Validity of six consumer-level activity monitors for measuring steps in patients with chronic heart failure
Open accessAbstract
INTRODUCTION: Although numerous activity trackers have been validated in healthy populations, validation is lacking in chronic heart failure patients who normally walk at a slower pace, making it difficult for researchers and clinicians to implement activity monitors during physical activity interventions. METHODS: Six consumer-level activity monitors were validated in a 3-day field study in patients with chronic heart failure and healthy individuals under free living conditions. Furthermore, the same devices were evaluated in a lab-based study during treadmill walking at speeds of 2.4, 3.0, 3.6, and 4.2 km·h-1. Concordance correlation coefficients (CCC) were used to evaluate the agreement between the activity monitors and the criterion, and mean absolute percentage errors (MAPE) were calculated to assess differences between each device and the criterion (MAPE <10% was considered as a threshold for validity). RESULTS: In the field study of healthy individuals, all but one of the activity monitors showed a substantial correlation (CCC ≥0.95) with the criterion device and MAPE <10%. In patients with heart failure, the correlation of only two activity monitors (Garmin vívofit 3 and Withings Go) was classified as at least moderate (CCC ≥0.90) and none of the devices had MAPE <10%. In the lab-based study at speeds 4.2 and 3.6 km·h-1, all activity monitors showed substantial to almost perfect correlations (CCC ≥0.95) with the criterion and MAPE in the range 1%-3%. However, at slower speeds of 3.0 and 2.4 km·h-1, the accuracy of all devices substantially deteriorated: their correlation with the criterion decreased below 90% and their MAPE increased to 4-8% and 10-45%, respectively. CONCLUSIONS: Even though none of the tested activity monitors fall within arbitrary thresholds for validity, most of them perform reasonably well enough to be useful tools that clinicians can use to simply motivate chronic heart failure patients to walk more.
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Many validation studies have questioned the accuracy of raw sensor data and software algorithms.
“Many validation studies have questioned the accuracy of raw sensor data and software algorithms92–94.”
From Smart wearable devices in cardiovascular care: Where we are and how to move forward (2021) · cites this paper as [93]
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Smart wearable devices in cardiovascular care: Where we are and how to move forward
Bayoumy, K., Gaber, M., Elshafeey, A., Mhaimeed, O., Dineen, E. H., Marvel, F. A., Martin, S. S., Muse, E. D., Turakhia, M. P., Tarakji, K. G., et al. (2021) · Nature Reviews Cardiology · doi:10.1038/s41569-021-00522-7 · Cited by 829 · see citing works
- Authors
- Vetrovsky, T., Siranec, M., Marencakova, J., Tufano, J. J., Capek, V., Bunc, V., & Belohlavek, J.
- Affiliations
- Charles University (CZ)
- Venue
- PLOS ONE
- Publisher
- Public Library of Science (PLoS)
- Published
- 2019-09-13
- Volume
- 14
- Issue
- 9
- Pages
- e0222569
- ISSN
- 1932-6203 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC6743766
- OpenAlex
- W2972777558
- Cited by
- 53
- References
- 48
- Citations by year
- 2026: 5 · 2025: 8 · 2024: 11 · 2023: 11 · 2022: 9 · 2021: 5 · 2020: 4
- FWCI
- 3.09
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- PLoS ONE (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- Figshare (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- Funders
- Charles University Grant Agency (GAUK 1302317)
- Czech Health Research Council of the Ministry of Health of the Czech Republic (NV18-09-00146)
- Topics
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Physiology › Physical Activity and Health
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition › Context-Aware Activity Recognition Systems
- Health Sciences › Health Professions › General Health Professions › Mobile Health and mHealth Applications
- Keywords
- wearable activity trackers, step counting, chronic heart failure, device validation, wearable sensors, physical activity measurement, physical activity interventions
- MeSH terms
- Fitness Trackers, Adult, Aged, Chronic Disease, Exercise Test, Female, Heart Failure, Humans, Male, Reproducibility of Results, Exercise, Walking, Monitoring, Ambulatory, Accelerometry
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