A new perspective on validation of wearables for stress monitoring of occupational drivers.

The shortage of drivers in Europe is at its worst level in decades. One aspect in addressing this issue is improving driver health in this demanding profession. A sustainable solution involves daily health monitoring via wearables. However, there is a need to validate commercial wearables, particularly heart rate measurements, for stress monitoring among road freight drivers. Employing a dynamic exercise protocol, the study compares Zephyr BioHarness 3.0 chest-worn device and six wrist-worn wearables against 12-lead ECG readings. The analysis specifically distinguishes between transient and steady state conditions. The results indicate a general decrease in device performance for measuring dynamics in the heart rate signal with pronounced differences between the wearables. The findings of this validation study highlight proneness to error in transient conditions compared to steady states and clarify the necessity of carefully selecting an appropriate wearable device for specific applications. In the context of stress monitoring for occupational drivers, it is imperative to opt for a resilient wearable device capable of accurately detecting short-term heart rate dynamics.