Last Updated on August 24, 2023 by pg@petergamma.org
Are Robs studies a first step for a clinical evaluation of the heart rate monitors he tests? Rob ter Horst is postoctoral researcher in a research institute in Vienna for Molecular Medicine:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/rob-ter-horst-90756a4a/?originalSubdomain=at
But altough Rob is researcher for medical applications, Rob has not validated his 100 smartwatches for medical applications. His testing protocols are not published and are for sporting activities. And is his Polar H10 chest strap validated for clinical applications such as respiratory rate estimation in the hospital? We do not know of such studies. His Polar H10 reference chest stap is only accepted by sports scientists and sports man and women, but no by medical doctors and physiologists.
So what can we do now with the 100 smartwatches Rob tested? We can use those for sporting acitivites. Devices for this purpose usually allow to monitor the heart rate on the watch, on a phone app, and in the web. But are there any scientific applications which can be used with Robs smartwatches?
The Garmin Fenix 5 can be connected over the EventHubApp to the Microsoft Azure Cloud to Microsoft Power Bi, from where it connects over the Rest API of Microsoft Power Bi to the rest API of Matlab. This was a first result of the evaluation of the Mediation Reserach Institute Switzerland (MRIS) to use smartwatches for research applications. But we do not know of any scientists who use the Fenix 5 with Power Pi and Matlab for scientific studies.
If we want to validate the 100 smartwatches Rob tested for clinical applications, we need a reference device which is also accepted by medical doctors, and that is not Robs Polar H10, but 3 channel gold standard ECG devices. Without such a validation, we can watch the heart rate on the smartwatches Rob tested, and on our phone, and in the web. But they are not for clinical applications. If we want to validate Robs 100 smartwatches for clinial applications, we need for instance a 3 channel gold standard ECG device. The Cyton is validated for heart rate variablity:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2405844021012512
We therefore can use the Cyton to validate the heart rate variablity of the smartwatches Rob tested. But is it not easier to choose a 3 channel gold standard ECG device as for instance the Cyton right away, which is already is validated for heart rate variablity applications, than clincally validate the 100 smartwatches Rob tested? It has already been demonstrated in scientific studies, that the Cyton 3 channel gold standard ECG device is highly accurate. But which of the 100 smartwaches Rob tested has a accuracy validation paper at the level of the Cyton 3 channel ECG device?