Are there any sports sensor validation studies at the level of a clinical study?

Last Updated on January 20, 2023 by pg@petergamma.org

The group of the cardiologist Dr. Milind Desai from Cleveland Clinic in Ohio published two papers:

https://journals.lww.com/acsm-msse/Fulltext/2017/08000/Variable_Accuracy_of_Wearable_Heart_Rate_Monitors.22.aspx

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

Dr. Milind Desai is cardiologist working in the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio, the papers are not for clinical applications, but for sporting activities. But a clinician as Dr. Desai has the potential for clinical studies. But unfortunately, we do not know of any clinical studies of Dr. Desai with sports watches.

What we noticed about Rob ter Horst’s tests, that he does not publish any numerical data which can be reproduced. Also he does not publish his testing protocols. This makes it impossible to reproduce those and to test those. Why should we believe Rob ter Horst, if nobody has checked his data and nobody can check his data.

The situation is similar with Garmin watches. Some parameters can only be seen on the watch. Data from .fit files need to be processed further for data analysis. In Garmin Connect, it is not possible to do own calculations. Data can be exported via .csv. Is this a satisfying solution in times of LSL, MQTT and InfluxDB? It seems also that Garmin wants to prevent that we can objectively measure the accuracy of their data.

Also DC Rainmaker makes statements about the Verity Sense, which sound as if they where from Polar. These are statements about the Verity Sense, which Ray cannot know, only Polar. And we are not able to test these statements. Why then should be believe Ray and Polar?