Table 2.
Practical benefits and limitations of wearable sensors.
| Sensor Type | Example Product (Company), Cost | Practical Benefits | Practical Limitations |
|---|---|---|---|
| Body movement—accelerometer | Hexoskin (Carre Technologies, Montreal, QC, Canada), medium cost | Comfort, time-matched heart rate, respiration | Only linear movement since no gyroscope (rotational movement), need body-specific shirt size |
| Body movement—IMU (accelerometer, gyroscope, magnetometer) | MotionPod (Movea, Grenoble, France), low cost | Body motion animations to visualize movements | Potential drift errors |
| Body movement—insole pressure distribution | Pedar-X (Novel, Munich, Germany), medium cost | Practical method to measure forces applied to holds | Complexity of data analysis with continuous 2D spatial maps of applied forces |
| Body movement—motion capture system (MCS) | Mac 3D System (Motion Analysis, Santa Rosa, CA, USA), high cost | Completely non-invasive since no sensors are worn, only external cameras used | Complexity of system setup with multiple synchronized external camera |
| Body movement—force sensor embedded within climbing hold | K3D120 triaxial force sensor (ME-Meβsysteme, Hennigsdorf, Germany), medium cost | Completely non-invasive since no sensors are worn | Need to build a customized climbing wall. |
| Respiration—airflow, O2, CO2 | METAMAX 2B (Cortex, Biophysik, GmbH, Leipzig, Germany), high cost | Direct measurement method to determine breathing metrics | Discomfort during vigorous activity, potential negative impact to performance with face mask |
| Respiration—respiratory inductive plethysmography (RIP) | Hexoskin (Carre Technologies, Montreal, QC, Canada), medium cost | Comfort, collects complementary heart, accelerometer data | Indirect measurement method to determine breathing metrics |
| Heart activity—electrocardiography (ECG) | Hexoskin (Carre Technologies, Montreal, QC, Canada), medium cost | Comfort, collects complementary respiration, accelerometer data | Uses a compression shirt, as compared to simpler chest band (e.g., Polar) |
| Heart activity—electrocardiography (ECG) | Polar (Polar Electro OY, Kempele, Finland), low cost | Simple, comfortable design with single chest band | No complementary data such as time-matched respiration, movement data (e.g., Hexoskin) |
| Eye gazing—eye tracking glasses (ETG) | Tobii Pro Glasses 2 (Tobii, Stockholm, Sweden), high cost | Unique ability to determine and practice route reading skills | Eye frames may slightly reduce field of view while exploring route during climbing |
| Skeletal muscle electromyography (EMG) | Tel-100 System (BioPac Systems Goleta, CA, USA), low cost | Unique ability to determine local muscle electrical activity | Possible measurement uncertainty due to artifacts from activity of nearby muscles |
| Skeletal muscle—near infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) | PortaMon (Artinis Medical Systems, BV, Zetten, The Netherlands), low cost | Unique ability to determine local muscle oxygen response, which complements whole-body oxygen response using respiration sensors | Possible measurement uncertainty due to variations in tissue arrangement between skin surface and muscle of interest |