Knowing that is the difference between winning the hour and shrugging it off.

Because the number has to be real, the message cannot be written in advance. The watch wakes up near the end of each active hour, reads your step data fresh, and only then decides whether to say anything. If you already hit the goal, you hear nothing. If you excused the hour, you hear nothing. Outside your window, nothing at all.

There is deliberately no backup notification queued in advance, because one written an hour early cannot know you are already fine, and nudging someone who is fine breaks the only promise the app makes.

The honest caveat: watchOS decides when that wake-up actually runs, so the nudge can land a few minutes either side of :50, and occasionally not at all. Missing one costs you a single nudge and never your history, because the next refresh re-reads the whole day. Keeping the complication on your watch face gives the app a better background budget and more reliable timing, which is why onboarding asks for it.

What you get

Built for one job, and no others.

Stars that land the moment you earn them

An hour is won the instant your steps pass the goal, not when the clock rolls over. Step counts can never be edited, which is what makes the star worth collecting.

The watch is the app

Only the watch reads your step data, and only the watch decides what an hour was worth. The iPhone companion is a thin second screen for history, settings and billing.

Counts whether you open it or not

Hours are finalized in the background, so your stars and streak stay correct. While the app is open the current hour moves in near-real-time.

Excused hours, honestly done

Two a day: charging, driving, a meeting, or other. An excuse protects your streak and never invents steps, so it earns no star. Walk the hour anyway and you get the star and the excuse back.

History that stays true

Raise your goal at lunchtime and the hours you already finished keep the target they were judged against. Nothing gets quietly rewritten behind you.

VoiceOver throughout

Every screen and every complication family carries proper VoiceOver labels, not an afterthought bolted on at the end.

Pricing

The original never dies.

The hourly goal, the complication, the stars and the nudge are free forever. Paid adds history and streak tools. No nagging, no crippled free version.

Free

$0

Forever. Not a trial.

  • Two-question setup
  • Hourly tracking and all four complication families
  • Gold stars, confetti and the Great Work day screen
  • The end-of-hour nudge

Everything that made the original feature good, at no cost.

Paid

$0.99 per month

or $10 per year. No free trial, no upsell nags.

  • Everything in Free
  • Day, week and month history
  • The gold-star collection
  • Current and best day streaks, and perfect-day counts
  • Two excused hours a day

One subscription group, no trial. Locked screens show a single friendly upsell, never a nag. Cancel any time in your Apple ID settings.

Founders program

The first 100 people get a free year.

Leave your email and I'll send you a one-time App Store code for a full year of the paid tier, free, when the app ships. One hundred codes, one per person, first come first served.

Questions

The things people actually ask.

What is Hourly Step Tracker?

It is an Apple Watch app that gives you a step goal for every hour of your day rather than one big daily total. The default is 250 steps per hour between 7 AM and 9 PM, which works out to 14 tracked hours, and both settings are yours to change. Your current hour shows on your watch face, every hour you complete earns a gold star, and near the end of an hour the app tells you exactly how many steps you still need.

Is this a watch app or an iPhone app?

Both, but the watch is where it lives. Only the watch reads your step data, runs the hourly goal and decides which hours you won. The iPhone companion is deliberately thin: history on a screen with room for it, the same two settings, and the place you buy a subscription or redeem a founder code. There is still no account to create and no server involved.

Is this the same as the Fitbit hourly step goal?

It is the same idea, rebuilt for Apple Watch. Fitbit gave you a 250-step hourly target and a reminder near the end of each hour, and that combination is what people still miss. Hourly Step Tracker recreates it using your watch's own step data, with the count on your watch face and a gold star for every hour you win.

How is this different from the Apple Watch Stand ring?

The Stand ring credits you for standing up and moving around for one minute in an hour. It does not count steps, it does not tell you how far short you are, and it does not give you a target to hit. Hourly Step Tracker measures actual steps against a number you set, and tells you the exact gap while there is still time to close it.

What does it cost?

Hourly tracking, the watch face complications, gold stars and the end-of-hour nudge are free forever. The paid tier is $0.99 per month or $10 per year and adds day, week and month history, your gold-star collection, streak and perfect-day stats, and two excused hours per day. The first 100 people on the email list get a year of the paid tier free.

Where does my step data go?

Nowhere. The app reads your step data on your watch, keeps its own records there, and mirrors the results to your paired iPhone directly. There is no account, no server, no analytics and no network call anywhere in the app, so there is nothing to leak and no profile of your movement to sell. It also never writes anything back to Health. See Privacy for the full detail.

What happens when my watch is charging?

That hour will show a low step count, because the app never invents steps you did not take. You can excuse up to two hours a day for charging, driving, a meeting or anything else. An excused hour keeps your streak intact but earns no star. If you end up walking an excused hour anyway, you get the star and the excuse back.

Can I edit or add steps manually?

No, and that is deliberate. If step counts could be edited, the gold star would stop meaning anything. Excused hours exist to handle the real cases where the watch was not on your wrist, without letting anyone fake a number.

What if I change my goal in the middle of the day?

Hours you have already finished keep the goal they were judged against. Raise your target at lunchtime and this morning's stars stay earned. The same applies to changing your active window.

How do streaks work?

Streaks are counted by day. A day counts once every active hour is either complete or excused. A day still in progress will never break your streak, though it has not joined it yet either. A day with no record at all does break it, because silence is not success.

Will the nudge always arrive exactly at :50?

Usually, but not always. watchOS controls when background work runs, so the nudge can land a few minutes either side of :50 and occasionally not at all. Missing one costs a single notification and never your history, since the next refresh re-reads the whole day. Adding the complication to your watch face improves the timing, because watchOS gives apps on the active face a better background budget. That's a platform limit rather than something an app can engineer around, and I'd rather say so plainly than let you find out on your own.

What do I need to run it?

An Apple Watch on watchOS 10 or later, paired to an iPhone on iOS 17 or later.

When does it ship?

I'm building it now. Join the email list and you'll get one message when it hits the App Store, plus a founder code if you're in the first 100.

Legal

Privacy Policy

Last updated 4 August 2026

Hourly Step Tracker has no account, no server, no analytics and no network call anywhere in it. I'm one person, and this policy explains exactly what the app touches and what it doesn't.

Health and step data

The app reads step count data from Health on your watch, with your permission, and uses it only to calculate your hourly progress, your gold stars and your streaks. Those records are stored on your watch and mirrored to your paired iPhone directly, device to device. The app makes no network requests, so this data is never transmitted to me or to anyone else. I don't sell it, share it with advertisers or data brokers, or use it to build a profile of you. There's no server to sell it from even if I wanted to.

Health access is read-only. The app never writes anything back to Health.

Accounts

There is no account. You do not create a username, a password or a profile to use Hourly Step Tracker.

Subscriptions

Subscriptions are handled entirely by Apple through the App Store. I never see your payment details. Apple gives me anonymized, aggregate sales reporting, which doesn't identify you.

This website

If you enter your email address on this site, I store it for one purpose: to tell you when the app launches and to send founder codes to the first 100 people. I don't sell, rent or trade email addresses. Every email includes an unsubscribe link, and unsubscribing removes your address.

Children

The app is not directed at children under 13 and I don't knowingly collect personal information from them.

Changes

If this policy changes, I'll post the updated version here with a new date at the top.

Contact

Questions about privacy: rustin@hourlysteptracker.com

Help

Support

Email me at rustin@hourlysteptracker.com. I read and answer these myself, so you are not writing into a ticket queue. Telling me your watchOS version and what you expected to happen makes it much faster.

Common fixes

  • No steps are showing at all. The app needs permission to read your step data. On your watch, open Settings, then Privacy & Security, then Health, and confirm Hourly Step Tracker is allowed to read Steps. You can also check this in the Watch app on your iPhone.
  • The complication is not updating. watchOS limits how often any complication may refresh, so a mid-hour number can run a few minutes behind. Tap the complication to open the app and see a live count.
  • The end-of-hour nudge is not arriving. Confirm notifications are allowed for the app, and add the complication to your watch face. watchOS gives apps on the active face a better background refresh budget, which makes the timing more reliable.
  • An hour looks wrong after travel. Hours follow your local clock. When your time zone changes, hours already finished keep their original result and new hours use the new zone.
  • A star disappeared, or a streak looks off. History is rebuilt from your step data on every background refresh, so give it an hour and it will usually correct itself. If it doesn't, email me the date and I'll dig into it.

Redeeming a founder code

Founder codes are one-time App Store codes for a free year of the paid tier. On your iPhone, open the Hourly Step Tracker companion app, go to Settings, then Redeem a code. Your watch picks up the subscription on its own, without needing to be reopened.