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Am a Garmin user for years. Was in a hospital ~10 months ago and was connected to a heart-rate-monitoring-thingy via a finger-clip. At the same time I had my Ga

Am a Garmin user for years. Was in a hospital ~10 months ago and was connected to a heart-rate-monitoring-thingy via a finger-clip. At the same time I had my Garmin Fenix 3 on my other arm. Was looking at the screen and comparing it to what my watch was showing and it was +-2 points at all times. Tried holding my breath to see what happens and both were almost identical.

com2kid 8y ago
Optical heart rate when not moving is pretty easy to do. Measurements are much harder when the user is moving around erratically, such as is typical with exercising. Source: I worked on a fitness product using optical HR for 3 years.
- stephengillie 8y ago
  Even the phone apps work pretty well while stationary: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.repsi.heartrate&hl=en_US https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.repsi.hear... https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.supersimpleapps.heart_rate_monitor_newui&hl=en_US https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.supersimpl... https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=si.modula.android.instantheartrate&hl=en https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=si.modula.andr...
- lostlogin 8y ago
  My experience of hospital grade equipment for monitoring the heart is that it isn’t great with movement either. This was in an MR scanner (magnetic field and RF) so I ones milage may vary.
  - com2kid 8y ago
    > My experience of hospital grade equipment for monitoring the heart is that it isn’t great with movement either. For anything optical, you need accelerometers and lots of fun algorithms to compensate for motion. Soon as the motion is something the algo wasn't trained on, everything falls apart.
    - lostlogin 8y ago
      Optical, electrical (from chest or skull) and even a BP cuff (pneumatic) were used. It’s a hard problem.
013a 8y ago
I did something similar during a cardiac stress test, with a Fitbit Versa. My best conclusion was that the Fitbit is at least +/-5 BPM off and it lagged behind the hospital equipment by roughly 15 seconds (judging by heart rate peaks).

com2kid 8y ago

Optical heart rate when not moving is pretty easy to do. Measurements are much harder when the user is moving around erratically, such as is typical with exercising. Source: I worked on a fitness product using optical HR for 3 years.

stephengillie 8y ago
Even the phone apps work pretty well while stationary: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.repsi.heartrate&hl=en_US https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.repsi.hear... https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.supersimpleapps.heart_rate_monitor_newui&hl=en_US https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.supersimpl... https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=si.modula.android.instantheartrate&hl=en https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=si.modula.andr...
lostlogin 8y ago
My experience of hospital grade equipment for monitoring the heart is that it isn’t great with movement either. This was in an MR scanner (magnetic field and RF) so I ones milage may vary.
- com2kid 8y ago
  > My experience of hospital grade equipment for monitoring the heart is that it isn’t great with movement either. For anything optical, you need accelerometers and lots of fun algorithms to compensate for motion. Soon as the motion is something the algo wasn't trained on, everything falls apart.
  - lostlogin 8y ago
    Optical, electrical (from chest or skull) and even a BP cuff (pneumatic) were used. It’s a hard problem.

013a 8y ago

I did something similar during a cardiac stress test, with a Fitbit Versa. My best conclusion was that the Fitbit is at least +/-5 BPM off and it lagged behind the hospital equipment by roughly 15 seconds (judging by heart rate peaks).