Types of heart rate meters

Biomedical Instrumentation
1

Two types of heart rate meters:

  1. Averaging heart rate meter
  2. Beat-to-beat heart rate meter

  • Heart rate is usually given in beats per minute (BPM).

  • The easiest way to obtain this is to count an identifying feature in the ECG which occurs once per heart beat.

  • The most obvious such feature is the QRS complex which is a sharp spike.

  • Both averaging and beat-to-beat devices need to perform this detection.