It's app in which you can take a (single lead) ecg on your watch and send them the report, they then analyse it for a relatively small fee.
I sent 5 samsung 6 watch ECG's all showing AFIB.
Four, where the first reading showed afib then seconds after another reading showed normal .
One, where a 12 lead ecg at hospital confirmed afib and so did watch.
It cost me £5 to see what they thought ( cardiologist technicians).
Out of 4 they said 3 were normal ecg readings with a lot of artifacts which the watch would class as afib. Only 1 had something called an PAC ( which occurred once) which would have led the watch calling out afib.
The one from hospital they said the watch had correctly called out afib.
They give a report and explain their analysis.
They strongly state its not medical advice etc etc but I thought it was interesting how badly my samsung watch 6 interpreted such things.
thoughts?
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Casualvisitor
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I'm against such devices anyway. I never needed anything to tell me I was in AF and all I see is people who are stressed and anxious from using them. Great is you are trying to get a diagnosis but not to obsess over.
I respectfully disagree with BobD and Casualvisitor .
Personally I think wearable tech is the future of proactive healthcare and especially now that AI has really taken off.
I have an Apple Watch Series 8 and also track my blood pressure once a week. Both my gp and cardiologist are huge supporters of wearable tech and in particular the Apple Watch. They both stated that numerous studies have shown that they are accurate for day to day monitoring.
I had what I thought were panic attacks and the health service here in Ireland dismissed them. Predictably nothing during a 24 holter either. When I went private to see my cardiologist she immediately saw from the Apple ECGs that something was amiss and said I think you might have AF. This was later diagnosed as SVT and is generally very well controlled with dronedarone and bisoprolol 2.5.
I use the Qaly app and have access to unlimited analysis for €4.99 per month. Extremely reassuring to see that when I do have occasional bouts of palpitations that they are PACs with the odd PVC thrown in. The app can identify 30 different types of arrhythmias.
Apple app can only say ‘possible AF’ - what it detects is arrhythmia. Qaly will import the ecg readings and then analyse them. When it imported all of my ecg’s none of them were actually AF but it did show the SVT and palpitations. My cardiologist was very impressed with it.
I believe that in the near future our health will be monitored remotely with these devices synced to smart phones and that depending on what it finds - an alert will either be sent to the user and /or your GP. My Apple Watch monitors not just ecg’s but my sleep, heart rate, blood oxygen and much more. I wear it 23 hours a day including overnight and the baseline data it generates is incredible. I can see the improvement in my VO2 Max and heart rate variability and the general health benefit of ensuring more sleep.
My dad has a wearable device for his diabetes and based on the constant 24/7 readings this has established a reliable baseline. His diabetes nurse received a notification that based on the readings his insulin should be adjusted and within a few days it was. Previously this would have been a checkup every 6 months and relied on a point in time blood reading.
I use various apps to track and monitor my health. They are Apple Health (master app that all other apps ‘talk’ to), Apple Fitness (tracks my exercise), MyFitnessPal for diet, Calm for meditation, Qaly (as above) and Welltory which uses heart rate variation (hrv) to produce a health dashboard. The last app is more out of personal interest. It was interesting to talk to my GP who was doing an additional Masters certification and his paper was on hrv. He was surprised I knew about it but also very interested in the app.
I don’t obsess but I do take an active involvement in my health and fitness and for me - tech and data is the way to track that involvement and determine if the metrics are moving in the right direction.
oh no I'm not a tech is crap person, I've spent all year recovering from a stemi ( widowmaker hate that term but it's what people know) .
it's just that as i had none of the classic symptoms, no risk markers, no symptoms ever and I used to train hard 5 times a week for decades and BANG !! I had a life changing event.
I got caught up during the first half of this year monitoring my 02, my heart rate, my ecg, my v02 max, my blood pressure, all via a watch.
I agree that there is a balance to not be obsessed and to use it as a baseline and then to note significant deviations from that baseline. Not saying you did this - but it is certainly unhealthy to get one reading that may cause alarm and then go down a rabbit hole of googling etc.
Hahahahaha when you google and it says you almost certainly have a headache or have sprained your ankle……however it MIGHT be Ebola or a brain devouring amoeba!
‘But how will I know?’……if you wake up it was probably a headache. 😂😂😂
At 80 .... and having survived so much life threatening stuff/crap in those years ... I'm just grateful for waking up at all and my true bonus is getting mugged by our cat ... her way of saying she is hungry. Damn cat is always hungry !
Yeah I got a smart watch, I wear it more for its jewellery than healthcare. I tend to be asymptomatic but just don't care !! If I feel a tad unwell, if I feel any palpitations fer instance, I use Kardia and my BP monitor ( obviously to get different results) ... if they give me a result which fall within normal parameters then I just carry on and forget it all.
Kardia mobile ECGs are not wearable but they are home devices that will give ECGs that are considered to be medical grade. I am in the early stage of Afib. I had an HA in Jan '24 and have since been getting intermittent episodes of arrythmias. I got a Kardia at the suggestion of my EP. That has allowed him to remotely diagnose AF: the Afib mode on my relatively expensive BP monitor is not medical grade, just a good 'red flag' indicator which had helped prompt me to seek help.
Since mine normally kicks off in the early hours of the morning, and lasts for indeterminate periods, getting a diagnosis via holter or getting to A&E and getting an ECG in time would have been much more problematic.
So the Kardia is a powerful tool for a) diagnosis and b) keeping a med grade record of frequency of episodes. And my watch (which is pre-ECG generation) is useful at telling me when it most likely kicked off (via the HR recording). That also has been important for the EP to have a good idea at what the trigger could be, as well as my having a better idea of duration.
I don't know whether the data from new gen watches with ECGs are considered med grade or not, but it sounds from the post that the data collection is but the on-device analysis currently is not. Yet.
Home device pro-active health checking is surely the way forward. Especially when strains on the health system are ever increasing. Why would anyone dismiss wearables when the idea of home monitoring of blood pressure etc. is deemed sensible? It is another part of 'prevention before cure'.
Afib is one of the hidden killers, because it can go undetected. It may be asymptomatic for many, but that doesn't mean that comes with no elevated health risks. When I volunteered at Covid vaccine centre, they introduced health check stations for customers. Apart from BP, BMI etc., that included 1 lead Kardia stations. So primary care want to detect and prevent. Wearables can massively expand that.
Having data and an understanding helps me, not hinders. I'd still be waiting for a diagnosis if it wasn't for Kardia. What's the issue with it being on a watch instead?
Hi, I think Qaly is very useful. I have very symptomatic PAF and lots of ectopics and in the early days when I was first diagnosed I found it incredibly reassuring. Being able to send my Apple Watch ecg off for a report with a response often within minutes was fantastic and huge peace of mind for me. Without my watch/qaly I’d have been very stressed so I’m all for any technology that helps us manage our own conditions. When I first had AF I thought I was going to die and lived in fear of it happening… with the help of Dr Gupta (York cardiology) on you tube, Apple Watch and Qaly I feel I’m in control especially as it’s not easy to see a Dr these days!
Ps…. Qaly do a cheaper option for reading ecg’s using a bot, but unfortunately it’s never picked up the AF so I always use a technician.
Just re your last point about whether you get an AI or a human interpretation of your ecg when using QALY ... my understanding is that the human interpretation would cost more. Can I ask what you pay for the human ecg interpretation you (& me too) sometimes require? Is this a one off charge for each ecg? or a monthly subscription charge?
JezzaJezza above wrote "I use the Qaly app and have access to unlimited analysis for €4.99 per month", but doesn't mention whether this fee is for an AI or a human service. I suspect that's the charge for AI. Can you help clarify? Thanks.
Hi Bob, I paid £99 for a years subscription. There was a cheaper option if you used only AI (possibly £3.99 a month, sorry can’t remember) but the £99 gave human & AI. The AI gives an instant report and always picked up the ectopics etc but whenever I sent one that was definitely AF it didn’t pick up……hopefully it will improve over time. There may well be different price options now, but I had to email them /join first before I could find out the membership price. Seemed an odd way of doing things but it’s been so helpful….i wouldn’t be without it now. Best £99 I’ve spent !
Thanks for your feedback. Really useful. Sorry to be asking you, but I couldn't find any Qaly charges online.
Just a few more details if you have time ... do you have to identify yourself (and resubmit) those ecgs you want inspected by a human (after you are dissatisfied with the AI determination)? ... and how many human ecgs are you allowed within your yearly subscription? Surely not unlimited?
I realise charges and limits may be different now, but your experience would be useful to me.
No problem! I’ve had it for a while now and unfortunately have a memory like a sieve! I’m pretty sure it’s unlimited and if not if would have been a high number as it didn’t put me off going ahead with it. I definitely submitted loads when I first had it! You don’t have to re-submit to get a human reply….you can go straight to the human if you prefer. The bot will give you a reply first within a few seconds and then it asks you if you’d like a human to review it too….which I always do. I’ve found I get replies usually within 10 minutes….i think the longest I’ve waited was about 30 minutes but that was during the night. They’ve always been quite detailed replies and very helpful. We have a holiday home abroad in the middle of nowhere and I had some terrible times there before I had Qaly! I can’t remember how many details I had to put in to find out details etc….I did have reservations about it due to it not being very transparent but it just seems to be how they do it. You have to sign up before you know anything about it but it was all fine and was easy not to go ahead if changed your mind …..but the way they do it may have all changed now. I’m pretty good atm with my daily Flecanide and verapamil and all seems under control but I will still purchase Qaly as a back up. Peace of mind to know they’d tell you to seek medical attention immediately or you’re safe to sit it out etc etc . Hope this helps. Katie
Thanks again. Sadly Qaly still not transparent in their advertising, hence my endless questions. I even sent an email to their help centre, but received no reply.🤔
I would like to subscribe myself, but Qaly aren't exactly welcoming. Recently I had a 12.5 hour AF event that I recorded in 9 spaced ecgs on my Kardia 6L. As this event returned Kardia determinations different from the Possible AF and NSR that always previously appeared during my paroxysmal AF events ie. 2xUnclassified, 4xTachycardia, I reasonably wanted to investigate whether 1) my AF had suddenly worsened, or 2) my PIP flecainide was injuring me. Qaly would have been an ideal solution for me to submit these 6 worrying ecgs. I wanted to decide whether my AF had worsened and needed a new referral back to Cardiology. However, my only arrhythmia contact was an old Barts Arrhythmia Nurses email address. After receiving an initial positive reply from one nurse stating she would look at a few of my ecgs, after submitting the whole series of 9, it was particularly disappointing that a different nurse only offered to put my 9 ecgs into my medical record for possible future reference. Doh! So I'm still left up a creek without a paddle ie. still worried about those ecgs but no closer to understanding if they are worthy of a new referral. Bummer. You did well to subscribe when you did.
I’m also if the opinion that these devices are very helpful, but I’m also aware that the algorithms that they use aren’t perfect and will wrongly conclude that, for example, frequent ectopics are AF, and on occasions will classify AF as Inconclusive or NSR. As long as you accept that the algorithms have a margin of error and aren’t perfect. They are still very useful. You can take the printouts to your appointment or email them to your doctor or arrhythmia nurse if you are uncertain about the results, and they can help you decide whether you need to take a PIP and so on. It was the Apple Watch that I used to catch my first AF episode and get the ball rolling regarding diagnosis. Overall, I would recommend some kind of wearable device or a Kardia to anyone with AF.
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Since coming off Flecainide
Afib or ectopic's ?
Afib or not afib
