Apple Watch Proves Most Accurate at Measuring Heart Rate in New Fitness Tracker Study

[Seoras]

So I read the article. Apple does something better than the competition. Then, just for laughs, I come here to the forum to read the howling and gnashing of teeth from the haters who want to tear them down.
I'm never disappointed, you guys are so entertaining! (& so full of it.)

 

[djlythium]

Apple also put a lot of money into Stanford's pocket.

APPLE CHARITABLE MATCHING PROGRAM: Cook decided to put philanthropy on his agenda. Within weeks of taking the CEO position, Cook introduced Apple's charitable matching program, which matches employee contributions up to $10,000. Since the program's inception, it has donated more than $150 million to organizations such as Charity: Water, (Product RED), and Stanford University Hospitals, with Cook himself having donated $50 million a piece to each of the latter two.

Wait: so, how do corporate donates to a private university link to Apple Watch being the most accurate heart rate tracker? Not trying to be a corporate apologist, just confused as to the relationship. If anything, I see the (paraphrased) conversation as:

A: "Hey, we got some dough! Is it cool if we donate some to the same university at which our founder gave an incredible Commencement speech?"
S: "Sure! In exchange, we'll help you do cool research that benefits cool products, which benefits people."
A: "Sounds good! Sounds good!"

 

[ChefDanielMar]

Why don't these studies ever compare the Apple Watch with more hardcore fitness watches like those from Garmin or Sunto?

JPLC I agree. Seems like their setting it up against rival companies they know apple will beat. I wear a Garmin Fenix 3 and use it for fitness and work (exec chef). I very much enjoy apple products, but on the watch side not so much. I have feeling garmin with it's heart rate monitor, applications, and garmin connect stack up and beat the apple watch every day. I'll also add I've had it for 2 years in some rough elements.

 

[tylersdad]

Why don't these studies ever compare the Apple Watch with more hardcore fitness watches like those from Garmin or Sunto?

Because Apple Watch doesn't compare to the Garmin or Sunto.

 

[Eldiablojoe]

Why did they not test it against that product type's bellwether, The Garmin Forerunner 225 and its progeny?

 

[rpe33]

uh oh, a positive Apple article. Let the hating commence!

 

[ipedro]

That'll shut up the critics.

...Oh... no it won't. Their criticisms were always based on an irrational urge to hate everything Apple does.

I've been running with my AppleWatch since Series 0 launched and I've often ran with it on a treadmill and hooked up the treadmill's own medical grade heart rate monitor. I always expected them to be off by a little but to my amazement, they pretty much stayed in sync the entire run.

 

[Stella]

Dcrainmaker is indeed a good website. He also reviewed the Apple Watch - the HRM was a mixed bag. Great at some activities, but poor at others.

don't you have to have an iPhone for the apple watch to work? DC Rainmaker is a great website that probably does the most in-depth reviews, and i believe they stated that the Fenix 5 is the most accurate wrist based HRM on the market. Suunto is coming out with a wrist based model later this year sometime.

[doublepost=1495683594][/doublepost]

Because Apple Watch doesn't compare to the Garmin or Sunto.

?? There are multiple garmin products that include HRM including the vivoactive smart watch.

If they are going to compare the Fitbit, some garmin device should be included.

 

[vjl323]

I recently spent a week in the hospital, and when I was healthy enough to charge/wear my watch, I would compare the HR on it with the vitals machine that the nurses and CNAs would bring in every few hours and hook up to me; the Apple Watch [series 1] matched their finger "pincher" HR monitor to a T. It was especially neat to see my HR go up and down in sync with their machine and my watch. Apple certainly made their equipment accurate!

 

[coolbreeze]

For me, compared to a medical stress test, I know that my 1st get Apple Watch consistently indicates about 30% higher when running. A knowledgeable friend said at my age, this the AW indicated rate were true, my heart would "explode."

Yep same here too. I'm dating a Nurse Practitioner and when I told her my heart rate was 200 at some points during my run she freaked out. Got a Polar and have never been above 175. That's still high but not you're gonna die high.

 

[mandrake2016]

It's unfortunate what a joke wrist worn HR sensors are in general.

While I'm holding out on AW till it has cellular, everything I've seen points to it being off by double digit numbers like all the others. I hope the technology catches up one day, but other than for perhaps certain medical conditions that fit the accuracy zones, why would I care about my HR in something like a HIT workout where I count on the sensor to keep me within single digit accuracy, through sweat and everything, when it just cannot??

Give me an AW with better battery life and cellular, and if one day you figure out the HR part, then sign me up for that too... till then it's a total joke as far as workouts go for anyone needing accurate data under training conditions, and such a waste of hardware/software on the watch itself.

 

[Aussi3]

So I read the article. Apple does something better than the competition. Then, just for laughs, I come here to the forum to read the howling and gnashing of teeth from the haters who want to tear them down.
I'm never disappointed, you guys are so entertaining! (& so full of it.)

Haha, same here!! it's entertaining and sad

 

[ipedro]

This 100%. My accuracy drops significantly when running, but when walking, or cycling, its pretty accurate.

Do you wear your band loose? Unlike how I used to wear traditional watches, my AppleWatch sits comfortably in place, touching my skin the whole time and never moving out of place unless I adjust it myself.

 

[tylersdad]

Thing is that with the "true" fitness straps it's a lot of cons for what?

• potentially smell bad
• always uncomfortable
• one more thing to put on before training
• one more thing to "wash"
• one more thing to buy batteries for
• require a separate watch (or other receiver)
• hard to get their data to analysis Apps

The accuracy is far greater than 1% better, especially when running or getting reallly sweaty. I use a strap every day. I have one of the Wahoo fitness Bluetooth/Ant+ combo straps. It's incredibly comfortable. Far more comfortable than a watch that has to be pretty snug on your wrist to work at peak effectiveness.

As a regular user of straps, none of those cons you listed are that big of a deal and some of them are just false. For instance, they are not always uncomfortable and it's not difficult to get workout data into my analysis tools.

 

[ThunderSkunk]

Why don't these studies ever compare the Apple Watch with more hardcore fitness watches like those from Garmin or Sunto?

Or the most popular HRM & fitness brand for the last what, 25 years: Polar

 

[geekssem76]

If you want heart rate tracking only during exercise then the S2 is perfectly fine.

 

[44267547]

They didn't compare the fitbit charge 2? Maybe I missed it, but was this the series 1 or 2 Apple Watch?

I believe the first Generation Apple Watch and Series 1/2 use the exact same heart rate sensor. So the comparison applies to all the models.

That said, given Apple's track record with health and the a kind of research and development they invest into the health field, it's not about being entirely accurate, as the Watch is a tool used for general measurement. It's about providing an experience that betters the user.

So many times, I read the Apple Watch will never be a "Perfect fitness Watch". That's not Apple's goal, it's their goal to give you the various workout measurements to monitor your health conditions and provide an overview of where you are with your fitness routine. And the Apple Watch nails it in most of these categories. Couldn't be happier with mine.

 

[arturmeireles]

I workout with two bands: Microsoft Band 2 and Fitbit Charge 2. When rested both shows the same HB but when Im working out its a totally different story. While my HB on MS Band 2 is 156, on the Fitbit Charge 2 is 135. In the end of one hour cardio workout I burn 800 calories with the MS Band 2 and 450/500 calories on the Fitbit Charge 2. I will only buy an Apple Watch when it has a continuous pulsing LED like the Fitbit Charge 2.

 

[mw360]

I would assume when you're running (not walking) the error rate will go up more as your watch would slide more

Don't assume, read the study, or at the very least, the abstract:

Participants wore devices while being simultaneously assessed with continuous telemetry and indirect calorimetry while sitting, walking, running, and cycling.

...

Devices reported the lowest error for cycling and the highest for walking.

 

[iop]

A mere 0.5 to 1% of better accuracy compared to the Apple Watch? And what are you going to do with that? Not worth it!

For running I expect the difference to be significantly greater. I'm not trying to say that Apple Watch is bad. It's just that there are fundamental limitations with wrist sensors.

 

[Mlrollin91]

Do you wear your band loose? Unlike how I used to wear traditional watches, my AppleWatch sits comfortably in place, touching my skin the whole time and never moving out of place unless I adjust it myself.

I wear it rather tight. But as I start moving and sweating, it's enough to get the watch to slide a little bit. I usually have to tighten halfway through my run in order to get it from moving too much where it can't even get a reading.

 

[MH01]

Alas it just does not work on my wrist that well .
[doublepost=1495690846][/doublepost]

Thing is that with the "true" fitness straps it's a lot of cons for what?

• potentially smell bad
• always uncomfortable
• one more thing to put on before training
• one more thing to "wash"
• one more thing to buy batteries for
• require a separate watch (or other receiver)
• hard to get their data to analysis Apps

A mere 0.5 to 1% of better accuracy compared to the Apple Watch? And what are you going to do with that? Not worth it

Disagree strongly. It's not a mere 0.5 to 1% fitness strap sits tightly on your chest , anyone wearing the AW loosely as people like to wear watches makes it very inaccurate.

Smart watches are very inaccurate due to personal wearing habits . My AW is as per study, awesome and accurate, until I go to the gym and do high intensity weights session, it becomes useless.

When doing pros / cons you can't ignore AW cons and only post the HR strap ones.

I had to buy a polar H7, blows the AW out of the water and is less hassle to be honest, getting data off it.....Bluetooth.....same way you get data off the AW, and no recharging it daily , a huge win.....smells .... washing.....part of gym mate I assume u Clean your AW if you sweat in the gym

 

[laz232]

Wait: so, how do corporate donates to a private university link to Apple Watch being the most accurate heart rate tracker? Not trying to be a corporate apologist, just confused as to the relationship.

It's a significant conflict of interest. Private universities are businesses - look at the numbers on the books. The PI has close ties with Apple and seems to be involved in an app as well. I would say that should have been divulged (but investigative journalism only seems to work for certain segments of the population nowadays)


Article (where E. A: Euan Ashely ):
Author Contributions:
M.M and A.S. should be indicated as co-first authors. M.M, M.W, J.C., and E.A conceived and designed the study. M.M, A.S, and H.S. ran the protocols and acquired all data for the study. A.S., T. H., and D.W. performed the bioinformatics and statistical analysis on the collected data. A.S., E. A., and M.M. wrote the manuscript. E.A. is the principal investigator in charge of the study.

Conflicts of Interest
The authors declare no conflict of interest.


From bio
https://vptl.stanford.edu/people/euan-ashley
"Dr Ashley is Principal Investigator of the MyHeart Counts study, developed in collaboration with Apple Inc in 2015"

https://fusion.kinja.com/the-inside-story-of-how-apples-new-medical-research-pla-1793846479
“Not to be part of it would have been crazy,” Euan Ashley, one of the Stanford University investigators behind the myHeart app, which tracks cardiovascular health, told me. He and his colleagues have been working on myHeart with Apple for more than a year.


From Twitter (@euanashley(April 2017)):
"Check Out the Lexus That Apple's Using to Test Self-Driving Car Technology - Bloomberg - "http://www.bloomberg.com


What surprises me most is how poor all the devices are at estimating energy expenditure +/- 50% error is seems pretty high

 

[apolloa]

Why don't these studies ever compare the Apple Watch with more hardcore fitness watches like those from Garmin or Sunto?

As the post by the editor states on page 1, part of the selection criteria was to have one fitness device only I think? So Garmins out, and Polar and others. Suunto I think only have one hear rate monitoring watch? I could be wrong, but it is new so maybe it wasn't available when this test was run?
It would be interesting to see these two brands top end devices tested against the Apple Watch. I keep reading the Apple Watch is better then the others with heart rate monitoring though.

 

[mw360]

For running I expect the difference to be significantly greater. I'm not trying to say that Apple Watch is bad. It's just that there are fundamental limitations with wrist sensors.

The study doesn't back you up on this. Look at figure 3. AW was more accurate when running versus either walking or sitting. I don't think they quote a figure for the difference between cycling and running, but it looks like about 1 percentage point or less.