Newbie question - Treadmills

Treadmill

My watch arrives on Tuesday and it will be my first fitness tracker watch. Curious how it tracks/records a treadmill run. Does it sense my stride as I run or does it record based on my arms swinging? Do I need special running sensors for my shoes or something?

Thanks in advance.

There are many on here that are much wiser than I, but I will offer what I know. I believe the native watch will use a basic distance formula based upon your height, and calculating your stride length from that. That, times your cadence, (from your wrist movement) will give you distance. If you walk outdoors, using the GPS I believe this will further hone this value in.
For the best/most accurate data, you would want a foot pod, and calculate it by either doing the manual calculation as specified in the manual, or by walking several times outside to let the watch/footpod combo see how many steps it takes to go a specific distance, thereby giving an accurate stride length.
Hope that helps, of course, I can easily be corrected, for I'm not an expert.. :-)

There are many on here that are much wiser than I, but I will offer what I know. I believe the native watch will use a basic distance formula based upon your height, and calculating your stride length from that. That, times your cadence, (from your wrist movement) will give you distance. If you walk outdoors, using the GPS I believe this will further hone this value in.
For the best/most accurate data, you would want a foot pod, and calculate it by either doing the manual calculation as specified in the manual, or by walking several times outside to let the watch/footpod combo see how many steps it takes to go a specific distance, thereby giving an accurate stride length.
Hope that helps, of course, I can easily be corrected, for I'm not an expert.. :-)

Looks just about spot on to me OEAGLEO.

I've used my fenix on a treadmill a couple of times now and have to say it seems to work brilliantly.

For the best/most accurate data, you would want a foot pod, and calculate it by either doing the manual calculation as specified in the manual, or by walking several times outside to let the watch/footpod combo see how many steps it takes to go a specific distance, thereby giving an accurate stride length.

You'd need to do outdoor runs rather than walks to calibrate, as walking stride length tends to be very different from running stride length. The 'stride length' used for your step length is only used for activity tracking, i.e. steps. It isn't used for any running calculations, that's automatically calibrated separately.

You'd need to do outdoor runs rather than walks to calibrate, as walking stride length tends to be very different from running stride length. The 'stride length' used for your step length is only used for activity tracking, i.e. steps. It isn't used for any running calculations, that's automatically calibrated separately.

Oops, I forgot to add that the auto calibration needed to be done outside, using the GPS.. My bad.. Thanks for the correction.. :-)

Probably a good idea to do both GPS based walks and runs to calibrate the accelerometer in the watch for the treadmill. I am not sure if it uses both activities to calibrate, but it seems logical it would, to ensure it is more accurate when used indoors?

I purchased the footpod, as there are times on the treadmill when my arm swing is inconsistent (eg. swiping screens on an iPad etc), so it ensures the distance is accurate.