Results of consumer grade heart rate monitor accuracy studies tested with ECG as a reference & what remains to do

Last Updated on July 10, 2022 by pg@petergamma.org

Paper 1:

Accuracy of commercially available heart rate monitors in athletes: a prospective study

– Polar H7 chest strap (rc=98)

– Apple Watch III (rc=96)

– the protocol of this paper should be extended according to paper:

RR interval signal quality of a heart rate monitor and an ECG Holter at rest and during exercise (part II)

– a motion artifact free ECG should be used

paper 2

Validation of Polar OH1 optical heart rate sensor for moderate and high intensity physical activities

– 95 % – 99 % agreement between a g.Nautilus ECG device and a Polar OH1

– the protocol should be adapted according to paper:

RR interval signal quality of a heart rate monitor and an ECG Holter at rest and during exercise (part II)

– a motion artifact free ECG should be used

Paper 3:

RR interval signal quality of a heart rate monitor and an ECG Holter at rest and during exercise (part II)

– inaccuracy of the AR12plus Holter monitor ECG is 94.6 %

– inaccuracy of the Polar H10 is 99.63 %

– The values of the study are not innacuracy values of Polar H10 against an ECG reference device

– they measure something completely different than in paper 1 and 2 is measured (accuracy of the ECG algorithms)

– Study 3 should be repeated according to the standard of paper 1 or 2 to get those values.

– a motion free ECG should be used

– Cardiologist Milind Desai studied in two papers a large number of devices and listed a ranking of these devices against a reference ECG device

– the protocol should be extended according to international standards

– a motion free ECG device should be used

– Rob ter Horst publishes a list of more than 50 devices on youtube, but delivers no statistical and numerical data

– Rob ter Horst uses the Polar H10 chest strap as reference device which gives an offset of 2 % compared to an ECG device. The Polar h7 chest strap has an innacuracy of 2 % against an ECG device.

Which is the most accurate optical heart rate monitor?

– Rob ter Horst should use a motion artefact free ECG reference device

– Rob ter Horst should associate with testing groups which gives numerical and statistical values which are published

– Future tests should generally be performed according to an international standard protocol for all tests, as used in study:

RR interval signal quality of a heart rate monitor and an ECG Holter at rest and during exercise

-future tests should be performed generally with a motion artifact free ECG devices.

This would give a single table with an accuracy ranking of all devices which is generally accepted according to international standards.