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Treadmill Walking Wildly inaccurate

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.

  • In the Garmin watches, the stride length is supposed to self calibrate based on GPS activities outdoors. It is not quite as simple as a given length per step either. I have noticed that the estimated pace is not proportional to the measured cadence, so the watch is probably also looking at how vigorous your arm movements are.

  • I have this exact issue! Did you ever get a resolution?

  • Nope, never. I have been in contact with them for ages and things never get remedied. I am kind, but firm with my wanting to get this remedied. I hope if I poke at them enough, they will eventually do something, ANYTHING, to fix this. It has been years, I have used the Vivoactive 3, VA4, and Venu SQ2. None of them have come back with accurate treadmill numbers Disappointed. Funny thing is that the Gen 1 Vivoactive I used to use worked perfectly fine on the treadmill, it is the ones with more advanced hardware that get the distance wrong.

  • Kick ! Same problem here on my brand new Venu sq 2, how disappointing !

    It looks like it reports half the distance, but the calories are spot on, so there is one thing a FitBit can easily do better !

  • Isn’t it terrible. Still no remedy all this time later. They have given up on this and have stoped replying to my emails. 

    If Fitbit had a device with a transflective display, and round watch, I would switch in a heartbeat. I dislike oled screens for my wrist, makes it feel too techie. Fitbit does sleep, weights, and treadmill tracking FAR better than Garmin could dream (heheh, pun) of doing. 

  • Using "Walk Indoor" as activity seems to work better, as long as my walking speed is 5km/h or more, still distance is short, calories are spot-on