Last Updated on January 24, 2024 by pg@petergamma.org
We have YouTube video maker Rob ter Horst, Post-doctoral researcher at the Research Center for Molecular Medicine of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna, Austria. But what does Rob ter Horst test? Rob ter Horst tests 100 smartwatches:
And compares it to the Polar H10 and makes megaplots about there accuracy. But where are the scientific papers which confirm his results:
We did not find those. After we studied this subject for many years, we do not know of a a single research group on the whole planet who studies the accuracy of these smartwatches on a regular basis. Is the developmet of optical heart rate monitors given up by scientists since they do not deliver reproducable data? We do not know of a single paper where smartwatch heart rate accuracy has been reproduced in a second paper.
Then we have DC Rainmaker with the most in-depth sports technology review with around 120 million views on YouTube to this date. DC Rainmaker tested many treadmills and the treadmill speed sensors, and also 5krunner and many sports technology reviewers as well. But then we tested treadmill speed sensors by ourselves as well (without the NPE runn). And here is the result what products we currently have as physiologists who are looking for a product to accurately tracking walking meditation:
Not a single product among those which fits our needs. Which physiologist want his walking meditation treadmill data synchronized to ZWIFT?
If we would need to buy a treadmill for this purpose today which fit’s our needs we suppose an accurate and reliable device would cost between around 7 000 USD for Woodway treadmill to up to 22`995 USD for a Schiller Stress System in the Dr’s Toy Store:
But this is too expensive for our home lab for us personally. But the solution could be easy. The best offer for a robust curved treadmill we found in Switzerland is around 2 000 USD if directly imported from UK:
ADVG is the the UK’s number 1 Pt studio and home gym specialists and also number one for us Swiss. The treadmill looks very similar to a Woodway treadmill and we suppose it can compete with the 7 000 USD devices from Woodway, since they are built very similar.
If we look at the treadmill speed sensors tested by DC Rainmaker we suppose that the manuctures invested a lot of time in those to build those in a way that they do not deliver highly accurate data. If they would deliver highly accurate data at the level of a scientific study, and we would use such a highly accurate treadmill speed sensor to test the quality of the treadmills which are currently on the market, would it not turn out that most treadmills which are not as heavily built as a ADVG curved treadmill are not suitable to get data for a scientific study?
But there is one treadmill speed sensor which could be further developed, and that is the Raspberry Pi treadmill speed sensor:
It only needs to be attached to another platform than ZWIFT. Then we had a scientific tool which can be evaluated. Not all the researchers have the grant to spend from 7 000 USD to 23`000 USD for a treadmill. We suppose that the setup which we describe here has a quality which can compete with a Woodway treadmill but costs only around 2 000 USD, but this needs to be tested.
The Woodway treadmill for 7 000 USD is flat and has a treadmill motor, and we suppose this device is more suitable for scientific studies than the curved treadmilll from Woodway which does not have a treadmill motor and costs around 5 000 USD. But we suppose it should be possible to add a treadmill motor to the curved ADVG treadmill by ourselves for skilled persons to get a motorized curved treadmill. The strongest treadmill motor we found on Aliexpress costs around 700 USD. If we add this motor the the ADVG treadmil would have a curved motorized treadmill from ADVG for 2 700 USD which can compete with a flat motorized Woodway treadmill which costs 7 000 USD, but thise needs to be confirmed preferentially in a scientific paper.
We have YouTube video maker Rob ter Horst, Post-doctoral researcher at the Research Center for Molecular Medicine of the Austrian Academy of Sciences who tested 100 smartwatches and we have DC Rainmaker with 20 million views on YouTube who say «science sucks» and recommends the NPE Run. But we did not find a product from those which fits our needs. Is this not a shame?
We therefore alternatively suggest to test and evaluate an ADVG treadmill with a modified Raspberry Pi speed sensors. Then we had not only expensive Woodway treadmills for 7000 USD and stress treadmills for 23 000 USD from the Dr’s Toy Store for the Home Lab of really serious scientists, but we had also an affordable alternative.