How to track steps in indoor walking (walking pad)?

I’m guessing that you are either not wearing your watch, and/or that wearing your watch would not be helpful for steps, distance and pace, as your arm would not be moving normally (since you’re working on your computer.)

The HRM-Pro strap should count steps (and other activity tracking metrics) while your watch is not being worn.

https://support.garmin.com/en-CA/?faq=vs3FdBS9QZ4DE2MWVAeZfA

You do have to sync the strap with the Connect app on your phone for this to work. (Wear your HRM-PRO strap, open Connect, click on the picture of your watch in the upper right hand corner, select Add Device, and add your HRM-PRO strap.)

My specific devices and use case:

- Forerunner 955

- HRM-PRO

- Stryd footpod

- I wear the strap but not the watch while I play basketball (using the built-in Basketball activity). The strap is connected to the watch while I record the activity, and it’s used for HR

- I use the footpod for speed and distance

- After the activity is over, the strap syncs with Connect and steps are added after the fact. (There’s a big spike in the steps graph at the point where my activity ends). The steps are also synced with FR955 via Physio Trueup.

For a while this stopped working (in the sense that steps weren’t synced), but at some point it started working again. (I’m not sure if a firmware update broke it or not.) Some ppl have said that the watch needs to go out of range of the strap (or the strap needs to be otherwise disconnected at some point during the activity), but I haven’t found this to be the case in general.

I *think* that syncing steps should work without a timed activity, but you may wish to record a timed activity in any case. (One bonus is that HR is tracked more frequently during timed activities).

As far as speed and distance go, I’m not sure if there’s anything that can be done to improve the accuracy of the HRM-PRO other than wearing it outside during timed GPS runs so that it auto-calibrates. Tbh it seems the speed/distance feature of the HRM-PRO (and footpods) is better suited for running, not walking.

https://support.garmin.com/en-CA/?faq=8B0cpkix4E8kJHHhs2OzY6

3298762 said:

I tried to enable my HRM Pro Strap but the cadence and distance are way off, showing almost 2,5 times more than reality

• For example I walk 2.0 km/h on my walking pad but avg speed measured by HRM Pro Strap is 5.2 km/h
• When I disabled Distance tracking in sensor settings, distance was again 0

HRM-Pro should be calibrated as it is described in manual.
Go outside, do couple runs with GPS enabled and your data should start to be more reliable.
Second you maybe might do is calibration after indoor activity, but I don't know is it possible for walk, for sure works for indoor run, you have to run more than 1,5 mile and after activity stop you can do distance calibration on your watch.

All are described in manual.

Yes thats my fault, I didnt calibrate it. I cannot run currently, as my health condition doesn't allow it. This is why I have walking pad.

But still - my steps are 0. With or without HRM Pro.

Iam wearing both watch and HRM Pro strap. Strap is connected and is shown in Garmin Connect next to any activity done with it as "equipment". It is syncing properly.

Steps are still zero. Distance is zero with no strap, and 2,5x more than should be with strap.

Stryd footpod is super expensive in my country, Iam not willing to pay even more for step counting. I paid A LOT for my Epix and HRM Pro strap already.

3298762 said:

my steps are 0. With or without HRM Pro

If the wrist wearing the watch reposes on the desk (or the keyboard) while you walk, it cannot detect any steps. So if you cannot keep the wrist off the desk, moving freely, keep the watch in the pocket, or on the ankle.

And if you want to use the HRM-Pro instead, you have to remove the watch from the wrist. If the watch is worn in the same time as the strap, the data from the watch has the priority.

Stryd is unnecessary. HRM-Pro does the job just fine as long as properly calibrated. Calibrate your HRM-Pro with some outdoor Run activities. Never mind if you just walk while recording the Run activity. Typically you need at least 2 hours of an outdoor Run activity under good GPS conditions, to get the strap calibrated.

Detailed instructions for the strap calibration are available here: Calibrating the Pace and Distance Feature on a HRM-Pro or HRM-Pro Plus | Garmin Customer Support 

TL;DR I think you need to remove the watch in order for steps from the HRM-PRO to be counted.

If you want to calibrate the HRM-PRO indoors, use the Treadmill activity (while walking) and select Calibrate and Save at the end of the activity. (Or as trux suggested, record an outdoor walk as a run while you wear the strap.)

--

Sorry, I wasn't suggesting that you buy a Stryd, just describing my own use case for context. I agree that Stryd is expensive (I got mine for free - I wouldn't have paid for it otherwise tbh). Also, Garmin will never use a footpod to count steps (not Stryd or even its own, discontinued footpod).

Sorry for the unnecessary detail!

If you are wearing both the watch and the HRM-PRO strap, then it's understandable why you won't get steps from the strap. As I said above, I think the strap will only provide steps when the watch is not being worn. The support article I previously linked says the same thing:

[https://support.garmin.com/en-CA/?faq=vs3FdBS9QZ4DE2MWVAeZfA]

The HRM-Pro® and HRM-Pro® Plus monitors can provide supplementary activity tracking data by recording heart rate, calories, intensity minutes, and step data when your Garmin Watch or Edge® Cycling Computer cannot be worn or used.

...

What Happens if I Am Wearing the Strap and My Watch at the Same Time?

The TrueUp synchronization feature in Garmin Connect ensures activity tracking data for the same time period from multiple devices does not get counted twice.

When not recording an activity with the watch, if you wear the watch and strap at the same time, the all-day heart rate data in your Garmin Connect account comes from the watch that is listed as your Primary Wearable in Garmin Connect. While recording an activity and wearing both devices, the heart rate data from the strap will be used on the activity file. Any metric that relies on heart rate (such as intensity minutes or calories) will use the strap heart rate data, but other metrics like step data will come from the watch.

As implied above (and as trux said explicitly), you can't get steps from your watch if your arm isn't swinging normally (which would likely be the case if you are using your PC).

If you can't get steps from the watch, and you need steps to come from the HRM-PRO, then the solution is to remove the watch while you do your indoor walking.

As mentioned above, the HRM-PRO does need to be calibrated. If you cannot calibrate it with outdoor runs, you can try to do a manual calibration:

https://support.garmin.com/en-CA/?faq=8B0cpkix4E8kJHHhs2OzY6

The support article says that you have to do treadmill run, but I think for your purposes, you should use the Treadmill activity to record an indoor walk, and select Calibrate and Save afterwards.

Again it's not clear to me whether the HRM-PRO is optimal for walking pace/distance, no matter how it's calibrated, but calibrating it will hopefully give you better results than not calibrating it.

This doesn't precisely answer the original question, but I think the Garmin page you quoted is a little out of date in other respects. Now it says "Any metric that relies on heart rate (such as intensity minutes or calories) will use the strap heart rate data, but other metrics like step data will come from the watch." However, nowadays many Garmin watches provide natively running dynamics data like vertical oscillation, left/right balance etc, but running dynamics data from the HRM strap will be used instead, in available. So the strap is not used only for HR, as the text suggests.

I don't think it's out of date, it's just not comprehensive in the sense that it doesn't address running dynamics at all. The HRM-PRO has been able to provide running dynamics from the start (and so have other straps which came before it). This isn't changed by the fact that Garmin watches now support 6 running dynamics from the wrist (as opposed to only supporting cadence in the past).

I just think that the article is focused on activity tracking data (yeah it's a fuzzy term to me), re the article title (which I didn't quote): "HRM-Pro and Pro Plus: Top FAQs About the Activity Tracking Feature". It does mention the ability to be used as pace and distance (I assume they're called out because those are major features of the strap).

To be fair, until some point in 2023, Garmin watches only supported cadence from the wrist, so it's possible this article was written before that, and Garmin didn't feel it was necessary to underscore that running dynamics from the strap will override running dynamics from the wrist.

Then again, even older straps like HRM-RUN (released 2015) supported cadence, and cadence from the strap would override cadence from the wrist (for watches that support running dynamics). So even if the article was written in 2022 (when the HRM-PRO came out), they could've mentioned that cadence from the strap takes precedence. The fact that they didn't just suggests to me that running dynamics was not a focus for this article.

I have a Garmin Running Dynamics Pod which clips onto the waist of my.shorts/trousers. I've not tried running or walking without using the swing of my arms, so I don't know if that would work for your requirement. I will attempt to do so later and let you know.

OK. I set up the treadmill for walking, started a treadmill activity on my Fenix 7, took the watch off and only used the Running Dynamics Pod. It didn't record any steps (though it did give me a cadence figure). 

I tried again wearing the watch but not swinging my arms and I still didn't geet any steps. 

The only thing I could suggest is that you fit your watch to your ankle and see if that will record steps. You would have to perform the calibration routine after this first couple of treadmill walks in order to get the distance and speed more accurate.