Why to choose an OpenBCI 3 lead ECG device for accurate heart rate measurement?

Last Updated on December 27, 2022 by pg@petergamma.org

– Cardiologists like Dr. Milind Desay from Cleveland Clinic in Ohio choose 3 lead ECG devices for sports sensor validations. It is an expensive device with many components they used for their papers. But several reference devices for sports sensor validations tests had 3 leads:

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

– 3 lead ECG is gold standard for heart rate measurement. Therefore if accuracy matters, let us choose a 3 lead ECG device if possible

– OpenBCI has the higher sampling rate than Bitalino:

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

– OpenBCI has a 3 lead example:

ECG from OpenBCI with 3 & 5 electrodes with up to 4 digital channels with noise reduction

– OpenBCI Cython boards can be found starting from 230 USD on Aliexpress, costs are not an arguments anymore

– OpenBCI has the OpenBCI GUI

– OpenBCI has LSL

– OpenBCI has the Python example from Harrison Kingsley

– We did not find a 3 lead example for Bitalino

– Bitalino has the Cardioban, which can be used as a Bitalino chest strap, but according to the specs it has only an integrated single-lead ECG, and no noise and motion artifact free ECG:

cardioBAN Kit

– We could not find a demo or a paper yet for the 3 lead ECG from OpenBCI, but we think it is worth testing

– DF Robot has also ECG modules, but they are connected in examples to their Arduinos

– Scott Harden has a low-cost high quality ECG single lead device. It could be modified for 3 leads, but the price difference to OpenBCI is not that big anymore, which has a lot of connectivity options