Last Updated on July 23, 2023 by pg@petergamma.org
What does gold standard mean?
«A gold standard is when gold is used as the basis for a monetary system. It’s also any excellent example of something, like how Olympians are the gold standard for athletes. Originally, a gold standard was literal — it referred to gold being the official measure of money.»
https://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/gold%20standard
This leds us conclude, that «gold standard in the context of heart rate measurements means, the «olympic champion» for heart rate measurements, or in other words, the most accurate heart rate measurement device.
For cardiologists 3 lead ECG device is gold standard for HR measurements
In this paper written by cardiologists from the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio it says that 3 lead ECG devices are gold standard for HR measurements. They tested for instance the Polar H7 and the Apple watch 3 and compared their accuracy of a Quinton Standard 3-leads Q-tel RMS ECG device for runs on a treadmill up to about 15 km/h:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6732081/
Quinton Standard 3-leads Q-tel RMS ECG devices are also used for clinical applications.
The following paper written by sports scientists from the Swiss Federal Institute of sports in Magglingen says:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31004219/
«A simple chest strap such as the Polar H10 might be recommended as the gold standard for RR interval assessments if intense activities with strong body movements are investigated»
We did not find detailed technical specifications about the Polar H10 after a quick search in the web. But we guess that the Polar H10 is a single lead ECG device with one channel with two electrodes with an analog to digital conversion rate between 10 bit and 24 bit. The Polar H10 currently costs 90 USD at Digitec Switzerland.
If we look at the prizes and the specifications of the following research and medical grade ECG devices:
We are asking the question: Is it not possible to build an ECG device which beats the Polar H10 also for intense activities with strong body movements as far as accuracy is concerned? We invite you to test it yourself by building this device and test it:
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