Which Are The Most Accurate ECG Devices to Study the Accuracy of Consumer Grade Heart Rate Monitors?

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

Rob ter Horst often mentions in his reviews on YouTube that his Polar H10 is an ECG device

• but is it the most accurate ECG device for this purpose?

The group of the cardiologist Milind Y. Desai used for their study the Q-Tel RMS:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6732081/

• We did not check all the details of these devices. They can be bought on ebay for around 8000 USD:

90.02 Research & medical grade ECG devices which some of those were used to study the accuracy of consumer grade HRMs in different papers

• These device have multiple components. Let us request a quote from Q-Tel RMS if we want to buy one:

https://www.welchallyn.com/content/welchallyn/ca/en/products/categories/cardiopulmonary/cardiac-rehabilitation/q-tel.html

• and these are as we know not for mobile use, as we can see here on this picture:

• Another study with the Polar OH1:

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0217288

used a

g.Nautilus MULTI PURPOSE ECG device

• They have an A/D resolution of 24 bit:

g.NAUTILUS MULTI-PURPOSE

• We did not request a quote at g.Nautilus, whe just quick & dirty used the product configuratior of g.tec medical to see which product could fit best:

Wearable Amplifier g.Nautilus Multi-Purpose 8 Channel g.SAHARA

€ 4.990,00

Software g.Recorder Professional € 2.655,00

TOTAL € 7.990,00

• g.Tec multipurpose has 24 bit A/D resolution

The Schiller Medilog AR12 Plus Holter Recorder

used by the Swiss Federal Institute of Sports Magglingen used to test the Polar H10 has an A/D resolution of 12 bit. This is the same resolution Bitalino ECG for 200 USD has.

• For doing research, 16 bit devices at a minimum are used according to the Bitalino support. An information whe received from the Bitalino support at a time, where it was still possible to reach the Bitalino support.