Consumer-Based Activity Trackers as a Tool for Physical Activity Monitoring in Epidemiological Studies During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Development and Usability Study

Abstract

Background Consumer-based physical activity trackers have increased in popularity. The widespread use of these devices and the long-term nature of the recorded data provides a valuable source of physical activity data for epidemiological research. The challenges include the large heterogeneity between activity tracker models in terms of available data types, the accuracy of recorded data, and how this data can be shared between different providers and third-party systems. Objective The aim of this study is to develop a system to record data on physical activity from different providers of consumer-based activity trackers and to examine its usability as a tool for physical activity monitoring in epidemiological research. The longitudinal nature of the data and the concurrent pandemic outbreak allowed us to show how the system can be used for surveillance of physical activity levels before, during, and after a COVID-19 lockdown. Methods We developed a system (mSpider) for automatic recording of data on physical activity from participants wearing activity trackers from Apple, Fitbit, Garmin, Oura, Polar, Samsung, and Withings, as well as trackers storing data in Google Fit and Apple Health. To test the system throughout development, we recruited 35 volunteers to wear a provided activity tracker from early 2019 and onward. In addition, we recruited 113 participants with privately owned activity trackers worn before, during, and after the COVID-19 lockdown in Norway. We examined monthly changes in the number of steps, minutes of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity, and activity energy expenditure between 2019 and 2020 using bar plots and two-sided paired sample t tests and Wilcoxon signed-rank tests. Results Compared to March 2019, there was a significant reduction in mean step count and mean activity energy expenditure during the March 2020 lockdown period. The reduction in steps and activity energy expenditure was temporary, and the following monthly comparisons showed no significant change between 2019 and 2020. A small significant increase in moderate-to-vigorous physical activity was observed for several monthly comparisons after the lockdown period and when comparing March-December 2019 with March-December 2020. Conclusions mSpider is a working prototype currently able to record physical activity data from providers of consumer-based activity trackers. The system was successfully used to examine changes in physical activity levels during the COVID-19 period.

Daily Physical Activity and Sleep Measured by Wearable Activity Trackers during the Coronavirus Disease 2019 Pandemic: A Lesson for Preventing Physical Inactivity during Future Pandemics

“…Although there is evidence supporting interdevice validity and reliability between different types of wearable activity trackers [31], the method for measuring physical activity should be standardized. Henriksen et al [32] developed a system to record data on physical activity from different types of wearable activity trackers (Apple, Fitbit, Garmin, Oura, Polar, Samsung, and Withings) and confirmed that there was a significant reduction in the daily step count and energy expenditure during the lockdown period. However, the development of a more accurate and more reliable device is a challenge for the future.…”

“Wearables on vogue”: a scoping review on wearables on physical activity and sedentary behavior during COVID-19 pandemic

“…From the evidence included, we found a significant increase in the use of wearables to improve physical activity during the confinement or lockdown periods [21,24]. There is a convincing evidence to show that there is a significant decrease in physical activity and increased sedentary time in people around the world when judged objectively using wearables [16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32]. Figure 2 represents the summary of our findings.…”

“…Seven studies administered smartphone-based physical activity measurement through inbuilt accelerometers from which the captured data were transferred to the cloud server and visualized in smartphone applications [16-19, 21, 24, 31]. Majority of studies (n = 9; 53%) employed wrist bands and wristwatches of multiple technology firms (Apple, Samsung, Xiaomi) and wearable research-based accelerometers [20,23,25,26,[28][29][30]32]. A few studies (n = 4; 24%) reported the psychometrics of the wearables, and lowto-moderate validity was found [21,22,27].…”

“…The studies had reported a significant reduction in standing time (− 32.7%), walking time (− 52.2%) and step count (− 29%) during lockdown when the physical activity was monitored with the wearables [22,26]. Mean energy expenditure was reduced to 70 kcal compared to before pandemic [23]. Only one study by Vile et al [27] reported a reduction in heart rate variability variable, especially high LF/HF ratio.…”

Wearable activity trackers and artificial intelligence in the management of rheumatic diseases

“…For these providers, the communication is performed by the provider’s mobile application and uploaded to the mSpider server back-end via the mSpider mobile application. One of the applications performed was the identification of changes in physical activity levels during COVID-19 (coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic), showing that the mSpider system can be a valuable tool for collection of long-term data on physical activity, including historical data and detecting changes in physical activity over time [ 26 ].…”