Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Clinical Trial
. 2015 Jul 27;15(8):18270-86.
doi: 10.3390/s150818270.

A Comparative Study on the Suitability of Smartphones and IMU for Mobile, Unsupervised Energy Expenditure Calculi

Angel Ruiz-Zafra  1 , Eva Orantes-González  2 , Manuel Noguera  3 , Kawtar Benghazi  4 , Jose Heredia-Jimenez  5
Affiliations
Clinical Trial

A Comparative Study on the Suitability of Smartphones and IMU for Mobile, Unsupervised Energy Expenditure Calculi

Angel Ruiz-Zafra et al. Sensors (Basel). .

Abstract

The metabolic equivalent of task (MET) is currently the most used indicator for measuring the energy expenditure (EE) of a physical activity (PA) and has become an important measure for determining and supervising a person's state of health. The use of new devices which are capable of measuring inertial movements by means of built-in accelerometers enable the PA to be measured objectively on the basis of the reckoning of "counts". These devices are also known as inertial measurement units (IMUs) and each count is an aggregated value indicating the intensity of a movement and can be used in conjunction with other parameters to determine the MET rate of a particular physical activity and thus it's associated EE. Various types of inertial devices currently exist that enable count calculus and physical activity to be monitored. The advent of mobile devices, such as smartphones, with empowered computation capabilities and integrated inertial sensors, has enabled EE to be measure in a distributed, ubiquitous and natural way, thereby overcoming the reluctance of users and practitioners associated with in-lab studies. From the point of view of the process analysis and infrastructure needed to manage data from inertial devices, there are also various differences in count computing: extra devices are required, out-of-device processing, etc. This paper presents a study to discover whether the estimation of energy expenditure is dependent on the accelerometer of the device used in measurements and to discover the suitability of each device for performing certain physical activities. In order to achieve this objective, we have conducted several experiments with different subjects on the basis of the performance of various daily activities with different smartphones and IMUs.

Keywords: MET; accelerometers; energy expenditure; metabolic equivalent of task; mobile; physical activity; smartphones.

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Energy expenditure estimation procedure.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Study stages.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Android application developed to capture data from accelerometers.
Figure 4
Figure 4
EE of the different accelerometers and subjects for the PA “Walking at 4 km/h”.
Figure 5
Figure 5
EE of the different accelerometers and subjects for the PA “Sweeping the floor”.
Figure 6
Figure 6
EE of the different accelerometers and subjects for the PA “Watching TV”.
Figure 7
Figure 7
Relation between frequency (X axis) and accuracy of the results (Y axis).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

References

    1. United States Department of Health & Human Services . Physical Activity and Health: A Report of the Surgeon General. DIANE Publishing; Darby, PA, USA: 1996.
    1. Kolbe-Alexander T.L., Lambert E.V., Harkins J.B., Ekelund U. Comparison of two methods of measuring physical activity in South African older adults. J. Aging Phys. Act. 2006;14:98–114. - PubMed
    1. Oshima Y., Kawaguchi K., Tanaka S., Ohkawara K., Hikihara Y., Ishikawa-Takata K., Tabata I. Classifying household and locomotive activities using a triaxial accelerometer. Gait Posture. 2010;31:370–374. doi: 10.1016/j.gaitpost.2010.01.005. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Jette M., Sidney K., Blümchen G. Metabolic equivalents (METS) in exercise testing, exercise prescription, and evaluation of functional capacity. Clin. Cardiol. 1990;13:555–565. doi: 10.1002/clc.4960130809. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Ainsworth B.E., Haskell W.L., Whitt M.C., Irwin M.L., Swartz A.M., Strath S.J., Leon A.S. Compendium of physical activities: An update of activity codes and MET intensities. Med. Sci. Sports Exerc. 2000;32:498–504. doi: 10.1097/00005768-200009001-00009. - DOI - PubMed

Publication types

LinkOut - more resources