Last Updated on February 4, 2023 by pg@petergamma.org
We do not know of any research institutes who studies accuracy of optical HRMs on a regular basis in scientific papers. Did research institutes who started it stop it because of the lack of reproducibility?
The Swiss Federal Institute of Sports studied the accuracy of the Polar H10 chest strap signal quality:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31004219/
This institute checks the accuracy of sports HRMs for top Swiss athletes. They are responsible for having accurate data for those. Magglingen tested the accuracy of the Polar H10 chest strap. But we don’t know anything about the Swiss institute dealing with the accuracy of optical HRM sensors.
We do know little about chest straps, since chest straps are not of interest for our application. And we suppose that the continuity of data is there for chest straps for top athletes.
In case of doubt, we suppose that top athletes choose a chest strap, and top medical doctors and top non-exercise physiologists 3 lead ECG devices.
The Swiss Federal Institute of Sports did not make a big effort to test the accuracy of a Holter ECG device. They have choosen a rather cheap ECG device for 1700 for their test paper. The Cleveland Clinic in Ohio used much more exensive devices.
Did the Swiss already know about the problems of ECG devices during sporting activities with strong body movements before their ECG study?
Rob ter Horst has continuity in testing optical sports HRMs. But he does not publish his testing protocols, so that his tests could be reproduced. A second Rob ter Horst has to start from scratch. Is there a goal behind this? By doing so, Rob ter Horst data cannot be reproduced. And we will never have a second Rob ter Horst who confirms the data of the first Rob ter Horst, so that we do not have a continuity in his data.
The costs of Robs procedure is loss of credibility and also loss of and objectivity. We do not know of any discussion of Rob why exactly he has chosen his protocols, for what reason, etc. Are these objectively measured data of a critical scientist which can be reproduced? No.