Polar Vantage and Oura Physical Activity and Sleep Trackers: Validation and Comparison Study

Consumer-based activity trackers are increasingly used in research, as they have the potential to promote increased physical activity and can be used for estimating physical activity among participants. However, the accuracy of newer consumer-based devices is mostly unknown, and validation studies are needed.

The objective of this study was to compare the Polar Vantage watch (Polar Electro Oy) and Oura ring (generation 2; Ōura Health Oy) activity trackers to research-based instruments for measuring physical activity, total energy expenditure, resting heart rate, and sleep duration in free-living adults.

A total of 21 participants wore 2 consumer-based activity trackers (Polar watch and Oura ring), an ActiGraph accelerometer (ActiGraph LLC), and an Actiheart accelerometer and heart rate monitor (CamNtech Ltd) and completed a sleep diary for up to 7 days. We assessed Polar watch and Oura ring validity and comparability for measuring physical activity, total energy expenditure, resting heart rate (Oura), and sleep duration. We analyzed repeated measures correlations, Bland-Altman plots, and mean absolute percentage errors.

The Polar watch and Oura ring values strongly correlated (P<.001) with the ActiGraph values for steps (Polar: r=0.75, 95% CI 0.54-0.92; Oura: r=0.77, 95% CI 0.62-0.87), moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (Polar: r=0.76, 95% CI 0.62-0.88; Oura: r=0.70, 95% CI 0.49-0.82), and total energy expenditure (Polar: r=0.69, 95% CI 0.48-0.88; Oura: r=0.70, 95% CI 0.51-0.83) and strongly or very strongly correlated (P<.001) with the sleep diary-derived sleep durations (Polar: r=0.74, 95% CI 0.56-0.88; Oura: r=0.82, 95% CI 0.68-0.91). Oura ring-derived resting heart rates had a very strong correlation (P<.001) with the Actiheart-derived resting heart rates (r=0.9, 95% CI 0.85-0.96). However, the mean absolute percentage error was high for all variables except Oura ring-derived sleep duration (10%) and resting heart rate (3%), which the Oura ring underreported on average by 1 beat per minute.

The Oura ring can potentially be used as an alternative to the Actiheart to measure resting heart rate. As for sleep duration, the Polar watch and Oura ring can potentially be used as replacements for a manual sleep diary, depending on the acceptable error. Neither the Polar watch nor the Oura ring can replace the ActiGraph when it comes to measuring steps, moderate-to-vigorous physical activity, and total energy expenditure, but they may be used as additional sources of physical activity measures in some settings. On average, the Polar Vantage watch reported higher outputs compared to those reported by the Oura ring for steps, moderate-to-vigorous physical activity, and total energy expenditure.