Not getting accurate readings

[jwlbel]

Both my wife and I walk every morning the exact same walk. We walk on a track, so I know it is exactly a half a mile each time around. My watch only credits me .70 miles for two times around and hers credits her for a full mile. We walk for over an hour (usually doing about 3.5 miles total an hour) and she will get the full exercise heart rate time credit where mine only says I only exercised maybe 5 minutes. My watch will give me the same results when I am using the fitness app and when I am not. I have calibrated the watch many times. So I finally got around to taking it to the genius bar. They had me re-pair and reset it and set it up as new and a few other things. I was there for over 2 hours. We walked around the mall and tested it getting the same 30% less results. So they sent it into for repair. I bought another watch, mostly so I could test it to see what the results are. The first morning we walked it was perfect. It read that I was walking the full mile. The 2nd day it was giving me the exact same readings as my watch that was sent out for repair (.70 for every mile and almost no heart rate reading) I wear it snug and I know there was some problems with it reading heart rates with tattoos. I do not have any tattoos, so that is not the problem. Any suggestions are greatly appreciated.

 

[Armen]

Both my wife and I walk every morning the exact same walk. We walk on a track, so I know it is exactly a half a mile each time around. My watch only credits me .70 miles for two times around and hers credits her for a full mile. We walk for over an hour (usually doing about 3.5 miles total an hour) and she will get the full exercise heart rate time credit where mine only says I only exercised maybe 5 minutes. My watch will give me the same results when I am using the fitness app and when I am not. I have calibrated the watch many times. So I finally got around to taking it to the genius bar. They had me re-pair and reset it and set it up as new and a few other things. I was there for over 2 hours. We walked around the mall and tested it getting the same 30% less results. So they sent it into for repair. I bought another watch, mostly so I could test it to see what the results are. The first morning we walked it was perfect. It read that I was walking the full mile. The 2nd day it was giving me the exact same readings as my watch that was sent out for repair (.70 for every mile and almost no heart rate reading) I wear it snug and I know there was some problems with it reading heart rates with tattoos. I do not have any tattoos, so that is not the problem. Any suggestions are greatly appreciated.

Did you walk around with your iPhone a few times so the watch could learn your stride?

 

[DdDr2]

Well mine definitely doesn't count my steps accurately. So I wouldn't be surprised if it was defective.

But are you keeping in mind that the walk you guys take might be harder for her to keep up with your pace. Therefore it's elevating her heart rate more which is clocking in more excersize time. Plus what is a " excersize zone" for her heart rate is going to me different for yours.
It takes in to account your individual height/weight/ages/gender when determining your zones
Since your walking thru the mall, it really isn't going to use GPS correctly off your phone for a exact mileage.
And the fact that your wife clocks in more mileage then you do could be because she has a smaller step/stride length. So two of her full steps could only equal up to one of yours. ( sorry, I'm totally assuming that she is shorter/smaller build then you)

I just know that with my hubs and I , our fitbits will be off on miles because of this.

 

[jwlbel]

Yes I did. I always have my iphone with me. I calibrated the new watch as soon as I got it. I wanted to be able to prove that the original watch had to be defective when they called and told me pick it up from repair if they were to say nothing is wrong with it. But now I am not sure why the 2nd watch is doing the exact same thing.
[doublepost=1456374878][/doublepost]

Well mine definitely doesn't count my steps accurately. So I wouldn't be surprised if it was defective.

But are you keeping in mind that the walk you guys take might be harder for her to keep up with your pace. Therefore it's elevating her heart rate more which is clocking in more excersize time. Plus what is a " excersize zone" for her heart rate is going to me different for yours.
It takes in to account your individual height/weight/ages/gender when determining your zones
Since your walking thru the mall, it really isn't going to use GPS correctly off your phone for a exact mileage.
And the fact that your wife clocks in more mileage then you do could be because she has a smaller step/stride length. So two of her full steps could only equal up to one of yours. ( sorry, I'm totally assuming that she is shorter/smaller build then you)

I just know that with my hubs and I , our fitbits will be off on miles because of this.

But if we both walk around a track that is exactly a half a mile, it should not matter our size, heights or age. It should show I walked .50 miles each time around. I can totally understand that our steps are different because of our stride and leg length.

 

[DdDr2]

Is it a indoors track or outside ?
[doublepost=1456376861][/doublepost]I think it uses the GPS off your phone to calculate actual mileage. If it's a small track outside, I could see it having a problem gps-ing the distance of a oval accurately compared to you doing so on actual streets that are mapped out in the phones maps/GPS app

 

[jwlbel]

Is it a indoors track or outside ?
[doublepost=1456376861][/doublepost]I think it uses the GPS off your phone to calculate actual mileage. If it's a small track outside, I could see it having a problem gps-ing the distance of a oval accurately compared to you doing so on actual streets that are mapped out in the phones maps/GPS app

We walk a mixture of indoors and outdoors... We walked the exact same amount today (both indoors and outdoors) My watch shows a total of 7.17 miles - 502 Cals - 16,813 steps and 11 mins of exercise. Hers shows 11.31 miles - 872 cals - 22,423 steps and 134 mins of exercise. I am not that concerned about the difference in the calories and steps. I know they will differ but the distance should be almost exactly the same.

 

[exxxviii]

The calibration does not work. Numerous posts on this, mostly from runners, but it is broken and inconsistent. It was better in OS1. Maybe Apple will fix it in a future OS update.

 

[DdDr2]

Yeah I don't think the calibration works either.
Are you turning on the workout app before you guys start your excersize ? Unless it's accessing the GPS on the phone, I don't think it's going to get your mileage the same as hers cause it's going to be referring to your stride length /steps to determine how far you moved.

 

[zhenya]

The watch measures distance by correlating a swing of your arm to a stride. Stride length is what is calibrated with the GPS. Is there any possibility that you are not moving your arm that the watch is on in a consistent manner? If for any reason it's not one arm swing per stride, your distance will be off. Are you walking a dog? Holding her hand? Just don't move that arm that much while walking?

I have done comparison runs up to 10 miles with my AW (without phone) and my Garmin running watch and it has consistently been accurate to within .1 mile.

 

[DdDr2]

If a person is walking on a track that is 1 mile in length, it doesn't really mean that they walked a mile IMO. It's hard for me to explain my logic on that. But basically it's not until their specific stride length/step length is reached to what a actual mile is. Like two of my steps is equal to one of my brothers. Seriously. He's tall. So it's like he totally skips half of that walk that it takes me. Lol. But basically he would have to walk twice the amount to truely have walked a mile for his body. Sorry, I stink at explaining things.

 

[zhenya]

No, that's not how it works. Walking a mile is walking a mile. No matter how many steps it takes you.

 

[exxxviii]

My watch shows a total of 7.17 miles - 502 Cals - 16,813 steps and 11 mins of exercise...
Hers shows 11.31 miles - 872 cals - 22,423 steps and 134 mins of exercise

Quick addendum to my post...

Your watch is giving you 70 calories per mile versus your wife's 77 calories per mile. Those are low, but consistent with other AW measurements I have seen.

Your watch is 6K steps below your wife's. It should be closer, even if you have a longer stride length.

At a glance, it looks like either yours is missing steps or hers is making up steps. So, as zhenya suggests, you may be holding your arm stationary or moving in a way that prevents the watch from detecting movement. Or your wife is moving her arm in a way that is making up steps.

Second, the watch has a bizarre stride length for your wife.

Your watch has you at a 27" stride length and your wife is a 32" stride length. This is all kinds of out of wack, unless your wife is 6'-5" tall. Your stride length of 27" is on par with someone around 5'-6" tall.

So, at a minimum, I would reset the calibration data on both watches. Then, do some walks with both of you carrying your phones to get some fresh calibration data. Also, pay attention to your arm movements while you walk-- if you are carrying anything or holding hands, that will throw things off.

 

[DdDr2]

Yeah it's just my thoughts on the process. That his body didn't actually walk a full mile

 

[jwlbel]

Quick addendum to my post...

Your watch is giving you 70 calories per mile versus your wife's 77 calories per mile. Those are low, but consistent with other AW measurements I have seen.

Your watch is 6K steps below your wife's. It should be closer, even if you have a longer stride length.

At a glance, it looks like either yours is missing steps or hers is making up steps. So, as zhenya suggests, you may be holding your arm stationary or moving in a way that prevents the watch from detecting movement. Or your wife is moving her arm in a way that is making up steps.

Second, the watch has a bizarre stride length for your wife.

Your watch has you at a 27" stride length and your wife is a 32" stride length. This is all kinds of out of wack, unless your wife is 6'-5" tall. Your stride length of 27" is on par with someone around 5'-6" tall.

So, at a minimum, I would reset the calibration data on both watches. Then, do some walks with both of you carrying your phones to get some fresh calibration data. Also, pay attention to your arm movements while you walk-- if you are carrying anything or holding hands, that will throw things off.

I am 6'1 and she is 5'3. Neither of us carry anything in the arm that we wear the watch on. We both swing our arm when we are walking. We both always have our phone on us. Today we walked somewhere totally different and we both used the fitness app and the same thing, I get only .70 for every mile she walks. I would say maybe it is her watch but when we walk on a .50 mile track hers shows as .50 miles each time around. It doesnt matter if we are at the gym or an outside track, the mall or just on the streets it is the same. Hers is always about 30% more than mine.

 

[exxxviii]

I am 6'1 and she is 5'3. Neither of us carry anything in the arm that we wear the watch on. We both swing our arm when we are walking. We both always have our phone on us. Today we walked somewhere totally different and we both used the fitness app and the same thing, I get only .70 for every mile she walks. I would say maybe it is her watch but when we walk on a .50 mile track hers shows as .50 miles each time around. It doesnt matter if we are at the gym or an outside track, the mall or just on the streets it is the same. Hers is always about 30% more than mine.

Wow, that is totally bizarre. The stride lengths derived from your total steps and distances are almost opposite of your heights. And, from your description there is nothing about your walking that should be throwing it off.

 

[jwlbel]

I just checked the repair status and it says that Apple is replacing it. I am not sure if it is going to help since when my watch was out being serviced I bought a new one so I could know for sure if it was the watch. The new one (that I got on Monday) is reading the same. I am not sure if it will help but I am going to restore my phone tonight and see if that helps. I can't think of anything else. Nothing is making sense why both watches would be shorting me by 30% of my walk. I am swinging my arm, using the fitness app, calibrated a it few times as soon as I got it , have my phone with me at all times, walk inside and outside at different places.
[doublepost=1456447785][/doublepost]One other thing I just thought to ask is... Does the phone have anything to do with the exercise (heart rate) time I get credit for? I walked at a very fast pace this morning, 13 minute mile and I did over an hour at that pace and I only got credit for 5 minutes.

 

[jwlbel]

Update....

Apple replaced the watch. So I went this morning to pick up the new watch. Since the 2nd watch was also shorting me 30%, I knew it was not the watch that was the problem. I was talking to the people at the genius bar about this issue and what should we do next. They had me reset my phone and set it up as a brand new phone. I did that and took another walk and I was still short on my distance. So process of elimination, it had to be the phone hardware. The guy that was helping me insisted on running hardware diagnostics and it came back okay. I had to convince them that there is nothing else it could be but the phone itself. He finally got the approval to exchange the phone. My wife walked out with a new phone and a watch and we did another walk and this time we matched exactly!!!! We have since taken 3 more walks and we match exactly each time on our distance.

 

[exxxviii]

That is a wild and unexpected outcome. I would have thought phone GPS would have been either in or out, not producing intermittent or inaccurate results.