If you check your smartwatch and see that you’ve walked only a half-mile today, even though your legs feel as if they’ve pounded out two, it’s not just in your mind. An increase in user reports indicates that some wearables estimate walking distance based on the number of steps taken, instead of using continuous GPS, and it’s causing profoundly low counts that runners and riders aren’t noticing.
Why walks can be wrong, while runs are right
Today’s wearables will typically change algorithms depending on the activity. For runs and rides, gadgets generally lock into GPS for distance since speeds are faster and paths straighter. For walks, many watches come with lower power modes that rely more on the accelerometer and a stored stride length to conserve battery. Multiply steps by stride and you have a distance that may look neat on paper but doesn’t always hold up in practice.
One widely circulated example from the community on Reddit is a back-and-forth route where a ride came in spot-on but the walk of the same endpoints measured at 3.6% of its true length.
The kicker is that the GPS trace remains imprinted on the app’s map of your walk, but the distance logged represents step math, not plotted path.
This result makes sense if the device samples GPS lightly during walking, or treats GPS as an alternative source to the pedometer unless you exceed a certain pace level. If your memorized step length is a bit too short, or if that stride contracts going up hills and getting jostled by people, that one mistake multiplies itself thousands of times.
The science behind stride length and GPS signal
Step length is not uniform. It changes with speed, slope, fatigue, and surface, as documented by studies in journals like Gait and Posture. Long strides will lengthen your step. A brisk walk can mean a short stride, whereas if you are walking uphill or back-stepping through hordes of people, it widens. Even “average stride” is often off by double digits, and over 5,000 to 10,000 steps, the number you are seeing could be very different.
GPS accuracy, however, is usually solid under open sky. According to GPS.gov, consumer GPS is generally “accurate to within several meters (m) 95% of the time,” and dual-frequency receivers like those found in more recent wearables can enhance it. But when the algorithms round your corners and shave tight turns, or when the watch prefers step data in slow movement, even with a good satellite lock, your final distance may end up short.
Clues in app features and support documentation
App behavior offers hints. On the web, Strava’s interface includes a tool called Correct Distance that recalculates distance based on the GPS path, and this fix will often help make sense of inscrutable walk logs. That seems to say that the raw GPS is there but not being used for the first pass.
On the platform side, documentation for the major fitness ecosystems describes automatic stride calibration via GPS when you run but is less clear on whether it applies that same correction to your walking pace. In a world where walking is considered an action that starts with stepping, you can see how there might be a mismatch. Add battery savers that sacrifice accuracy for battery life, or motion-based auto-pause and low-power GPS settings that stop and start tracking when they please, and you have everything you need to undercount many a stroll.
How to get better walk distance accuracy
Review your stride length. If your platform allows, calibrate on a measured track or on a mapped loop as described below. Walk at your normal speed and then update the value. Some systems will also learn stride over time if you collect a few GPS-verified workouts.
Force full GPS when accuracy is needed. Go to workout settings and make sure it is set to High Accuracy GPS, Always Use GPS, or Phone-assisted GPS; during the activity, disable battery saver. Make sure the app has location permissions, and that low-power modes for walks haven’t been set as default on the watch.
Men have been arrested for recording brisk walks as runs. Most watches enable continuous GPS and stride correction in a run mode at all speeds. You’ll still have distance and navigation at your fingertips without needing to do a quick jog.
Use post-workout tools. If you sync to services that include distance correction from GPS, apply them to suspect walks. Also, try monitoring auto-pause sensitivity (which can trim slow segments) and auto-pause distance.
What to watch for next from wearable vendors
There’s a firmware fix or an app-side adjustment that vendors can address: apply the GPS-derived fixes to walking as they already do for running, or surface a transparent toggle for distance source. If you are one of those affected and have examples, then report them to support along with activity logs. When fixes ship, be sure to read the release notes; sometimes even point updates can change sensor fusion behavior in significant ways.
Until then, just keep in mind your watch is mashing a bunch of different sensors to give you an educated guess. When it nudges toward GPS and provides a good stride estimate, that guess becomes something you can put some trust in when walking.