Getting enough sleep, exercising, and limiting sedentary activities can greatly contribute to disease prevention and overall health and longevity. Measuring the full 24-h activity cycle-sleep, sedentary behavior (SED), light-intensity physical activity (LPA), and moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA)-may now be feasible using small wearable devices.
Purpose: This study compared nine devices for accuracy in a 24-h activity measurement.
Methods: Adults (n = 40, 47% male) wore nine devices for 24 h: ActiGraph GT3X+, activPAL, Fitbit One, GENEactiv, Jawbone Up, LUMOback, Nike Fuelband, Omron pedometer, and Z-Machine. Comparisons (with standards) were made for total sleep time (Z-machine), time spent in SED (activPAL), LPA (GT3X+), MVPA (GT3X+), and steps (Omron). Analysis included mean absolute percent error, equivalence testing, and Bland-Altman plots.
Results: Error rates ranged from 8.1% to 16.9% for sleep, 9.5% to 65.8% for SED, 19.7% to 28.0% for LPA, 51.8% to 92% for MVPA, and 14.1% to 29.9% for steps. Equivalence testing indicated that only two comparisons were significantly equivalent to standards: the LUMOback for SED and the GT3X+ for sleep. Bland-Altman plots indicated GT3X+ had the closest measurement for sleep, LUMOback for SED, GENEactiv for LPA, Fitbit for MVPA, and GT3X+ for steps.
Conclusions: Currently, no device accurately captures activity data across the entire 24-h day, but the future of activity measurement should aim for accurate 24-h measurement as a goal. Researchers should continue to select measurement devices on the basis of their primary outcomes of interest.