Last Updated on July 9, 2022 by pg@petergamma.org
There are people like Rob ter Horst, PhD., which are so convinced, that the Polar H10 is the most accurate heart rate monitor on the planet, that they think it is not even necessary to test it against the most high-quality reference heart rate devices on the market.
Like preachers who don’t want to be doubted, they always repeat the same Mantra «Polar H10 ist the best». Their studies are funded by Polar, they live on advertising revenue from Polar, their slogans sound as if they where by Polar.
They argue like DC Rainmaker «I am fet up to have to to refute your claims.» or DC Rainmaker: «Science sucks».
Research Institutions like the Swiss Federal Institute of Sport Magglingen SFISM should deliver convincing numerical and statistical data about their results. They should have a profound knowledge of the papers which where published about a certain subject like for instance sport heart rate monitors and ECG devices.
There are at least three papers here about consumer grade heart rate monitors and ECG devices:
1. Accuracy of commercially available heart rate monitors in athletes: a prospective study:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6732081/
2. Validation of Polar OH1 optical heart rate sensor for moderate and high intensity physical: activities
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0217288
3. RR interval signal quality of a heart rate monitor and an ECG Holter at rest and during exercise:
Paper 3 contradicts the results of study 1 and study 2, and has no convincing arguments that a Polar H10 chest strap is better than a high quality ECG device.
People without convining numerical and statistical data and a profound knowledge of the scientific literature will lose the soccer game, even if they are athletes with a PhD. postition at Swiss Federal Institute of Sport in Magglingen.
ECG devices with 16 bit are standard for resarch applications. If the sampling rate is below 16 bit, a validation paper is necessary, for instance like for Bitalino. The longer the list of paper in which the reference device was used, the better, they are tested and verfied. There is always a doubt about new devices.
But why not to choose the most accurate devices on the market (the Polar H10 is not the most accurate ECG device, as Rob ter Horst claims). This never has been proven.
The group of Milind Desai, MD used a Cardiac Science ECG device as a reference device. The found out, that the Polar H7 chest strap is the closest to the ECG device (with an inaccuracy of 2 %).
Even if the Polar H10 should be more accurate than the Polar H7, we are convinced, that the Polar H10 is still less accurate than 16 bit research grade ECG devices.