McDonald’s Is Including The Most Basic Fitness Tracker In Happy Meals Now

McDonald’s always seems to be on the cusp of everything trending. Like clockwork, every four years, the Olympics provides the perfect opportunity for McDonald’s to show everyone how much they care about physical fitness, and this year the fast food chain is giving away wearable fitness technology inside Happy Meals.

Now, for a limited time the “STEP-iT” fitness tracker will be included inside every Happy Meal in the U.S. and Canada. Although, before you start getting ready to start tracking your active calories, be warned that this horrible excuse for a new Happy Meal “toy” is just a cheaply built, piece of plastic, that counts a “step” every time it senses movement.

I’ll admit, I thought this was the coolest thing McDonald’s had included in a Happy Meal in many years. However, upon closer inspection, the face of the tracker is very misleading. Imagine my disappointment when I discovered that there was only one button — even though it looks like there’d be three. What’s the point of the soccer player and tennis player on the face? There is no tennis or soccer setting. The watch sensors are so sensitive, that in the time it took me to write this post — sitting down — it says I’ve walked 2,000 steps. Way to be accurate, McDonald’s!

It’s great that McDonald’s wants to encourage children to be active, but I think PokemonGo is doing a better job than this thing.

This isn’t the first time McDonald’s has tried to persuade customers with fitness tracking incentives. In 2004, McDonald’s started the “Go Active,” campaign, which was basically a salad in a box and focused on adults as the target demographic. The Go Active meal-in-a-box offered customers a pedometer inside. We are unsure if the technology behind the Go-Active pedometer is the same used inside the STEP-it.

While the fitness tracker doesn’t have the capabilities as a FitBit or Apple Watch, the simple design could be related to McDonald’s new slogan — The Simpler The Better.