Last Updated on August 23, 2023 by pg@petergamma.org
Is the holy grail Polar H10 not overestimated as far as accuracy is concerned? We have all kind of studies about heart rate variability with the Polar H10:
But we have also a heart rate variability study about a Cyton 3 channel ECG device which is eventually more accurate than the Polar H10:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2405844021012512
Why not to choose this device for scientific studies instead the Polar H10? Which physiologists and cardiologists can be convinced by a paper from the Swiss Federal Institute of Sports in Magglingen partly financed by Polar:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31004219/
to use a Polar H10 chest strap instead of an ECG device? It is easier to win those with a study about heart rate variablity done with a Cyton 3 channel ECG. But now whe have Python open source toolboxes with HeartPy which are worth testing together with new devices:
https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=OOhuA6gAAAAJ&hl=de&oi=sra
Also the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne estimates the respiration rate from a Polar H 10 chest strap:
https://www.mdpi.com/1424-8220/21/16/5651
Respiration rate wile running from a Polar H10 chest strap? For which applications is this good for? The Meditation Research Institute Switzerland (MRIS) would be happy if the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology on Lausanne would choose a Cyton 3 channel ECG instead of a Polar H10, since we could use it for breath meditation studies. But we prefer the Cyton 3 channel ECG device over the Polar H10 because of accuracy reasons. Why did they choose the Polar H10? Because the Swiss Federal Institute of Sports in Magglingen writes papers financed partly by Polar which says that the Polar H10 chest strap has a signal quality of 99.6?
The sports scientists from Magglingen studied in 2019 the signal quality of the Polar H10 by manual counting and judging over the quality of ECG peaks. But in the same year, Paul van Gent published his Python open source toolbox HeartPy which allows us to study individual ECG peaks in every detail with Python scripts. And now affordable Cyton 3 channel gold standard ECG devices are on the market, which offer validation studies which let those play in the league of devices from Adinstruments which cost 15’000 USD. Further tests with these new tools and devices would be highly desirable, instead of glorifying the Polar H10 chest strap as Rob ter Horst does.
A project would be for instance to test if it is possible to make the Cyton 3 channel ECG more accurate than the Polar H10 for intense activities with strong body movements, by cleaning up the noise in the ECG signal of Cyton. Did Adinstruments more than use HeartPy with the Equivital belt to make it ECG noise and artifact-free? We do not know this, but we think it is worth testing what HeartPy can to to handly with noisy ECG signals. If it is successful to beat the Polar H10 would this not also be interesting for the sports scientists who are looking for the most accurate device? And a research topic for institutes such as those of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology and the University of Lausanne, where scientists from the Institute of Sport Sciences write papers with scientists from the Applied Signal Processing Group of the Institute of Electrical Engineering about Indirect Estimation of Breathing Rate from a Polar H10 chest strap during Running:
https://www.mdpi.com/1424-8220/21/16/5651
Scientists from the Department of Engineering at the King’s College London & the Faculté de Médecine, Université de Kindu, Democratic Republic of the Congo use an iWorx TA220 with 3 ECG channels which is gold standard for heart rate measurements for Respiratory Rate Estimation:
https://www.mdpi.com/1424-8220/21/1/78/htm
It is highly desirable that the scientists from Lausanne choose also a 3 channel gold standard ECG device as for instance the Cyton instead of the Polar H10 for their estimation of breathing rate. The Cyton is available starting from US 370 USD in the eBay shop of topcyberday:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/284876280716?hash=item4253f3138c:g:CLoAAOSwpepiu~95