Can the heart rate monitors the Quantified Scientist Rob ter Horst tests be used for scientific studies?

Last Updated on August 16, 2023 by pg@petergamma.org

Altough Rob ter Horst tested 100 smartwatches, are there any new data in scientific papers which confirm his tests which are worth mentioning?

If optical heart rate monitors would be interesting for scientists, would they not test watches as regularly as Rob does it? But where are these tests and papers? Does he sell us optical heart rate monitors which are not accurate enough for scientists? Or is testing too difficult for scientists which do not publish only on YouTube? What is your opinion about this topic? Write it in the comments below.

Rob ter Horsts plots are helpful to see a comparison of heart rate monitor accuracy at a level we never have seen before. But which scientists will cite his tests in their papers as “Rob has tested the accuracy on his YouTube channel. Is this eventually the goal of Rob, that no scientists will do this? Because they are not accurate enough? Is this a fact that the major manufacturers already know, and they therefore only want to sell those for sporting activities, and for scientific use?

We suppose that as soon as the issues ECG devices have with motion artefacts, they will beat optical heart rate monitors as far as accuracy is conerned, and also the Polar H10 chest strap. ECG devices on the highest level are strongly optimized for accuracy, but not developed for sporting activities. This might change in the future.

The heart rate monitors Rob tests are interesting for selected scientists.

  • Cardiologists from the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio tested the accuracy of selected consumer grade heart rate monitors for sporting activities and wrote two papers about it, and then stopped testing.
  • Cardiologists from the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio furthermore tested the accuracy of the Apple watch 4 to detect atrial fibrillation, but did not test newer Apple watches for this purpose.
  • Other Researchers tested the accuracy of consumer grade heart rate monitors with very expensive research and medical grade ECG devices at the highest level, but then stopped it, eventually due to problems with ECG motion artifacts.
  • Every now and then, sports scientists write a paper about the accuracy of selected heart rate monitors, but they do it not as systematically as Rob ter Horst does it.
  • For studying the effect of practicing meditation on the heart rate optical heart rate monitors could be helpful. But for this purpose we miss scientific data which are published in scientific journals.