Walking activities

Test Conclusion:

Vivosmart 4 Walk (no GPS) works and seems reasonable.
In Connect-mobile it shows Time, Distance, Pace, and HR. All are about what I see on the Vivoactive 4 Walk (with GPS). It does not present the Steps taken during the activity, but at least it must use the step count to estimate the Distance and Pace, and it adds to the Step count total for the day.

But, to use this I have to turn off the VA4 and make the VS4 the Preferred Activity Tracker.

Come on Garmin, I'm not asking for a new feature, just fix this problem. Otherwise you might as well remove the activity from the Vivoactive 4 because it is useless as installed.

Why does Garmin have all these, what seem to be, minor bugs that never get fixed? A prime example is the Intensity Minutes that Garmin refuses to allow the "first day of week" to match the User Settings. This has been compained about for years.

I did not get a chance to use the Treadmill activity on the VA4 yet. I'll get to it sometime this weekend.

My summation:

The Vivoactive 4 has 2 activities WALK and WALK INDOOR. Although the little "icon" for the WALK INDOOR seems to show treadmill.

Because the WALK INDOOR activity does not work. Pace, Distance, Speed, Moving Time vs Elapsed Time, are not calculated correctly - not even close as mentioned above.

I used the WALK activity with GPS turned off for an indoor walk today. Same result as the WALK INDOOR activity. Not usuable results. 12.09 minutes total time and results showed 1.42 minutes moving time for 1,016 steps (using CIQ data field) and distance showed 0.04 miles.

Having WALK activies that do not show steps in the results is NOT acceptable. Neither is have to get a 3rd party CIQ data field to show what the watch is already recording.

Having a WALK INDOOR activity that is completely wrong and unusable is NOT acceptable.

Having a WALK activity that does not work correctly, indoors or outdoors, without GPS is NOT acceptable.

But, at least the WALK activity does work correctly with GPS outdoors.

Why does the WALK activity on the less expensive Vivosmart 4 work correctly indoors and not on the Vivoactive 4?

So I guess I have to switch back-and-forth and use the Vivosmart 4 for walking indoors and the Vivoactive 4 everywhere else, or at least until another "fix" breaks that code. And that means making the VS4 as the Preferred Activity Tracker to get the results recorded then switch back. Thanks Garmin....

Have you had a chance to test the activity called "Treadmill" yet? It is probably meant for treadmill running, but it works very well for indoor walking too in my case.

Thanks for reminding me about the TREADMILL activity. I forgot I was going to try that. Tomorrow for sure.

From Vivoactive 4 Owner's Manual:
When running or walking with GPS turned off, speed, distance, and cadence are calculated using the
accelerometer in the device. The accelerometer is self-calibrating. The accuracy of the speed, distance, and
cadence data improves after a few outdoor runs or walks using GPS.

I've been doing at least 1, sometimes 2, 30+ minute brisk walks with the HR up in zone 3 every week since May, so that should not be a problem for "calibration". Nope - Garmin broke the WALK activities.

I tried the TREADMILL activity today for an indoor walking test as suggested.

First thing I noticed is that it is geared toward running.

When I completed 30 minutes I tried to save activity but it went to a calibration screen that I could not exit from. Loop over-and-over. Finally turned off watch. And when it restarted I was back in the loop. Entered 1.5 miles as a guess. Of course now stats are wonky.

I'll just use the Vivosmart 4 for indoor walking a couple times a week.

Darn shame this Vivoactive 4 WALKING INDOOR problem has been open for at least a year, if not more, and it doesn't seem Garmin cares to fix the problem.

Makes me cringe everytime there's an update to the software, wondering what gets broken so it's not usuable, and never gets fixed.

I also get that calibration screen every time. I just hit "save", and it exits without comments or calibration. 
This activity type also shows how many steps you had in the summary screen on the watch, but this data does not seem to be saved, so I can not see it in Garmin Connect.

I could not get past the enter numbers screen, it just kept looping to a info screen about needing to calibrate. Maybe the first time using the activity is different.

Yeah, the steps thing, I think would not be shown in a running activity, and that what the TREADMILL is geared to, not walking.

It is called "Treadmill" on the watch, but after the activity is stored in Garmin Connect, it is called "Treadmill running". Runners do not care much about the number of steps, I guess.

I think the average user walks faster and with a higher cadence than that. Typical walking speed is around 6 km per hour and 120 steps per minute.