On most days, I like my Apple Watch; it’s functional and keeps me pushing to do my daily steps. It has mysterious ways to keep me fixated on pleasing the watch. I swear the effort I take to complete those rings is tremendous. That’s why it stinks, and I hate it when my Apple Watch is inaccurate on the treadmill.
When I run outside, my Apple Watch is very accurate, but when I run indoors, somehow, the Apple Watch does not match the treadmill count. Initially, I did not understand why, and then I dug up their customer care and found the answers you’ve been looking for.
Why Is Apple Watch Inaccurate on the Treadmill?
Apple Watch, like most smartwatches, relies upon GPS, accelerometer, and heart rate sensor for an outside walk or run. And because of GPS, the distance and steps are fairly accurate most of the time with minimum disparity. However, at an indoor run or walk on a treadmill, GPS is rendered mostly useless because you’re moving in the same place.
So your Apple Watch relies upon your movement tracked by an accelerometer and vitals from other sensors, and since there’s no location tracker (GPS), there comes a difference. And it is massive. Many users have found that the more they walk or run indoors, the greater the difference. Some users even shared that their Apple Watch showed the distance as half a mile less than they actually had.
It is terrible, to say the least, but what can you do about it? Well, here’s what I suggest.
Calibrate your data manually. Which is basically telling your Apple Watch about your stride, your natural pace of running and walking, and simply getting the watch to accurately measure your workouts without GPS.
Even if you don’t calibrate your data, your Apple Watch learns about your pace and stride over time, but this can take time and has a scope of inaccuracy. That’s why manually calibrating makes more sense here.
Also, before we begin with the steps, just verify whether the personal data you’ve added in your Apple Watch app and otherwise is accurate or not. Your body weight, height, age, and everything need to be correct; if there’s a change in something, your workout data will have more inaccuracies.
Step 1: Turn On Motion Calibration & Distance in Settings
- Launch the Settings app on your iPhone and go to Privacy & Security.
- Go to Location Services and ensure that the location is turned on.
- Scroll a bit and click on System Services.
- Now, turn on Motion Calibration & Distance.
Step 2: Reset Your Previous Calibrate Data
- Now, open the Watch app on your iPhone.
- Go to the My Watch tab and click on Privacy.
- Hit Reset Fitness Calibration Data at the bottom.
Step 3: Calibrate Your Apple Watch
To calibrate your Apple Watch properly, you need to do an Outdoor run or walk; it cannot be an indoor workout. Your watch detects most accurately with GPS, and that’s how it will best learn about your pace. After you have calibrated, you can do an indoor walk or run on a treadmill.
- Be in an outdoor area with good GPS reception and clear skies.
- Launch the Workout app on your Apple Watch.
- Select Outdoor Walk or Outdoor Ring, or whatever you feel like doing.
- Walk or run at your natural pace for around 20 minutes.
Repeat the process several times if you have different walking or running paces. Every time you run or walk outdoors, the Apple Watch calibrates the accelerometer by learning your stride at different speeds.
Wrap Up
This should probably fix your Apple Watch being inaccurate in indoor runs on the treadmill. On second thought, shouldn’t Apple allow users to edit their workout stats and calibrate the data after they have had a run or a walk? I mean, all the other smartwatches allow it, so why doesn’t Apple?
Apparently, Apple has too much faith in its algorithms, which is fine if it lives up to its claim. For now, you follow these steps, try to do a few runs outside, and only after that, you start indoor workouts. The idea is for the watch to get an idea of your stride without GPS, that’s it.
