I tried various ways to track the arrhythmia, but they were technically very tricky to do with home instrumentation. In the end I gained the most from using four tools in four different ways: The Kardia device from AliveCor, the Zio from iRhythm, a cheap fingertip SpO2 monitor, and the One Button as mentioned above.
The SpO2 monitor plus the Kardia was very good for seeing the arrythmias as they happened and “tuning in” to the feeling the caused in my chest. The Kardia could deliver a visual graph of the ECG where the PVCs were clearly visible. See below for an example, look at the graph where you would expect to see the 3rd and 6th heartbeat in the sequence:
I could also see the missed beats on my fingertip SpO2 monitor:
These two devices helped me be more confident that I knew the feeling of PVCs.
Then, I started tracking with the OBT, over many months, and got to know the pattern of how they came and went. Since I was working with a cardiologist and starting medication, I was prescribed the Zio wearable ECG monitor for two weeks. This gave me a chance to compare my one button data with my Zio data. The Zio recorded a lot more episodes, both because it continued to track at night while I was sleeping, and because I didn’t record every single missed beat but just aggregate “episodes” that I could easily detect. (I didn’t keep pressing again and again once an episode was recorded.) But, even though the Zio had a lot more episodes, my self-collected data and the Zio data were nicely correlated.
Interestingly, to me, is the fact that the most technical devices were most useful for learning and building confidence, while the more “manual” data collection with the OBT was most useful for long term record keeping and analysis. That’s because the technical devices were either expensive, distracting to use, or didn’t allow me to get the data in a convenient way. (The Zio only offered PDFs, the fingertip monitor didn’t produce any digital record, and the Kardia was sort of a marvel but at the same time had both data access issues and required a process that took time.)
In the end, all four were useful in different ways, but the OBT is the only one I continue to use.