S health - exercise - running has wrong mileage

[AC Question]

Yesterday I ran 9.5 miles on a pre-calculated training run - S5 said 11.61mi; today I ran 4.0mi and the S5 said 5.67mi. Does anyone know how the app is calculating mileage? Is there a way to adjust it? I don't want to have to wear two devices for the accurate mileage. I love the idea of one device for all tracking with the gear fit for walking, sleep, etc... but if it isn't accurate - just not worth it.

 

[srkmagnus]

Yesterday I ran 9.5 miles on a pre-calculated training run - S5 said 11.61mi; today I ran 4.0mi and the S5 said 5.67mi. Does anyone know how the app is calculating mileage? Is there a way to adjust it? I don't want to have to wear two devices for the accurate mileage. I love the idea of one device for all tracking with the gear fit for walking, sleep, etc... but if it isn't accurate - just not worth it.

It's calculating one of two ways: 1. via GPS or 2. via foot steps. I'm not sure how S Health calculates distance, or if the method can be changed. Even with GPS, you need to have high accuracy (good GPS coverage) to get a good measure of the distance. The best thing to do is to install another fitness or run tracker app, and use that to compare the distance with S Health and the known distance and see if theres a discrepancy with how S Health measures distance.

Let us know your findings .

 

[Mellow66]

My S Health is pretty accurate but the gear fit is not. Why are they different?

 

[T79phoenix]

Yesterday I ran 9.5 miles on a pre-calculated training run - S5 said 11.61mi; today I ran 4.0mi and the S5 said 5.67mi. Does anyone know how the app is calculating mileage? Is there a way to adjust it? I don't want to have to wear two devices for the accurate mileage. I love the idea of one device for all tracking with the gear fit for walking, sleep, etc... but if it isn't accurate - just not worth it.

I'm not entirely sure how it tracks distance but usually they always use GPS location. The best way for it to track your distance the most accurate way is to make sure your phone location setting is set to "High Accuracy". Go into your phone location settings and you should see an option that says "Accuracy Mode" or something of the sort and make sure it's on High Accuracy. This can drain your battery faster than the others but it's your best bet. Just to make sure you don't quickly drain your battery after your run, just go back in and either turn your location off or just put it in the least battery use mode.

If that doesn't help (or if you've already had it in High Accuracy Mode) it may be an app bug that's keeping it from applying the correct GPS location to your running records.

 

[T79phoenix]

My S Health is pretty accurate but the gear fit is not. Why are they different?

Depending on which Gear fit it is, it is using solely accelerometers and movement sensors to estimate how many steps you've taken whether you're running or walking. They don't have a built in GPS, but the newest models might.

Anyway, usually when you get your gear fit and Gear App, it asks you your age, weight, height, and gender. It takes all of those inputs and generates it's own formulas guesstimating how far your travel is based on it "feeling" each step you're taking whether it's a run or walk. For example, let's say you're a 28 year old, 6'0" male. It will figure that someone your size and gender, when you're running, takes you (hypothetically) 400 running steps to run a mile. Since walking steps are usually closer together, it may say it takes you (hypothetically) 600 steps.

 

[NLetToutous]

S health was real good with my Samsung note 4.
it's completly wrong since I changed it for a Samsung A70
I wonder if the problem is the app or the phone.....