Treadmill distance issues

[DJMcGuigan]

I'm running on a treadmill with a Pixel Watch 2 using the fitbit app and I cannot get my head around what it's doing.

I have set the stride length for both run (103.5cm) and walk (74.8 cm) and I'm using the app in treadmill mode.  For reference I'm running 5km in 23:30 ish without holding on to handrails.  The app seems to log the steps with OK precision (last run was 4,188 steps) but the distance is nuts!

So including some of the warm up it's read 25 mins, 4188 steps, average bmp of 149 (all good so far) but a distance of 0.7 km - that'd be a step size of less than 17 cm!!! 

The only thing I can think of is that it's still using GPS even on a treadmill run, but that'd be insane, right?... right!?!?!?  Surely that's one of the main reasons for picking treadmill rather than normal run.

Can anyone help?

[Triletics]

@DJMcGuigan almost no watch is accurate on treadmill unless you use foot pod sensor. Also, worth to know that treadmills are often not accurate (not calibrated properly). There isn't really much you can do but get watch that can use a foot pod. And even then you'll see differences because most treadmills accuracy isn't that great either 🤷 When running on treadmill, focus on other metrics like HR, power, RPE rather than pace and distance.

[DJMcGuigan]

Thanks for the reply, I appreciate it, but I don't get the readings I am getting.

As I say, the steps aren't MILES off, but then where is the distance it's getting coming from?

[Rich_Laue]

It might not have anything to do with the treadmill. There currently is a known bug that prevents some Pixel 2 users from having distance. Displayed properly. 

[DJMcGuigan]

I haven't seen that, and that is a particularly annoying bug, hopefully one that'll get ironed out.  Thanks for the help in at least identifying the issue.