Open AccessRemote heart rate monitoring - Assessment of the Facereader rPPg by Noldus
Author(s) -
Simone Benedetto,
Christian Caldato,
Darren C. Greenwood,
Nicola Bartoli,
Virginia Pensabene,
Paolo Actis
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
plos one
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.99
H-Index - 332
ISSN - 1932-6203
DOI - 10.1371/journal.pone.0225592
Subject(s) - photoplethysmogram , heart rate , gold standard (test) , medicine , limits of agreement , cardiology , computer science , computer vision , nuclear medicine , blood pressure , filter (signal processing)
Remote photoplethysmography (rPPG) allows contactless monitoring of human cardiac activity through a video camera. In this study, we assessed the accuracy and precision for heart rate measurements of the only consumer product available on the market, namely the Facereader TM rPPG by Noldus, with respect to a gold standard electrocardiograph. Twenty-four healthy participants were asked to sit in front of a computer screen and alternate two periods of rest with two stress tests (i.e. Go/No-Go task), while their heart rate was simultaneously acquired for 20 minutes using the ECG criterion measure and the Facereader TM rPPG. Results show that the Facereader TM rPPG tends to overestimate lower heart rates and underestimate higher heart rates compared to the ECG. The Facereader ™ rPPG revealed a mean bias of 9.8 bpm, the 95% limits of agreement (LoA) ranged from almost -30 up to +50 bpm. These results suggest that whilst the rPPG Facereader TM technology has potential for contactless heart rate monitoring, its predictions are inaccurate for higher heart rates, with unacceptable precision across the entire range, rendering its estimates unreliable for monitoring individuals.