HRV and Stress: A Mixed-Methods Approach for Comparison of Wearable Heart Rate Sensors for Biofeedback

Stress is one of the most significant health problems in today's world. Existing work has used heart rate variability (HRV) to detect stress and provide biofeedback order regulate it. There been a growing interest using wearable biosensors measure HRV. Each these sensors acquires data different technologies for various bodily locations, therefore posing challenge researchers decide upon particular device research experiment. Previous only compared sensing devices against gold standard terms quality, thus overlooking qualitative analysis usability acceptability such devices. This paper introduces mixed-methods approach compare quality user acceptance six common monitoring biosensors. We conducted 70-minute collection procedure obtain HRV from 32 participants followed by 10-minute semi-structured interview on sensors' wearability comfort, long-term use, aesthetics, social acceptance. performed quantitative consisting correlation agreement thematic obtained interviews. Our results show that electrocardiography (ECG) chest strap achieved highest levels all sessions had lowest amount artifacts, photoplethysmography (PPG) wristband, ECG sensor board kit PPG smartwatch. In three sessions, wrist-worn showed lower with reference device. Qualitative findings interviews highlight prefer wrist arm-worn wearability, chest-worn Moreover, mentioned latter are more likely invite judgment others, they would not want wear it public. Participants preferred short-term use over long-time.