Evaluation of accuracy and reliability of PulseOn optical heart rate monitoring device

Abstract

PulseOn is a wrist-worn optical heart rate (HR) monitor based on photoplethysmography. It utilizes multi-wavelength technology and optimized sensor geometry to monitor blood flow at different depths of skin tissue, and it dynamically adapts to an optimal measurement depth in different conditions. Movement artefacts are reduced by adaptive movement-cancellation algorithms and optimized mechanics, which stabilize the sensor-to-skin contact. In this paper, we evaluated the accuracy and reliability of PulseOn technology against ECG-derived HR in laboratory conditions during a wide range of physical activities and also during outdoor sports. In addition, we compared the performance to another on-the-shelf wrist-worn consumer product Mio LINK(®). The results showed PulseOn reliability (% of time with error <;10bpm) of 94.5% with accuracy (100% - mean absolute percentage error) 96.6% as compared to ECG (vs 86.6% and 94.4% for Mio LINK(®), correspondingly) during laboratory protocol. Similar or better reliability and accuracy was seen during normal outdoor sports activities. The results show that PulseOn provides reliability and accuracy similar to traditional chest strap ECG HR monitors during cardiovascular exercise.

Validation of a Photoplethysmographic Heart Rate Monitor: Polar OH1

“…1b, c, ▶table 1). In the absence of dedicated tools to assess this imprecision, we can only assume that this was due to motion artifacts from the arm and chest movements, as reported by others [12,14,16]. As a corollary, these three sports also provided the widest LOAs, yet still less than those of the same brand wrist-worn model [14].…”

“…The HR values of OHR are insufficiently accurate [9][10][11][12][13], despite recent improvements in the number of usable light emitters and the built-in algorithms [14,15]. Among the many reasons are mainly low skin temperature [16], motion artifacts [16,17], inadequate attachment or positioning [13,16,18], skin type [14,15], activity type [19] and intensity of exercise [9,19,20]. Another reason is the number of LED sources: most brands use two or three light sources, which may be insufficient to retrieve blood flow data, especially through the bony wrist region, more sensitive to motion artifacts [17].…”

“…Most of the aforementioned studies validating OHR monitors were performed in laboratory or controlled environments like sports gyms [9,14,15,21,22], using standardized protocols of lowto-medium intensity and limited duration (typically < 1 h) [9,15,[21][22][23]. From a more training-centered perspective, these systematic protocols might not be valid for use in ecological conditions, i. e., outdoor or with varying intensities and durations, for team sports (e. g., soccer) or endurance sports (e. g., running and cycling) at regional or national levels requiring daily training load monitoring [16].…”

Wearable Motion Tolerant PPG Sensor for Instant Heart Rate in Daily Activity

“…In comparing the instant heart rate calculated from ECG and the instant pulse rate calculated from the prototype device, we used resampled values at 1 Hz by linear interpolation for each. Furthermore, in performing a quantitative evaluation of the accuracy of detecting heart rate variability, we defined reliability and accuracy as follows (Delgado-Gonzalo, 2014).…”

Accuracy of Apple Watch Measurements for Heart Rate and Energy Expenditure in Patients With Cardiovascular Disease: Cross-Sectional Study (Preprint)

“…Validation studies have been done to evaluate accuracy of HR, EE and other measurements in healthy subjects for a variety of fitness trackers [5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17]. Boudreaux et al [7] tested eight devices for accuracy of HR and EE measurements on healthy subjects and found that HR accuracy from wearable devices differed at different exercise intensities with an increasing underestimation of HR at higher exercise intensities.…”