I’m teaching data to year 7 students, and am looking into having them monitor their heart rate throughout a period of time to look for correlations, etc. One option I’m looking at is to get a class set of heart monitors and play with that data. I’m looking for recommendations for devices that meet the following criteria:
Cheap
Wrist mounted
Half-decent accuracy (I know this can be at odds with the above; I’m not expecting perfection, just don’t want absolute rubbish)
Logs heart rate data (every minute or 5 minutes would be fine) for later retrieval, preferably over USB, but bluetooth is OK if USB not possible
Fits small wrists
Doesn’t invade your privacy (i.e. can be used without app/internet connection, doesn’t send your data to China, etc)
I’m personally using a Mi Band 4 (with a 3rd party app to prevent privacy issues), which fits the bill to some degree, but was wondering if there is something simpler out there, and preferably with a USB connector (mi band is bluetooth only).
I would have suggested looking at the Mi Band but you’re already there. I haven’t seen people using anything cheaper here that is considered reliable.
Can I ask you a question of my own? You write:
Logs heart rate data (every minute or 5 minutes would be fine) for later retrieval, preferably over USB, but bluetooth is OK if USB not possible
Why do you want USB data logging? I’ve had some fairly in depth discussion with collaborators @tblomseth and @jakobeglarsen about USB vs bluetooth, and I’m intrigued that USB is on your list of requirements. Why is that important for your project?
The context is I’d be using them in a classroom. Imagine 25 students with 25 bands and 25 computing devices in a single room, trying to pair the band in their hand with their device, and not one of the other 24 devices in the room. And that’s before we get into the reliability of bluetooth. Whereas a USB connection would just be: take it off your wrist, plug in to your computer, copy the data file. Much less room for problems and less time wasted debugging the technology.
Yes, it’s niche, and quite different use case to most bands, but wanted to check if it’s been done or though of before. Might have to end up designing my own (or have some students do it
Thank you for that explanation. The way you think about it is very similar to conversations we’ve had; there are quite a few cases where a simple USB connection would be better. The control of the data is easier for users and in a sense closer to them. It seems less “automatic” but it’s way less breakable. I’m close to certain that wrist based HR with USB doesn’t exist, but it should.
