External HR sensor recommendation

[espruino-discuss2]

Posted at 2023-04-29 by @andresdju

What are the recommended/tested external HR sensors for bangle.js 2? It seems that the recent cutting edge firmware (2v17.55) improved the internal HR accuracy, but I'd like to try an external one for running training.

[espruino-discuss2]

Posted at 2023-04-30 by Fteacher

In the "read more" section of "Bluetooth Heart Rate Monitor" app, in the app loader, you'll see that it works with these ones:

• CooSpo Bluetooth Heart Rate Monitor
• Polar H10
• Polar OH1
• Wahoo TICKR X 2
  I'm using the Polar OH1+ to run, for almost 2 years: it works just fine.

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Posted at 2023-04-30 by Mi

I use polar H10. Very happy with it together with bangle.

It additionally can provide real ECG Data, HRV, Accelerometer.
There is already a bangle App for HRV.
Not yet for ECG and ACC, but that would be not very difficult.
So far I record this with an non-cloud Android app (the original polar is cloud only)
The H10 is able to send Bluetooth to 2 receivers at the same time (eg bangle and phone or workout machines) but I didn't use this so far because its difficult to activate without polar cloud.

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Posted at 2023-05-01 by dapgo

The dual HR (BLE+ANT+) from decathlon also perfectly works fine.

I assume that generic BLE HR sensor should work fine.

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Posted at 2023-05-01 by @andresdju

I got the Polar H10, which apps do you use for ECG analysis, Jukka Happonen's? Is Polar's SDK open source? Could EGC and the 2 Bluetooth devices support be implemented with open source? Any source of documentation would be appreciated.

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Posted at 2023-05-01 by Mi

For just HR the bangle recorder works just fine.

which apps do you use for ECG analysis, Jukka Happonen's?

Yes, I use this for recording ECG on the go.
Locally I use a python app that gets all the data streams on a desktop computer, shows stores and analysis it there. The communication part looks pretty simple "just" initializing and receiving Bluetooth characteristics. The basis was from a blog post example. That link doesn't exist anymore though - just checked. There were a number of options at the time, so I think you should find several examples in the net somewhere.

To me that looks all pretty basic BLE stuff (without being an expert) that I have seen similarly in bangle sw. So I guess it would be easy to write an bangle app for ECG and ACC, maybe even stop/start offline recording in the sensor.
For ECG/ACC maybe just expanding BLE Heart Rate App a bit with additional characteristics.

Is Polar's SDK open source?

Yes there is a open SDK for Android. Its not complete though. All basic stuff is in there, including downloading the internal memory (H10 can record HR without device, not ECG though).
https://github.com/polarofficial/polar-ble-sdk

Could EGC and the 2 Bluetooth devices support be implemented with open source?

ECG yes.
When I checked last I found no way to activate the 2 connection feature open source, but that may have changed (approx 2 years ago). As far as I understand it can be used open source once activated with proprietary app.

Any source of documentation would be appreciated.

Just google a bit. As said my original source is no longer online, but I could find a number of projects on github immediately, including swift or ROS.
Eg:
https://github.com/kylehovey/polar-h10-ecg
https://github.com/wideopensource/polarpy