Noisy ECG?

[SunsetRunner]

I have owned a Sense for three weeks now, bought in Europe. ECG was the main reason why I bought Sense.

But my doctor finds the ECG signals a little bit too noisy, i.e., with too much high frequency background noise, making it more difficult to identify some relevant ECG events. My doctor is used to ECG's produced by Apple watches, which are, it seems, cleaner and have less of these high frequency background noise.

Does anybody have a similar experience?

Any suggestions? Any tips to get a better quality ECG?

Is this a (small) bug that can be corrected by future firmware/software upgrades? If so, please do it as soon as possible, Fitbit.

Thanks.

[SunsetRunner]

I have owned a Sense for three weeks now, bought in Europe. ECG was the main reason why I bought Sense.

But my doctor finds the ECG signals a little bit too noisy, i.e., with too much high frequency background noise, making it more difficult to identify some relevant ECG events. My doctor is used to ECG's produced by Apple watches, which are, it seems, cleaner and have less of these high frequency background noise.

Does anybody have a similar experience?

Any suggestions? Any tips to get a better quality ECG?

Is this a (small) bug that can be corrected by future firmware/software upgrades? If so, please do it as soon as possible, Fitbit.

Thanks.

[USAF-Larry]

To answer your last question first, @SunsetRunner, it is highly likely that the performance of the ECG function will improve with future firmware updates. To go back to your first comment, I got just the opposite review from my cardiologist. He was very satisfied with the PDF printouts that I took in for him to review on my last visit. He agreed that some of them had a lot of "noise", which was caused by me not holding my arm perfectly still while taking the reading, but he said that he could easily identify any serious events that would warrant an order for a full 12-lead EKG.  He was most interested in the watch for his AFib patients, which would allow for them to randomly check for events.

[SunsetRunner]

Thank you very much, USAF-Larry.

Your reply was quite enlightening. It seems to me that I was not keeping my arm still enough and also relaxed enough. My ECG records look now a little bit better.

Actually it was not my cardiologist who saw my first ECGs, it was my GP. My cardiologist will see them later this month and I hope she will agree with yours.

Most helpful, USAF-Larry. Thanks!

[LZeeW]

@SunsetRunner   In addition to making sure your arm is relaxed and still, make sure you aren't holding your Sense too tightly with your fingers.  You can get muscle movement artifact noise from that, too.

[SunsetRunner]

Thank you, @LZeeW. Very helpful. I had already suspected and tried it, but was not sure yet.

It's a pity these tips are not displayed right at the top of the ECG app instructions.

[SunsetRunner]

To finish this topic, I showed my cardiologist some ECG taken with Sense and she found them good and useful.

Thanks again, @USAF-Larry  and @LZeeW , for your help.

Fitbit ask me now to choose a "best answer" to finish this topic, but both answers were useful and complement each other. Choosing one would leave other users without the benefit of the other. Why can't we choose more than one, Fitbit?

[SunsetRunner · Accepted solution]

BEST ANSWERS:

@USAF-Larry  (see the original reply above):

01-17-2021 12:19

To answer your last question first, @Miguel60, it is highly likely that the performance of the ECG function will improve with future firmware updates. To go back to your first comment, I got just the opposite review from my cardiologist. He was very satisfied with the PDF printouts that I took in for him to review on my last visit. He agreed that some of them had a lot of "noise", which was caused by me not holding my arm perfectly still while taking the reading, but he said that he could easily identify any serious events that would warrant an order for a full 12-lead EKG.  He was most interested in the watch for his AFib patients, which would allow for them to randomly check for events.

@LZeeW  (see the original reply above):

01-18-2021 03:59

@Miguel60   In addition to making sure your arm is relaxed and still, make sure you aren't holding your Sense too tightly with your fingers.  You can get muscle movement artifact noise from that, too.

After following both @USAF-Larry and @LZeeW advices, I finally got good and clean ECG records, their good quality confirmed by my doctor. Thanks to both.

[SunsetRunner · Accepted solution]

To answer your last question first, @Miguel60, it is highly likely that the performance of the ECG function will improve with future firmware updates. To go back to your first comment, I got just the opposite review from my cardiologist. He was very satisfied with the PDF printouts that I took in for him to review on my last visit. He agreed that some of them had a lot of "noise", which was caused by me not holding my arm perfectly still while taking the reading, but he said that he could easily identify any serious events that would warrant an order for a full 12-lead EKG.  He was most interested in the watch for his AFib patients, which would allow for them to randomly check for events.

@LZeeW  (see the original reply above):

01-18-2021 03:59

@Miguel60   In addition to making sure your arm is relaxed and still, make sure you aren't holding your Sense too tightly with your fingers.  You can get muscle movement artifact noise from that, too.

After following both @USAF-Larry and @LZeeW advices, I finally got good and clean ECG records, their good quality confirmed by my doctor. Thanks to both.

[SunsetRunner · Accepted solution]

@Miguel60   In addition to making sure your arm is relaxed and still, make sure you aren't holding your Sense too tightly with your fingers.  You can get muscle movement artifact noise from that, too.

After following both @USAF-Larry and @LZeeW advices, I finally got good and clean ECG records, their good quality confirmed by my doctor. Thanks to both.