«ECG noise & movement artifact free»: a rare feature which is little explored & hardly tested

Last Updated on July 20, 2023 by pg@petergamma.org

If we look at our table of the research & medical grade ECG devices which where partly used in papers to study the accuracy of HRMs:

90.02 Research & medical grade ECG devices which some of those were used to study the accuracy of consumer grade HRMs in different papers

we can see that devices from the

biosignalsplux Explorer Kit with 4-channel Bluetooth hub (€770,00)

&

OpenSignals Heart Rate Variability (HRV) Add-on ECG toolbox (€395,00)

which offers custom filtering to improve significant motion artifacts

Total hardware and software costs: 1’165 USD

to the

Vyntus ECG device ($ 7’500)

&
SentrySuite software

which does not offer noise & movement artifact free ECG and

is only sold with Ergospirometry system

( $ 40’000)

Total: 47’500 USD

are offered.

But «ECG noise & movement artifact free» is a feature which is neither scientifically crearly defined nor there is clear standard how to measure it.We can test the signal quality of ECG devices, but also this depends on the activity type:

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31004219/

If we look at all the devices we reviewed then we are asking the question: If we are interested in a device with this feature, is it not worth to test some of the ECG hardware we reviewed by ourselves, and keep an eye on new papers and algorithms about ECG noise & movement artifact removal? By doing so, will we not be able to compete with the most expensive devices which are currently on the market soon, as well as with Rob ter Horst regarding this feature?

The paper of the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio which tested heart rate monitors on a treadmill is a good starting point:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6732081/

Up to about 15 km/h it was possible to test sports sensors with an ECG device, which is also used for clinical applications. Tests at higher speeds would show the effectiveness of the «ECG noise & movement artifact free» feature. Different methods can be combined, a clinical or a research grade ECG device below 15 km/h, a comparison to a Polar H10 chest strap at higher speeds, and additional signal quality tests as well, to compete with the best studies which have been done to this date. And if we have too many devices and to many testing protocols and to many data which cannot be compared to data from other devices, is not best to go back to signal quality studies on a treadmill from rest to maximal speed choosing an precisely defined protocol, as the medical doctors from the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio did it?