Paperdoi:10.3390/s26216795
Validity of wrist-worn EDA: Empatica EmbracePlus vs Shimmer3 GSR+ during breathing, Stroop and VR-height stressors (Peeters … Schouten; Sensors 2026)
Sensors 26(21):6795, published 2026-10-27
Licence: CC BY 4.0
TL;DR
Peeters and colleagues compare wrist electrodermal activity from Empatica EmbracePlus and Shimmer3 GSR+ worn together on the non-dominant wrist in 41 valid paired recordings during breathing, Stroop, and a VR height stressor. Mean signal-level cross-correlation was only 0.30, and few parameter differences fell inside a priori agreement bounds, so the devices are not interchangeable for absolute EDA. Validity of EmbracePlus depended on stressor intensity and metric.
- Form factor: wrist (both devices on the non-dominant wrist)
Abstract
Wearable electrodermal activity (EDA) monitoring enables assessment of stress-related physiological changes in daily life, but new devices require validation. This study evaluated the newly introduced EmbracePlus against the Shimmer3 GSR+, used as a research-grade wrist-based comparator. Healthy volunteers (n = 53; n = 41 valid paired recordings) completed breathing exercises, a Stroop task, and a virtual reality (VR) height stressor while wearing both devices simultaneously on the non-dominant wrist. Agreement was assessed at signal, parameter, and event levels for mean phasic activity, skin conductance level (SCL), summed skin conductance response (SCR) amplitude/min, and SCR count/min. Mean signal-level cross-correlation was r = 0.30. At the parameter level, only 44% of SCL, 24% of SCR amplitude/min, and 5% of SCR count/min differences fell within a priori acceptable boundaries, and regression analyses indicated proportional bias for mean phasic activity, summed SCR amplitude/min and SCR count/min. At the event level, Shimmer3 detected increases across all four EDA metrics during both stress tasks (all p < 0.001). EmbracePlus showed increases across all four metrics during VR (all p < 0.001), whereas during Stroop only mean phasic activity (p = 0.001) and SCL (p < 0.001) increased. EmbracePlus and Shimmer3 are therefore not interchangeable for absolute EDA assessment, and EmbracePlus validity depends on stressor intensity and metric selection.
Verbatim from the publisher's DOI record (opens in a new tab) · Publisher licence: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
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APA
Peeters, M. W. H., Dirks, B. A. C., Kesteloo, S., van Boxtel, B., Heck, P., & Schouten, G. (2026). Validity of wrist-worn EDA: Empatica EmbracePlus vs Shimmer3 GSR+ during breathing, Stroop and VR-height stressors (Peeters … Schouten; Sensors 2026). Sensors. https://doi.org/10.3390/s26216795
BibTeX
@article{peeters2026validity,
title = {{Validity of wrist-worn EDA: Empatica EmbracePlus vs Shimmer3 GSR+ during breathing, Stroop and VR-height stressors (Peeters … Schouten; Sensors 2026)}},
author = {Peeters, Manon W. H. and Dirks, Bo A. C. and Kesteloo, Sjoerd and van Boxtel, Bart and Heck, Petra and Schouten, Gerard},
year = {2026},
journal = {Sensors},
doi = {10.3390/s26216795}
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