No option to calibrate treadmill runs

[colt033]

When I run on a treadmill, my AW4 says I've done 93% of the distance the treadmill says.

It seems like it's just talking my last outdoor run pace and multiplying by the time to come up with an (innacurate) esitmate and ignoring things like cadence.

Hope Apple add a feature to calibrate treadmill runs, like Garmin and Fitbit have.

 

[chabig]

According to Apple, outdoor calibration uses GPS to figure out your stride length at various speeds, and will use this when GPS isn't available. Have you calibrated it outdoors? If you have, try resetting the calibration data and recalibrating.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204516

 

[menace3]

Also, are you sure the treadmill is accurate? The treadmill at my gymn is not because people are always on it and they are not cared for daily. Id rather trust my watch than worrying about these numbers not matching.

 

[colt033]

I can't say for certain if the treadmill is accurate, but I noticed that the faster I run the more off the distance is. If I do a slow run (6 mins / km) the apple watch distance is 93% of the treadmill readout If I run a bit faster, it's 83%.

I'll try doing more outdoor runs at different paces to see if that helps improve things.

 

[James.K.Polk]

According to Apple, outdoor calibration uses GPS to figure out your stride length at various speeds, and will use this when GPS isn't available. Have you calibrated it outdoors? If you have, try resetting the calibration data and recalibrating.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204516

True, but most dedicated sport watches (Garmin, Coros, Polar, Suunto) do that and allow for post-treadmill run calibration.

OP - it's not possible, and it's certainly a reason I ditched the Apple Watch.

 

[ukbootlegs]

I always run 10k on a treadmill. Watch always reports about 8.4

 

[MJ22]

Honestly no watch is very accurate on a treadmill unless you have a foot pod.

 

[Bichon]

Mine is even less accurate than the other posters in this thread. Today I walked until my watch said 3 miles; but the treadmill says I did 3.61, which more than a 20% inaccuracy. I thought I had read that the watch automatically calibrates when you do an outdoor walk (using GPS), but if so, the algorithm isn't working very well for me.

 

[Apple_Robert]

Mine is even less accurate than the other posters in this thread. Today I walked until my watch said 3 miles; but the treadmill says I did 3.61, which more than a 20% inaccuracy. I thought I had read that the watch automatically calibrates when you do an outdoor walk (using GPS), but if so, the algorithm isn't working very well for me.

The calibration is for outdoor use.

 

[Pseudo-Fed]

We should have the option to calibrate to treadmill stated distance. Don't care if treadmills are incorrect. If I do much indoor treadmill work the relative measures are important to me. Keep it separate from outdoor calibration and call it a feature.

 

[colt033]

It's such an easy feature to add and one that would improve the user experience quite a bit.

 

[bluespark]

When I run on a treadmill, my AW4 says I've done 93% of the distance the treadmill says.

It seems like it's just talking my last outdoor run pace and multiplying by the time to come up with an (innacurate) esitmate and ignoring things like cadence.

Hope Apple add a feature to calibrate treadmill runs, like Garmin and Fitbit have.

Apple deals with this by letting your prioritize your source data in the Health app. If you prefer that the app use data from your treadmill, you prioritize that data. The app is smart enough that it won't count your workout twice, even though it receives data from both sources.

 

[ManicMarc]

I guess this is what GymKit is for. It seems very few gyms have it though.
When I'm n a treadmill I often put my feet up on the sides to pause for a few seconds and change song or something, but the treadmill doesn't know I've stopped running, so it could be easy to calibrate it with bad data.

 

[AppleHealth]

I wish Apple added this option, slightly off but I would also love one that is more accurate for Olympic Lifting.

 

[NME42]

Honestly no watch is very accurate on a treadmill unless you have a foot pod.

+1. Buy a footpod (e.g. a Milestone pod if this is still available, or Zwift one or expensive solution a Stryd), run with iSmoothrun and calibrate it to the treadmill. To avoid philosophical discussions: when running on treadmill the truth on distance is for me the treadmill display knowing that running on a treadmill is something different than running outdoors.

 

[colt033]

I don't need absolute accuracy, so a footpod, for me, would be overkill.

It looks like a lot of people think the apple watch underestimates treadmill distance. If I assume it's calculating cadence accurately (which should be easy to do), I notice that for some of my runs it's using a stride length of 95cm. That's close to my walking stride length, so using it it calculate run distance seems dumb.