Study on Mobile Apps-based Heart Rate Measurement: Female and Male

Heart rate is one of the vital signs that should be monitored in daily life, particularly for people with cardiovascular disease and during or after exercise. Current technology makes it possible to measure heart using mobile apps. However, there are no certified heart rate apps yet. Therefore, this study tries to assess heart rate measurement apps with deeper analysis in females and males. In general, the 14 apps that are used in this study show that they can be utilized to measure heart rate due to the measurement error still in the range limit of tolerance $\pm\ 5\ \mathbf{ BPM}$ or $\pm 10\%$, whichever greater, based on ANSI/AAMI EC13:2002. Furthermore, the female volunteer tends to have a lower error than the male. A deeper examination shows that both females and males have a very strong correlation between true heart rate (manual palpation) and measured value (apps) with the $r$ values of 0.97 and 0.90. This study shows that female measurement tends to be more precise in aligning the finger with the mobile's camera.