Issues we have with sports heart rate monitor manufacturers

Last Updated on March 24, 2023 by pg@petergamma.org

Although we are convinced that the manufacturers of sports heart monitors have the accuracy data we are looking for for instance in these papers:

they do not offer those to us costumers. But soft- and hardware products are getting better and prices for those drop, and we also do not know of any quality increase in validation studies of sports heart rate monitors.

Are not a majority of costumers interested in clinical grade devices with validation papers? And we are convinced that this is possible without a huge effort also for device manufacturers. For instance manufacturers could sell devices and publish accuracy data from their own studies. The market is there, we would buy these devices, if they are not too expensive. And eventually also other costumers.

We are also convinced that many if not the majority of costumers would be interested in software tools for their sports sensor device which would allow for instance data analysis in Python.

Do manufacturers think that they can forever develop new watches which new widgets, watch faces and apps, and that only manufacturers are allowed to develop and modify those? The market is here for open source sports watches which are highly accurate. We would buy those, and eventually other costumers with good Python skills, if they are not too expensive.

But devices which are too much controlled by manufacturers will loose costumers with every posting we write in our journal.