Comparison of Heart-Rate-Variability Recording With Smartphone Photoplethysmography, Polar H7 Chest Strap, and Electrocardiography
in International Journal of Sports Physiology and PerformanceClick name to view affiliation
Purpose: To establish the validity of smartphone photoplethysmography (PPG) and heart-rate sensor in the measurement of heart-rate variability (HRV). Methods: 29 healthy subjects were measured at rest during 5 min of guided breathing and normal breathing using smartphone PPG, a heart-rate chest strap, and electrocardiography (ECG). The root mean sum of the squared differences between R–R intervals (rMSSD) was determined from each device. Results: Compared to ECG, the technical error of estimate (TEE) was acceptable for all conditions (average TEE CV% [90% CI] = 6.35 [5.13; 8.5]). When assessed as a standardized difference, all differences were deemed “trivial” (average standard difference [90% CI] = 0.10 [0.08; 0.13]). Both PPG- and heart-rate-sensor-derived measures had almost perfect correlations with ECG (R = 1.00 [0.99; 1.00]). Conclusion: Both PPG and heart-rate sensors provide an acceptable agreement for the measurement of rMSSD when compared with ECG. Smartphone PPG technology may be a preferred method of HRV data collection for athletes due to its practicality and ease of use in the field.
Plews, Scott, Wood, Kilding, and Laursen are with Sports Performance Research Inst New Zealand (SPRINZ), Auckland University of Technology, Auckland, New Zealand. Altini is with ACTLab, University of Passau, Passau, Germany.
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