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Treadmill Walking Wildly inaccurate

thecofffeeguy
over 4 years ago

I feel like I'm beating a dead horse here. I have contacted customer support, asked questions on reddit, and I'm taking my final shot here.

When I run on the treadmill, the distance measured is dead on, keeps right exact with the treadmill. Today I ran 2.3 miles and both the watch and treadmill agreed. No footpod needed.

However, WALKING on the treadmill is another story. I have tried the activities "Treadmill, Walk indoor, Indoor Track" as well as "Walk" with the GPS turned off. Every time though the watch will record a wildly inaccurate distance. Tonight I walked a half mile (0.50 mile) on the treadmill to meet my step goal for the day and the watch only measured 163.3ft. That is 0.03 miles and I took 1,200 steps. People always say, "Well, treadmills aren't accurate". LISTEN UP BUDDY, THAT AINT THE PROBLEM.

I have followed every direction I was given by customer support;

  • "Dont hold onto the hand rails" I never do.
  • "Walk upright" Silly me, I was backbending during my walks.
  • "Dont use your phone" I watch tv while on the treadmill I don't hold my phone.
  • "Dont put your hands in your pockets" I dont.
  • Factory reset the watch
  • Calibrated to the treadmill multiple times
  • Recorded over 175 outdoor walks with the GPS
  • Measured out and added a custom stride length.

I made sure the battery was fully charged, rebooted the watch before a walk. I have tried walking like a robot, like a chad, Frankenstein, an ice skater, John Cleese, a jester. When I say I have tired it all, I mean it ALL to just get the thing to work.

The thing that boils my blood though is that, on the watch face the "Distance walked today" field will add the treadmill distance to the total just fine. But the activity is still wrong.

I would prefer not to buy a footpod, If I have to fuss with an extra sensor, I will just go back to my 4 year old watch I had before that tracked everything flawlessly.

I have seen it is a fairly common problem over the various forums. This is more a case to get the frustration out and make the issue known, critiques/tips are welcome though.

This is the data from the walk. It only shows a tiny spike where it records a speed of roughly 2mph.

  • 0 over 4 years ago

    Have you tried to use a treadmill running activity, instead of a walk, when walking?
    How does you cadence look in log from you walking sessions?

  • 0 over 4 years ago

    Is there any value saved under Custom Stride Length in Garmin Connect?

    Found under Device/Activity Tracking/custom stride length.

    If you haven't walked much outdoors for the the gps to "calibrate" your stride length, then your indoor walks may be inaccurate... although with the inaccuracy you have I'm not sure if this will work. But have a look or give it a try. Custom stride length would be used for Walking activity without GPS. 

    What I did is walk a known distance (200m) and count the steps. Then the stride length is calculated in the connect app. 

  • 0 over 4 years ago

    I have a very similar issue; however, for me it has only started in the past week.

    Using my Fenix 6, or MARQ, in Treadmill mode, both my treadmill distance and watch were almost perfectly matched (distance and steps).

    However, on Sunday I did a Treadmill 'walk' (speed between 4.8 - 5.2 miles per hour) and whilst my watch recorded a distance of 6-miles (and so did the treadmill), my watch only counted 4000 steps (it should have been closer to 12,500). I thought it may just be my Fenix 6 but I did exactly the same distance two days later wearing my MARQ and ended up with a very similar result.

    Like you, I was told all the inane things (don't hold the bar - I'm on a treadmill, not a bloody zimmer frame OAP walker! etc etc) but I am now almost certain that it is down to a software update. Garmin do a lot right but they are their own worst enemy when it comes to updating software to fix one issue only to create another entirely.

    Frustrating!

  • 0 over 4 years ago in reply to NowOrNeverNow

    If the watch got the distance right, it must have registered your steps, just reporting them wrong in the summary somehow.
    How does it look in the activity log, looking at the cadence graph?

  • 0 over 4 years ago in reply to ovekvam

    Hi

    I was using a Footpod as well as the F6 and the readings for one of the work outs mentioned was:

    Time - 1:10:00 Distance - 6.07 miles

    Pace average: 11:31 / Best 10:39

    Cadence: 145 / 152

    Any insight welcome

    For reference, that was with the F6, the MARQ was as follows:

    1:05:00 / 5.42

    12:00 / 11:06

    141 / 150

  • 0 over 4 years ago in reply to ovekvam

    I just uploaded a treadmill walk that I took with my old samsung watch and the garmin on the same wrist. The "Walking speed" is bumpier than a fair ride. There is no cadence to show because it is a walk so *Shrug*.

  • 0 over 4 years ago in reply to thecofffeeguy

    It is also interesting that your moving time was  6:52, of a total time of 17:15. Do you have auto pause activated? 

  • 0 over 4 years ago in reply to ovekvam

    Nope! I did turn it on once while I was toggling every setting to see if I could get an result. But it was buzzing almost literally non stop telling me I had stopped... while I was moving. 

    Thanks for your support through this man!

  • 0 over 4 years ago in reply to thecofffeeguy

    You might check if different activities have different auto-pause settings so it might be that auto-pause is turned off for running but on for treadmill.

    It's hard to tell what might have caused your issue but as for auto-pause, what I've found is that auto-pause when stopped doesn't work for me. What does work for me is setting auto-pause to a very slow pace. In my case, I use 30 minutes per mile.