You want to test smartwatches against a medical or research grade reference device – use a Schiller CS 200 Ergospirometry Diagnostic Equipment as your reference device

Last Updated on April 5, 2024 by pg@petergamma.org

Smartwatch accuracy tester Rob ter Horst has tested more than 100 smartwatches with his Polar H10 chest strap:

His scientific justification to choose a Polar H10 as a reference device for his tests is this paper:

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

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31004219

But the paper is controversial, since it only says half the truth. It keeps silent about scientific tests of activities if intense activities with strong body movements are not investigated, as for instance runs on a treadmill up to about 15 km/h. This has been discussed in the second paper which is mentioned at the bottom of this page, and has been discussed as well under www.petergamma.org. These scientific studies have been published after the paper about the Polar H10 and a Holter ECG device which is mentioned above.

Has Rob ter Horst PhD. not lost his credibility as a smartwatch accuracy tester? What is your opinion after you have read these comments from Peter Gamma from www.petergamma.org about this topic?:

Has Rob ter Horst PhD. lost his credibility as smartwatch accuracy tester?: who still believes that he is interested in scientfically finding the most accurate consumer grade HRMs?

If you want to have medical or research grade accuracy for your smartwatch tests use
a Schiller CS 200 Ergospirometry Diagnostic Equipment as your reference device:

This device is available for 23 000 USD in the Dr’s Toy Store:

Schiller CS-200 Touch Stress System with Treadmill

And choose the treadmill protocol which has been used by the cardiologists of the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio in the paper:

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

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6732081

And you will have scientific data from medical & research grade device as a reference which has a higher accuracy than Rob ter Horst Polar H10 chest strap. Peter Gamma from www.petergamma.org suggests to do no scientific HRM accuracy studies of intense activities with strong body movements, for instance no tests at higher speeds than about 15 km/h on a treadmill, since the g.tec support wrote us a while ago, that they do not know of a manufacturer who has solved the problem of ECG motion artifacts. And if you are on a budget and 23 000 USD is too much to spend for a Schiller CS 200 Ergospirometry Diagnostic Equipment, you can find more afforable equipment on the site www.petergamma.org.