Kaitlyn Cimino / Android Authority
TL;DR How your smartwatch measures distance may vary depending on what kind of exercise you’re tracking.
Walks, in particular, can rely on step data rather than GPS, resulting in potentially inaccurate figures.
Wearables like smartwatches are utterly packed with sensors, and in using them we gather all sorts of data. But just how accurate are all of those numbers? With some, like calories burned during an exercise, it makes sense that the figure’s just an estimate, and we shouldn’t expect it to be precise. Other numbers, like how many steps you’ve taken, we’d assume were exact figures. Which of those camps would you think distance measurements fall into?
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Since smartwatches are generally equipped with GPS receivers, it would make sense that any distance measurements they report are as accurate as the GPS position data they’re computing. But over on Reddit’s Pixel Watch sub, user almosttan has been sharing a very confusing development that happens on their Pixel Watch 4 when comparing the distance clocked on a walk to the distance measured while running or cycling.
First noticing a discrepancy a few weeks back, almosttan initially suspected that their Watch 4 was computing walk distance by multiplying the number of steps taken by their entered stride length, rather than actually using GPS measurements. And after testing that theory across a few other modes of locomotion, it’s looking increasingly plausible.
Check out these two journeys, back and forth from the same points. Granted, the route taken is a little different between them, but that on its own doesn’t seem to explain the massive disconnect in distance reported.
Just to double-check, we measured both of those in Google Maps. The bicycle ride is just about right on the money:
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