Peter Gamma (Physiologist & Director) Meditation Research Institute Switzerland (MRIS)

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To Buy a Polar OH1, an Apple Watch, a Polar H7 or a Polar H10?

Posted bypg@petergamma.org 1 Comment on To Buy a Polar OH1, an Apple Watch, a Polar H7 or a Polar H10?

Last Updated on October 2, 2022 by pg@petergamma.org

  • Rob ter Horst recommendation is the Apple Watch SE 2022:

Your recommendation is a scientifically validated device by a scientific study in a scientific journal, and if more studies are available, to choose a device which was tested by a study which has a higher quality.

There are data available that these devices could be tested further to use those for scientific and clinical application.

19.19 Table of Accuracy Values for Polar OH1, Apple Watches, Polar H7 & Polar H10

But the issues are:

  • The Polar OH1 is in an accuracy range which makes the device interesting for scientific studies
  • But Polar tweaks the runtime of the Verity Sense and prolongs it through a firmware update, which makes the Verity Sense difficult for tester
  • It is also disappointing that according to Rob ter Horsts plot, Polar seem not to increase the accuracy of the Verity Sense anymore, but only the running time, what is also confimed by data of scientific studies.
  • We were surprised that the wrist based Apple watches are as accurate as the non-wrist based Polar OH1, if not more accurate
  • it is not traceable why the non-wrist based Polar OH1 and Verity Sense are no longer the most accurate devices,
  • non-wrist based devices should be an advantage for accuracy
  • If Polar does not increase the accuracy of the Polar OH1 and Verity Sense,it’s not clear why one should buy a non-wrist based device like the Verity Sense instead of an Apple Watch
  • There seem to be no direct correlation between the Apple watch model and it s accuracy.
  • One would expect that devices with higher model number should be more accurate, but they are not.
  • This could be explained that non-standard protocols where used and the data cannot be compared, which is a pity
  • Also Apple releases a new devices every now and then, which makes it difficult for testers to keep up.
  • Polar is only increasing the running time of the Verity Sense, but not the accuracy. Whe prefer a Verity Sense with a higher accuracy than the Polar OH1, instead of a Verity Sense with a longer running time than the Polar OH1.