Alivecor Kardia

Alivecor make products that read your EKG. The Kardia Band was previously reviewed and although convenient as it's always on your wrist (it's an Apple Watch add-on) it's extremely susceptible to movement, external interference and lots of other constraints so it's not always easy to get an accurate reading. It also takes a while to process the result as a lot of noise has to be filtered out.

The Kardia Mobile is much easier to use. It's a unit with two electrode pads on it (underneath there's a battery compartment which holds a CR2016 coin cell) which should give about 12 months of use.

Download the free iOS or Android Kardia app and then set-up an account. Then take a reading and the app will search for the Kardia Mobile device and pair with it (it uses Bluetooth 4 so a recent'ish iOS or Android phone must be used with a recent OS).

The app will wait a while, while you put your first and second fingers from both hands on either pad, then relax and the app will record your EKG. It needs to read about 30 seconds to get a sensible heart rate reading.

After the reading is saved it will tell you if there are any abnormalities or anything. As the pads are large and the signal is being received from across the body, the results are much cleaner and less susceptible to interference (compared to the Watch version).

The EKG Characteristics are single lead ECG, 10 mV peak-to-peak input dynamic range, 30 second to 5 minute recording duration, 300 samples per second sampling rate at 16 bit resolution.

There are extra features such as unlimited storage and history, summary reports for your doctor, blood pressure monitoring and tracking weight and medication (though the last two need manual intervention) that are available through the premium service which is available as an in-app purchase.

There's also a phone attachment strip that allows the Kardia Mobile to be carried with the phone (glues on to the phone).

The Kardia Mobile costs £99 direct from Alivecor.