Runn... Smart Treadmill Sensor

Love this bit of kit works great on Zwift Run, very accurate, easy to assemble and set up, great configuration app too. What’s not to love about it.

UPS still has not delivered this. Furthermore, It was a surprise I would have to pay an additional $46 for customs brokerage fees.

The smart treadmill sensor has made syncing my workouts to Garmin much easier and less erratic. My forerunner has the ability to calculate treadmill pace but is all over the place, my training plan calls for specific pacing so having an accurate sensor to get treadmill pace makes my performance stats that much better #tridotambassador

Trying to upgrade a True 540 circa 2000 and use with Garmin watch. Since Runn is measuring data independently of the treadmill computer, I expected greater accuracy and precision, especially with incline.

Cadence:
I am 220# and did not expect the unit to have trouble picking up my foot strikes for cadence. Treadmill is on a hardwood floor with 1/2" rubber pad. The mounting instructions using elastic tape at the back of the treadmill just did not work. After trial and error, I ended up using a rigid mechanical mounting--screwing to the deck--on the front left. Instructions for pushing buttons without visual indicators to increase cadence sensitivity did not make any difference (and how would you know anything is happening?). Needs to be an onboard led diagnostic similar to the toggling with speed, or just add to the app. There still seems to be an issue with time sampling as cadences drop out if below about 110, even when rucking with a 35# load on an incline.

Speed:
Mashing down the stickers using a pencil eraser has kept them on for 40 miles or so now. Whiteout and white sharpie did not work. Bought a roll of Tenacious Tape from Amazon for backup. It is odd that one would trust the treadmill readings to calibrate speed and not use an actual distance measurement between stickers. Speed matches treadmill to within 0.3 mph.

Incline:
Measurements are not repeatable and drift during workouts. After multiple calibration attempts, the readings settle at values about 1% - 1.5% higher, but not consistently offset, even at inclines used for calibration. After a short while this produces large elevation change errors. I accounted for backlash in the mechanism by always approaching a level from the same direction. I suspected the plastic holder might be shifting so added rubber bands to more tightly pull the two sides together. No improvement. And when return to zero after simulating hills (no negative incline on this treadmill), the Runn incline goes negative. This is a calibration point and should be zero!

Garmin:
This is more in the line of translating from ANT+ and BLE to Garmin-speak.

A Garmin Fenix8 (v12.31) picks up a “FP” (foot pod), which is the Runn ANT+ profile that contains incline, speed, cadence. The incline is picked up by the Runn IQ Connect data field.

The watch also picks up “Trainer”, which is the BLE profile with multiple services Fitness Machine->Treadmill Data (contains incline data) and Running Speed and Cadence Service (does not contain incline data) and several proprietary NPE services. Garmin does not recognize multiple services on the same device and does not support the Fitness machine service so will pick up only the RSCS. It does prioritize RSCS over the FP, so if you want incline you must use the FP sensor and must delete the Trainer profile from your watch if you paired it.

I couldn’t figure out a solution to my Garmin Forerunner 965 not matching my pace on the treadmill even after calibration. This thing is great for tempo runs, and vo2 max training when when you’re stuck inside on the tread.