Galaxy Watch Heart Rate Accuracy: How Does It Compare to Medical Devices?
By comparing it to other medical-grade devices, read about how well the Galaxy Watch heart rate monitor tests. Find out its advantages and disadvantages and its ability to track health activities.
With smartwatches like the Samsung Galaxy Watch series, wearables are now equipped with newer sensors that bring health and fitness monitoring to your wrist. But how much information do they possess, and how truthful are they, especially when compared with medical-standard devices? To answer this, we had to compare the Galaxy Watch with other trusted health devices to know the truth about the accuracy of the heart rate monitor.
Testing the Galaxy Watch Against Medical Devices
We compared the Galaxy Watch with two medical-grade devices to evaluate its accuracy. The primary accessories are a pulse oximeter and a digital blood pressure monitor. These are most preferred in hospitals and clinics and are famous for their accuracy. The two baseline tests we undertook were the pulse rate at rest and the pulse rate after exercising while testing the uptake of the Galaxy Watch.
In this experiment, we are wearing the Galaxy Watch 4, which is one of the flagship devices. The Galaxy Watch 5 and Galaxy Watch 6 utilize the same heart rate sensor. This is because the latest feature of the Galaxy Watch 7 has a BioActive Sensor that has raised the bar on the level of accuracy, but the Galaxy Watch 4 is still a marvelous sports watch.
Resting Heart Rate Test
In the resting heart rate test, we only had to sit still and comfortably, with the pulse oximeter on the finger, the blood pressure monitor cuff on the upper arm, and the Galaxy Watch on the wrist. Obviously, a resting rate is around 60 beats per minute, but it may be slightly different because of factors such as stress.
Here’s what we found:
- Galaxy Watch: 73 BPM
- Pulse Oximeter: 73 BPM
- Digital Blood Pressure Monitor: 77 BPM
The Galaxy Watch and the pulse oximeter read the same BPM, and the blood pressure monitor reads slightly higher than that. This difference is quite reasonable given that the two devices operate under fundamentally different principles—PPG for the watch and pulse oximetry for the BPM, which employs oscillometric methods.
Post-Exercise Heart Rate Test
In the next part of the test, we performed sit-ups and pull-ups for 10 minutes and checked how comfortable the Galaxy Watch was with a fast heartbeat. Immediately after exercising, we measured heart rates across all devices:
- Galaxy Watch: 104 BPM
- Pulse Oximeter: 108 BPM
- Digital Blood Pressure Monitor: 104 BPM
Notably, the values identified by the Galaxy Watch and the blood pressure monitor were identical, while the pulse oximeter measured a slightly higher rate. Although there could be slight differences, the Galaxy Watch will likely estimate heart rate accurately during dynamic states.
Why Do Readings Vary?
Both the Galaxy Watch and pulse oximeter use PPG, which stands for photoplethysmography, which measures blood flow under the skin. However, the blood pressure monitor has oscillometric technology that can sense vibration during pressure cuff inflation. Such differences can produce minor differences in the reading, but big pictures are what remain recognizable.
But even devices based on similar technology can sometimes differ in some points. For instance, when preparing and eating food, the pulse of the Galaxy Watch is 0-5 BPM more than that of the pulse oximeter. These deviations might be due to the positioning of the wrist over the sensor or when moving the sensor.
Continuous Heart Rate Monitoring
A continuous heart rate monitor for the Galaxy Watch is also available for activity, walking, exercising, resting, and many more. While useful, this feature’s efficacy decreases due to motion or other forms of stimuli it picks up.
For example, at a certain period of the workout session, the watch showed a heart rate of 20 BPM, which appeared to be highly alarming. When the rate was compared to the one seen with the help of a pulse oximeter, the actual heart rate was about 160 BPM, much closer to the truth. This is an indication that movement from time to time may lead to fluctuations in the measures provided by the watch.
Samsung’s newest Galaxy Watch 7 reportedly corrects such issues with its upgraded sensor, which is now 30% more accurate when used during exercises. Despite these advances in this area, these models should not be substituted for medical-quality ones, even for the improved models.
Can You Rely on the Galaxy Watch for Heart Health?
The Galaxy Watch is the most valuable health and fitness device. The foremost benefit is the possibility of observing tendencies both for a short period and during a long period, which allows for estimating the general cardiovascular fitness of the person and his health state. However, the safety of the products conveyed by the app has to be stressed despite the fact that the app is not a medical app.
Samsung has given it in black and white. They went further to say that the Galaxy Watch is not a health product designed to diagnose or cure diseases. As for accurate measures of one’s heartbeat and for diagnosis/treatment of members in a community, always go with validated clinical tools.
Final Thoughts
The Galaxy Watch heart rate monitor is as good as it gets for a wearable device, usually 0-5 BPM off medical-grade instruments. The main advantage is that it can follow trends and patterns, which is why it could be an ideal app for overall health and fitness applications. However, in case of very important health decisions, it is better to check with medical devices or a doctor.
In terms of utility, design, and fairly precise heart rate monitoring, the Galaxy Watch becomes a multiplier in lifestyle improvement, closing the gap between tech and well-being.
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