To wear 3 Polar H10 chest straps simultaneously and additionally use an ECG toolbox to use it as a reference device for heart rate monitor accuracy validation studies?

Last Updated on July 18, 2023 by pg@petergamma.org

Rob ter Horst is a post-doctoral scientist at CeMM Research Institute for Molecular Medicine, Vienna, Austria. Rob studied the accuracy of 100 smartwatches and compared those to the accuracy of the Polar H10 chest strap.

The Quantitative Scientist Rob ter Horst tested 100 sports watches: so what now?

But the Polar H10 is a single lead or single channel heart rate monitor. Why does a postoctoral researcher working in an institute for molecular medicine not use a reference device which is also used in medicine? The problem are ECG motion artifacts with those. The g.tec medical support wrote us some time ago, that they do not know of anybody who has solved the problem of ECG motion artefacts. We could not find a solution in the scientific literature, either.

Sports scientists therefore often use the Polar H10 chest strap as a reference to test the accuracy of heart rate monitors:

90.09 Scientific accuracy study papers with sports chest strap as a reference

The Polar H10 chest strap seems has no problems with ECG motion artifacts. Rob uses two Polar H10 chest straps in his tests. But he does he show average values of those? This is usually done with ECG devices with for instance 3 channels. Why does Rob not use 3 Polar 10 chest straps as his reference then and average values, to gain acceptance also by clinical scientists, to do the best he can to reach this goal? They use expensive Quinton Standard 3-leads ECG devices in their papers, but only at speeds up to about 15 km/h on a treadmill:

90.8 Scientific accuracy study papers with research grade ECG as reference

This would make out of the Polar H10 chest strap a 3 channel ECG device which is motion artifact free. The Polar H10 chest strap additionally delivers ECG data. This offers the option to use an ECG toolbox with the Polar 10 as well. But why does Rob ter Horst not do this? Would this not be a better standard device as only one Polar H10 chest strap which is currently used in accuracy validation studies?

Rob ter Horst says, the Polar H10 chest strap is an ECG strap. This means, that it is possible to get access to ECG data from the Polar H10. We did not study the Polar H10 in detail. We do not know, if the ECG data the Polar H10 delivers are ECG data which are motion artifact-free, or if these are only ECG raw data.

There are so many YouTube video makers making reviews about sports sensor accuracy. Why not to make a review about the topic, how the accuracy of a reference device to study the accuracy of consumer grade sports sensors can be increased, so that their accuracy studies are also accepted by medical doctors and other scientists than sports scientists?