How it works
You prop the phone against something so it can see you, and start a set. Pose detection runs on the device and follows the position of your body while you move. Elbow angle decides depth, and body position decides whether what it is looking at is a push-up at all. When a rep passes both, the count goes up.
The detection adjusts continuously for how far away you are, so there is no calibration step and no reference rep to perform first. Move the phone mid-set and it keeps up.
What counts
- Full push-ups. The default.
- Knee push-ups. A mode you select. It is more forgiving about posture and stricter about depth, so a shallow knee rep is likelier to be rejected than a shallow full rep.
- Hand and foot variations. Diamond, wide and decline all register as ordinary push-ups. Placement is not measured, so these are counted rather than distinguished.
What does not count
- Anything too upright to read as a plank. Wall push-ups and high inclines are outside what the detector will accept.
- A negative you never push back up from. Lowering is half a rep, and the count waits for the other half.
Speed is not one of the refusals. A fast rep still counts, and tempo only changes the bonus attached to it.
Where the video goes
Rep counting runs on the device. While a set is active the camera feed is held in memory, and for rep counting neither the video nor the pose landmarks are uploaded anywhere. Other parts of the app do send data, and the privacy policy covers all of it rather than only this path.
Honest limits
A camera counter needs to see you, so a dark room or a phone angled at the ceiling will cost you reps. It counts push-ups, squats, sit-ups, pull-ups and dips and times a plank, and it has nothing to say about any other exercise. If you want a log of many different lifts, a general workout tracker will serve you better than this will.
Try it
Pushup RPG is a free camera push-up counter with a role-playing game attached, on iOS and Android. The push-up game page covers the game side.