Terrible Apple Watch Ultra treadmill accuracy - Big Apple fan

See the "Make sure that you earn Move and Exercise credit" section in:

Get the most accurate measurements using your Apple Watch - Apple Support

You should also make sure your watch is calibrated:

Calibrating your Apple Watch for improved Workout and Activity accuracy - Apple Support

BTW, the only way the watch can count your steps and compute a distance is by how many times you swing your arm. If you hold onto a handrail on the treadmill the step count will be underestimated. In those cases I have heard that some people strap the watch their ankle, but I don't know how that affects your heart rate measurements, etc.

If you would like to make a suggestion to Apple, use this link:

Product Feedback - Apple

The problem with that is when we are doing sprints on the treadmill, our strides are much wider than Normal allowing us to cover more distance faster. Swinging of the arms shouldn’t be the sole calibration. My watch will not record anything over 6.5 mph while on a treadmill even though I’m running between 7-7.5mph. By the end of a 10k, my watch is rough .65 miles off. Apple needs to allow us to update our treadmill times post run. When I run Half marathons, my watch is about .80 miles off (slower) than the actual course. It’s ridiculous.

[Edited by Moderator] 

That appears to be the case for some, but not all. It’s odd that it desk treadmill is more accurate than an actual treadmill.

As stated by a few people, the problem seems to escalate when you change paces. I walked for 20 minutes just to get some extra movement in yesterday, and the distance was almost perfect. However, I ran a workout with escalating paces a few days ago and the faster I got the worse the tracking became. At the end it was off by almost .15 miles over a 3 mile run.

Distance tracking on a treadmill with the Apple Watch is very inaccurate in my case. I have no problem with outdoor walks, which are consistent and seem fairly accurate. Here are the results of my last two indoor walks:

1 Apple Watch: 4.07 km Treadmill: 6.0 km

2 Apple Watch: 4.49 km Treadmill: 6.4 km

The watch underestimates the actual distance by around 30% (assuming the treadmill is accurate).

Given the limitations of the watch's sensors, I don't expect the accuracy to be high. A difference of 10% would be acceptable. I wouldn't bother correcting the result if that were the case.

I think a manual input for treadmill calibration should be available if the Watch is supposed to be a serious tool for exercise tracking (as advertised by Apple).

Well, those are actually better numbers than some of the results I get. Pace seems to be a huge issue. Anything that deviates from a relatively easy run is lost and shorted on distance. Then, even the easy runs are usually off by a bit. Calibration after the run is such an easy implementation, other than trying to force gymkit on people (usually not even their choice), I can't see why they haven't added it yet.

I agree. You can’t take this watch seriously as it is portrayed. It is more of a motivational watch rather than serious fitness watch. Metrics go completely of the charts if you are running longer distances on treadmill. When I run 10.5 - 12.5km/h my watch thinks that I’m pacing at 10.km/h. No way to track personal improvements in speed when it is stuck at 10km/ph. Surely Apple knows it as it is a common issue, they just refuse to address it with a software fix. I am aware that I’m digging first world problems here, but when you’re paying then price you pay it is just not acceptable. But for now, it really doesn’t matter if you have watch 4 or ultra, same shiny gadget with same issues with no improvements.

Unless you set it ti detect gym equipment and link the watch, without actually moving with gps the “distance” is measured by the treadmil if it has a gauge, whereas the heart rates, duration, and subsequent calories are measured on the watch. These three things are important for fitness, whereas distance is almost meaningless.

Huge issue of mine as well with the hugely inaccurate treadmill calibration on the Apple Watch Ultra and Series 8. My latest treadmill run showed a distance of .74 miles after a one-mile run. My Garmin Instinct 2x is nearly spot on at 2.01. I understand a margin of error indoors, but an entire 400+ meters is beyond ridiculous. I’ve done the whole calibration reset through settings, outdoor runs etc. and this is what I have to work with. It completely throws off my training and running data/metrics and is frustrating for when I train indoors and try to save my worn knees a little. Great… a super accurate HR monitor, but is that it on the training and health metrics… I get it… just griping a little as this is a huge issue for me and why I ever even started wearing watches outside my time in service with the Army.

I've put in this request for a feature as well. It's probably going to be the reason I stop using my Ultra 2. I run on treadmills a lot through the winter and it ruins my metrics on an Apple Watch. If this feature was going to be added they would have done it by now. It's disappointing considering how good the GPS and daily step/activity functions are.

This is not entirely true ie. the Apple Watch does (on 'indoor walk') track distance reasonably well. How do I know this? I've been using it with a treadmill desk while having my wrists up on a keyboard and the distance tracked is within a reasonable range of my treadmill's tracking. Active calories are also pretty close. I think it does require that your wrist be close to the edge of the desk and so it detects the slight movement as steps.

Yes with the desk treadmill I have no issues with it underestimating the distance by 5-10% as I am just looking to get a general log of my activity. (Happy it can actually track to be honest)

With running on a treadmill as a dedicated workout I'd be more annoyed. I have not compared in a while but the discrepancy seemed less in that case. Perhaps because I am properly swinging my arms and its also been calibrated on my outdoor runs.

Or, you know, you like 97% of what the watch does and you just want a feature added. So, you bring it up in a forum and also go make a feature request through Apple's official channel.

But sure, you could throw it all out because of one request.

^^such a nuisance. It’s unusable on the treadmill. I find myself muting my watch’s prompts to start a workout when I use a treadmill or just removing the watch altogether because the watch consistently misjudges the distance. I wish my gym had treadmills that connected through GymKit but nope. I too have tried calibrating with outdoor runs multiple times with the ultra and 2 previous Apple Watches, but the issue is never any better. Annoying, annoying, so easily fixable issue. Please let us calibrate post workout on the treadmill!!!!

Unfortunately, it seems they don’t care. Same problem half a year later.

This has been YEARS, not a few months...