Abstract
Wrist-worn consumer-grade activity trackers are popular devices, developed mainly for personal use. This study aimed to explore the validity, reliability and sensitivity to change of movement behaviors metrics from three activity trackers (Polar Vantage M, Garmin Vivoactive 4s and Garmin Vivosport) in controlled and free-living conditions when worn by older adults. Participants (n = 28; 74 ± 5 years) underwent a videotaped laboratory protocol while wearing all three trackers. On a separate occasion, participants (n = 17 for each of the trackers) wore one (randomly assigned) tracker and a research-grade activity monitor ActiGraph wGT3X-BT simultaneously for six consecutive days. Both Garmin trackers showed excellent performance for step counts, with a mean absolute percentage error (MAPE) below 20% and intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC2,1) above 0.90 (p < 0.05). The MAPE for sleep time was within 10% for all the trackers tested, while it was far beyond 20% for all other movement behaviors metrics. The results suggested that all three trackers could be used for measuring sleep time with a high level of accuracy, and both Garmin trackers could also be used for step counts. All other output metrics should be used with caution. The results provided in this study could be used to guide choice on activity trackers aiming for different purposes—individual use, longitudinal monitoring or in clinical trial setting.
Highlights
Measurement of health-related movement behaviors (e.g., physical activity (PA), sedentary behavior (SB), sleep) is fundamental for research and practice [1]
The results provided in this study could be used to guide choice on activity trackers aiming for different purposes—individual use, longitudinal monitoring or in clinical trial setting
To the best of our knowledge, this was the first study to examine the validity of the Polar Vantage M, Garmin Vivoactive 4s and Garmin Vivosport in older adults, and one of the few studies that compared sensitivity to detect changes between commercially available wrist-worn activity trackers and a research-grade physical activity monitor
Summary
Measurement of health-related movement behaviors (e.g., physical activity (PA), sedentary behavior (SB), sleep) is fundamental for research and practice [1]. In order to overcome those limitations and to further develop the field, wearable devices that measure free-living movement behaviors were introduced. The most frequently used technology that those activity monitors rely on is the accelerometry [3]. In some devices it is accompanied by other sensors, like heart rate (HR), galvanic skin response and/or skin temperature sensors, etc. Technological development led to miniaturizing devices, expanding the battery life, computing diverse movement behaviors and computing vital signs metrics, while becoming affordable for the use in large-scale studies [6], clinical applications [7] or for individual consumers. The market of wearable devices is growing rapidly; there were 722 million connected devices in 2019, and it has been forecasted that a billion will be reached in
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