The Accuracy of Wrist-worn Heart Rate Monitors across a Range of Exercise Intensities

Abstract

Commercially available wrist-worn heart rate (HR) monitors have become increasingly popular.However, the accuracy of the devices across a range of exercise intensities is largely unknown. This study investigated the accuracy of four wrist-worn HR monitors (Apple Watch Series 1, Fitbit Charge, TomTom Touch, and Mio Fuse). Eighteen adults completed three trials on a cycle ergometer wearing a chest-worn HR monitor (Polar). Trial 1 established the HR-power output relationship, and resting and maximum HR. In trials 2 and 3, participants were fitted to an electrocardiogram (ECG) and completed a step test consisting of 5 x 3 minute stages at 40 -80% of HR reserve (determined in trial 1) whilst wearing two wrist-worn HR monitors. Relative to ECG, there were no differences in HR between the devices during exercise (p = 0.239), and no device × exercise intensity interaction (p = 0.370). There were no instances where ECG and Polar data differed by ≥ 5 b·min -1 . Conversely, there were two instances (2.2%) with the Apple, four (4.4%) with the Mio, 10 (11.1%) with the TomTom, and 19 (21.1%) with the Fitbit. A chest-worn HR monitor offers greater accuracy compared to wrist-worn devices.

Accuracy Verification of Heart Rate and Energy Consumption Tracking Devices to Develop Forest-Based Customized Health Care Service Programs

“…These results were similar to those of earlier studies that reported the high correlation between the heart rate measured by Fitbit and that measured by ECG, reference standard, in a laboratory environment composed of a treadmill and bicycle ergometer (Stahl et al, 2016;Hough et al, 2017;Gillinov et al, 2017;Shcherbina et al, 2017;Wang et al, 2017). Stahl et al (2016) reported that the heart rate measured by Fitbit Charge HR during walking and running on a treadmill showed the correlation of r=.93 with that measured in reference standard, and that the error rate between different intensities of exercises was within 1.73-10.06%.…”

“…Meanwhile, it is essential to use wearable devices in order to monitor forest exercises in real time and provide feedback on whether the recommended intensity and amount of exercises are achieved. Currently, Polar, a device to measure heart rate wirelessly during forest exercises, is widely used (Choi et al, 2018;Choi et al, 2011;Shin et al, 2015;Lee et al, 2017), and it is known as a precise ECG device with very high accuracy (Engström et al, 2012;Gillinov et al, 2017;Hough et al, 2017;Wang et al, 2017). The amount of exercises, that is, energy consumption, during forest exercises have been hardly measured, but energy consumption during general exercises has been widely measured using Actograph's validated 3-axis accelerometer (Sasaki et al, 2011;Lee, 2012;Lee et al, 2014;Lee and Choi, 2015).…”

“…Watch offers various functions and shows high accuracy of the heart rate measured during physical activities (Hough et al, 2017;Gillinov et al, 2017;Shcherbina et al, 2017;Wang et al, 2017), but despite these advantages the iOS-based product is only for iPhone users, not available for Android phone users. Meanwhile, Fitbit is a hybrid application both for iOS and Android-based devices, and has other advantages such as reasonable price and open API that allows other programs developed by third parties to utilize data collected by Fitbit in the programs.…”

“…The accuracy of the heart rate measured during physical activities by Fitbit is high (Hough et al, 2017;Shcherbina et al, 2017;Wang et al, 2017), but it was reported that the error rate of energy consumption was very high (Lee et al, 2014;Thiebaud et al, 2018;Shcherbina et al, 2017).…”

Adaptive Extreme Edge Computing for Wearable Devices

“…Compared with ECG, PPG is easily accessible and low cost, which makes it an ideal intermedia of wearable heart rate measurement. Wrist-PPG has already been deployed in various commercial smartwatches or wristbands, such as Apple Watch, Fitbit Charge, and TomTom Touch, for heart-rate monitoring (Hough et al, 2017). The main disadvantage against ECG is that the PPG is relatively less informative and not unique for different persons and body positions.…”