Cadence and Power Inaccuracy after 15.08 and 16.10 update

Shikhar Madan said:

Anyone else facing similar issues?

Cadence on my I2 is all right, and I did not see any other similar recent reports here on the forum, so it may be an isolated problem with your device. Frst of all, I'd try the hard-reset of the watch - sync, then press the Light button for some 30s till it completely shuts down (hold the button through the emergency alert, if it comes), wait little bit, and then restart. No worry, no data or settings will be lost with it. [more details]. If it does not help, you can try resetting it to the factory defaults. And if still no change, then I recommend reaching out to the Product Support through their website at https://support.garmin.com. 

BTW, does the watch count your steps correctly? Could you check how many steps it counted during the activity shown on the screenshot? You can see it on the daily Steps graph - check the value before and after the activity.

Thank you! 

I have tried a Reset to Default Settings from the watch itself, at 15.08 but the problem still persisted.

I am having probably a case of underestimation of my step counter as well. I'd say, it definitely undercounts my activity, and the Pulse Ox always thinks I am never too still for it anymore, if that is a symptom to anything. 

As I wrote, check the number of steps done during the activity, and compare with the distance. You can easily calculate whether it corresponds to your average running stride length (at an adult male it is typically around 1m). If you find you really get much less steps than you should, then as I wrote, contact the Support, a replacement of the watch may be needed.

Right! Apologies for misunderstanding the question earlier. I checked the step counter from the day and yes, the step counter averages about ~3.5k steps, against the SPM of 5 during the run for 14 min, totaling to 70 steps. 

So definitely a glitch within the Run activity(?)

Could you share a link to the activity?

Here's a link, Trux from today's run. This is after another hard reset I did this morning. Again, the step counter seems accurate otherwise. It is just that the SPM and Power output that seems to be off. 

connect.garmin.com/.../16612793677

Strange indeed. The activity shows 3686 steps, which is corresponding well to the estimated distance of 3km. And since the time of the activity was 1494s, the average cadence should be 148 SPM.

The data file misses completely the values "directDoubleCadence", "directFractionalCadence" and "directRunCadence", at almost all data points.

The only thing that is a bit out of norm, is the low quality of the GPS signal, but that should actually not matter at all for the cadence, since the accelerometer is used for that, just as it is also used for the distance estimation. And the distance seems to be reasonable all right. Despite it, I'd recommend doing a short run in open space under good GPS conditions, further away from buildings and dense vegetation (may be quite challenging seing the temperatures in your place).

I am afraid you'll have to contact the Support for further investigation. Other than doing the test in open space, there is not much you can do, if you tell the master reset to factory defaults did not help either.

... there is another thing that just crossed my mind - in fact the calculated average cadence of 148 spm is extremely low for a run. Standard average cadence at experienced runners is rather close to 180 spm at normal pace (may vary a bit with the pace and the body height, but 180 is considered as the golden standard, although it may not be always true). So perhaps your cadence is simply below the threshold used by Garmin to switch from the Walk to the Run mode. You can try increasing the cadence considerably, without increasing the effort or the pace (making much smaller steps). Not only it may help with the cadence detection, but your joints will thank you too, and your running technique may also improve.

Yeah! I thought about that.... the first instinct is that of self-doubt. But I compared it to my runs before the 15.08 update. 

My stride length is between 0.78 and 0.96m and the SPM before the update used to be averaging at 153 and 160. 

Here's a sample activity from before: https://connect.garmin.com/modern/activity/15607077583?share_unique_id=13

So, yeah. unless something drastic happened in physiology, the blame probably lies in the watch. I've talked to the Service Center here and they're content to look into it. 

Thank you!