The Consumer Technology Association (CTA) announced a new standard for heart rate (HR) monitoring in wearables today at the Technology & Standards Forum in Santa Clara, CA. Accredited by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI), the voluntary standard aims to improve heart rate measurement accuracy by providing definitions and performance criteria for consumer technology that measures HR.
CTA’s
Health, Fitness and Wellness Subcommittee created the standard, CTA-2065,
Physical Activity Monitoring for Heart Activity, to provide a protocol to test and validate the accuracy of a HR monitoring device under the conditions of everyday living – from dynamic indoor cycling to sedentary lifestyles. CTA-2065 defines the data output rate, availability, data accuracy and refresh time offset that must be met to evaluate performance. CTA’s new standard is the latest effort to improve the accuracy and reliability of health and fitness technology, with previous standards focusing on
sleep tracking and
step counting.
“This new standard for HR monitoring is an important step in CTA’s portfolio of work to foster innovation in health and fitness technology, as well as address issues around accurate and reliable products,” said Brian Markwalter, senior vice president of research and standards, CTA. “Technology is changing our lives and health for the better, from monitoring our wellness and measuring our workouts to keeping patients and doctors better connected. And the CTA Technology & Standards Forum is a platform for industry collaboration to advance the benefits of wearable technology.”
The announcement was made at CTA’s Technology & Standards Forum, a weeklong event featuring educational sessions addressing the latest innovations in the field and meetings of health and fitness industry experts. Chief medical officers, CEOs and executives from companies such as Evidation Health, Heal, Nokia, Omron Healthcare, Qualcomm Life, Spire and Welbean discussed topics on the future of the wearable space, the relationship between artificial intelligence and health tech, virtual reality’s role in surgery and more.
Dr. David Rhew, chief medical officer & VP and GM of (B2B) Healthcare at Samsung, gave a lunchtime keynote on how digital health technology is helping seniors thrive, citing proven technology solutions for issues such as dementia, social isolation and pain management.
Additionally, CTA’s Health and Fitness Technology board and standards subcomittees met to advance their work in such areas as physical activity monitoring, mobile health applications, consumer stress monitoring technologies, inclusive model simulations for biometric conditions.
The wearables category, including the total health, fitness and sports tech market, is expected to see continued growth in 2018 and reach sales of 49.3 million units (four percent increase since 2017) and earn $6.4 billion (one percent increase), according to
CTA data.
The next CTA Technology & Standards Forum will take place Oct. 1-5, 2018 at the Loews Hollywood Hotel in Los Angeles. The event will feature extensive programming on the current state of video distribution. To get involved or learn more about CTA’s standards activities and events, please visit
standards.CTA.tech.
