Unsubstantial health and sports monitoring reliability of commercial fitness tracker bracelets induced by their all-in-one sensing unit approach - Experimental evaluation of measurement accuracy in dynamic and in steady physical effort scenarios

Abstract

The use of electronic tools in medicine and sports is well established fairly long time, because monitoring of physiological body measures like heart rate, effort levels and moving speed parameters supports medical examination as also systematic training control in sports. Fast improvement and miniaturization of computer electronics led to a broad distribution of such technologies not only in professional environments, but also in personal applications like, e.g., tracing fitness activities and endurance workouts in non-elite sports. Since several decades tiny sports watches are available, which are communicating with body sensors and produce with that records of various inputs. The sensing and recording capabilities of such sport tool sets are theoretically also feasible for certain medical applications like, e.g., rehabilitation, because the same physiological measures are of relevance there. Few years ago, yet another device class in the housing style of forearm bracelets came up and was broadly advertised as contribution for supporting a healthier life style. Such units integrate all sensing and control in one single device case, which should make them convenient even for an all-day use. The practical experiments and their analysis, which are reported here, unveil that these bracelet devices cannot sense and record physiological data at an acceptable quality and reliability level, which would be required for using such new unit concepts in professional sports and health tracking or even in rehabilitation and health emergency scenarios.