BUG: Indoor Walk does not record exercise properly

Question

BUG: Indoor Walk does not record exercise properly

This bug concerns the Workout app. There are two problems:

The Indoor Walk function consistently grossly underestimates both the distance and the calories burned when I use it on a treadmill. The distances and calories are a little less than half of the values given by the treadmill itself. In addition I have checked this by wearing a chest strap type heart rate monitor and an iPhone app called Digifit. The calories from Digifit are consistent generally (+/- 15%) with the treadmill itself, but again are more than double the value given by Indoor Walk.
Indoor Walk also fails to sync with the Activity app. That is, when I do 30 minutes on the treadmill the Activity app does not record this as exercise. Other Workout functions (Elliptical, Indoor Cycle and Other) all register properly with Activity. Even when I increase the intensity on the treadmill to a heart rate of 125 to 130 bpm it still does not register as exercise. Indoor Cycle, at 115 bpm, does register.

Please note that I understand how to calibrate the watch by using it together with the iPhone on an outdoor walk or run. I have done this perhaps ten or so times so far the watch records exercise perfectly o\when used outdoors. However none of this has improved the accuracy of my indoor runs.

Posted on Jun 1, 2015 10:55 AM

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Answer 1

3bandds

Level 1

0 points

Jun 1, 2015 11:16 AM in response to Stephen Schwarz

caloric values given by a treadmills or elliptical machines are inaccurate by up to 40% and shouldn't be used to measure calories burned

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Answer 2

Jun 1, 2015 11:40 AM in response to 3bandds

Yes anything other than laboratory grade measurements will yield approximate data at best. Still, as I noted in my original post, I have the treadmill data, I have the data from the chest strap heart rate monitor, and, although I didn't mention it in my original post, there are published tables of calorie data for various exercises. Looking at all this the Watch data is a distant outlier. In addition, the treadmill is relatively accurate in measuring distance and the Watch is off there too, by a factor of more than 2.

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Answer 3

sldoty

Level 1

8 points

Jun 30, 2015 7:59 PM in response to Stephen Schwarz

Did you ever resolve this issue? I have tried everything since April to get my treadmill exercise to show up as exercise and have correct miles noted.

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Answer 4

Jul 1, 2015 6:34 AM in response to sldoty

I gave up trying to get the exercise ring to work with the walk options. Now I just choose the "other" option, for now, that works for me.

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Answer 5

Jul 1, 2015 6:37 AM in response to sldoty

I eventually spoke to Apple tech support and they told me they are aware of the problem and working on a fix. There was no promise as to when it would be fixed. In the meantime the work-around I use to to record treadmill time as "Other" on the Workout app. That gets the calories and duration right but you lose the distance data.

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Answer 6

timadams

Level 1

73 points

Oct 29, 2015 9:20 AM in response to Stephen Schwarz

I've been seeing the same issue and today I found something that might help. I tend to walk slower outside then indoors on the treadmill so today I slowed the treadmill down to the approximate speed I walk outside. The readings were a lot closer that they had been. Why Apple links them together I don't know. Of course the 35 minutes I was on the tread mill only shows as 19 minutes on the exercise ring which is something I still need to figure out.

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