Bug Report - Treadmill Calibration issues

2 huge issues with treadmill calibration.

1 - Calibration is off by about 2x on treadmill. I run consistently outside and inside, and inside on the treadmill I’ve had to “Calibrate and Save” 20+ times usually on runs that are 3+ miles. Nothing seems to affect the calibration. It’s always off. I’ve tried resetting several times and no luck. Outside calibration is accurate but treadmill is way off.

2 - Calibrate and Save feature itself is messed up. See the picture attached. When I try to calibrate, the watch won’t let me calibrate to between .00 and .30 of a mile. I ran a 5k on the treadmill (and watch said I ran 6.54 miles, which was off by a bit more than 2x), and when I went to calibrate and save, I could only select 3.30-3.99 miles, not 3.12 for a 5k.

Whats the fix?

Top Replies

agrazi over 4 years ago in reply to RunR +1

I run way more than 1.5Km, but there is no option to calibrate+save, unless I factory reset the watch which is a huge pain.

All Replies

0 7013026 over 5 years ago

0 MCHuff over 4 years ago

I fixed mine this week (before the V10 upgrade hit my watch) by performing a factory reset. It also fixed problems I had with Garmin Pay and a problem with connecting my Running Pod (it just stopped working one day). The V10 upgrade just happened to my watch this morning so I am hoping it didn't break something again. If V10 does not fix your problem, try resetting your watch. You can do a factory reset through the menu, but I didn't do it that way so cannot say if that works the same as what I did. See below for the steps I took.

Delete the watch from the phone Connect app. Once you do this, you will not be able to reset the watch using the watch menu and will have to do it as described below.

Turn watch Power off.
Press and release power button while also pressing the Start and Back Buttons.
Once the Garmin logo appears:
- Beep 1: release START button
- Beep 2: release BACK button
Add watch to Connect app on phone as part of the watch set-up process.

It will erase all data and you will have to set everything back up. The biggest pain for me was returning the watch face to the configuration I had before, but that is a cosmetic issue.

0 sholling over 4 years ago

Not sure what they mean by fixing treadmill calibration issues in V10 of the software release. There still doesn't seem to be an option to "Save & Calibrate" in the menu.

Mine is fairly accurate but I have a footpod and HRM-Tri. Friend has 5X Plus and a HRM-Tri and his distance remains significantly different on treadmill runs with no option to calibrate.

0 MCHuff over 4 years ago in reply to sholling

How far are you running on the treadmill? In order for the "Calibrate and Save" option to appear, you have to run more than a mile I think. Not sure the exact distance, but when I ran a mile it did not appear. When I ran 1.5 miles it did.

0 sholling over 4 years ago in reply to MCHuff

5-10km

0 MCHuff over 4 years ago in reply to sholling

I bet if you factory reset your watch it will fix that problem. It sounds like a software glitch or data corruption issue. My watch must have gotten corrupted during one of the software updates (I assume) and I had lots of weird problems until I did the factory reset. Now everything is working perfectly.

0 agrazi over 4 years ago

I've had this issue since having this watch for >1y now. You can only calibrate the 1st time you run, then the option disappears. Really annoying

0 RunR over 4 years ago in reply to agrazi

https://www8.garmin.com/manuals/webhelp/fenix5plus/EN-US/GUID-86541696-B60E-44BC-9A46-4349C86A1CD8.html

If you run at least 1.5km on the watch (not on the treadmill) the option to calibrate+save appears after stopping the run!

0 agrazi over 4 years ago in reply to RunR

I run way more than 1.5Km, but there is no option to calibrate+save, unless I factory reset the watch which is a huge pain.

0 RunR over 4 years ago in reply to agrazi

Today I was in the Gym and I doublechecked how my F5+ with Software 10.0 behaves. I rän 2km on the treadmill and stopped the activity. The following screen appears:

When I scroll down using the lower left botton, this is shown:

So at least on my F5+ everything works as it should.

Unfortunately callibration is only possible in combination with saving and therefore ending the activity. What I normally do is switch without saving to strength training to generate a multi-sports activity, but this is of course a minor issue.