Evaluation of Commercial Self-Monitoring Devices for Clinical Purposes: Results from the Future Patient Trial, Phase I

• Published in: Sensors (Basel, Switzerland) Vol. 17; no. 1; p. 211
• Main Authors: Leth, Soren, Hansen, John, Nielsen, Olav, Dinesen, Birthe
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Switzerland MDPI AG 22.01.2017; MDPI
• Subjects: Accuracy; activity tracker; Chronic illnesses; Devices; Electrocardiography; Errors; Exercise; gait; Heart Rate; Humans; Markets; Monitoring, Physiologic; Patients; physical activity; pulse; Sensors; Sleep; slow walking; step detection; Systematic errors; Tracking devices; Validity; Walking; Denmark; heart rate; gait; activity tracker; pulse; step detection; physical activity; slow walking
• ISSN: 1424-8220; 1424-8220
• DOI: 10.3390/s17010211

Commercial self-monitoring devices are becoming increasingly popular, and over the last decade, the use of self-monitoring technology has spread widely in both consumer and medical markets. The purpose of this study was to evaluate five commercially available self-monitoring devices for further testing in clinical applications. Four activity trackers and one sleep tracker were evaluated based on step count validity and heart rate validity. Methods: The study enrolled 22 healthy volunteers in a walking test. Volunteers walked a 100 m track at 2 km/h and 3.5 km/h. Steps were measured by four activity trackers and compared to gyroscope readings. Two trackers were also tested on nine subjects by comparing pulse readings to Holter monitoring. Results: The lowest average systematic error in the walking tests was −0.2%, recorded on the Garmin Vivofit 2 at 3.5 km/h; the highest error was the Fitbit Charge HR at 2 km/h with an error margin of 26.8%. Comparisons of pulse measurements from the Fitbit Charge HR revealed a margin error of −3.42% ± 7.99% compared to the electrocardiogram. The Beddit sleep tracker measured a systematic error of −3.27% ± 4.60%. Conclusion: The measured results revealed the current functionality and limitations of the five self-tracking devices, and point towards a need for future research in this area.