Evaluation on Step Counting Performance of Wristband Activity Monitors in Daily Living Environment

Abstract

Wristband-placed physical activity monitors, as a convenient means for counting walking steps, assessing movement, and estimating energy expenditure, are widely used in daily life. There are many consumer-based wristband monitors on the market, but there is not an unified method to compare their performance. In this paper, we designed a series of experiments testing step counting performance under different walking conditions to evaluate these wristband activity monitors. Seven popular brands, including Huawei B1, Mi Band, Fitbit Charge, Polar Loop, Garmin Vivofit2, Misfit Shine, and Jawbone Up, were selected and evaluated with the proposed experiment method in this paper. These experiments include four parts, which are walking in a field at a different walking speed with and without arm swing, walking along a specified complex path, walking on a treadmill, and walking up and down stairs. Experiment results and analysis with nine healthy subjects were reported to show the step counting performance of these seven monitors.

Keywords

• Activity monitor
• biometrics
• evaluation protocol
• health information management
• human factors
• step count