
A fitness watch that measures blood pressure - seshagiric
https://omronhealthcare.com/products/heartguide-wearable-blood-pressure-monitor-bp8000m/
======
huhtenberg
Even though it's from Omron, and they've been making BP monitors for a very
long time, I'm having _very_ hard time believing that this device is in fact
"clinically accurate."

There are two main types of BP monitors - arm monitors and wrist monitors. Arm
monitors (with a cuff that goes over the upper arm) are the de facto standard
for accuracy.

Wrist monitors go in the wrist and they MAY be accurate if used as precisely
as specified, in stationary conditions, with the wrist raised to the heart
level. But even then, their accuracy is around 10% percent, which is not
sufficient, for example, to reliably detect elevated diastolic (lower)
pressure.

* There are also finger monitors, but these are a specialist hospital equipment and their accuracy is poor as well.

Now, to put this watch in perspective - this is a wrist BP monitor that
measures at will and claims clinical accuracy, which is hard to get from a
regular wrist monitor under ideal conditions. I don't see how this is
possible, save for Omron making a major breakthrough in BP measurement tech...
which would've been a massive deal and warranted headlines of its own. But
there are none, so this must be a repackaged existing tech -> hence the
doubts.

~~~
hombre_fatal
Then it's in line with the accuracy of current fitness watches on the market
that can't see my 200m sprints, think I'm taking steps when I'm eating with a
fork, and undersample + oversmooth my pulse.

Gathering sketchy blood pressure data all day in the hopes of smoothing it
into intelligence just sounds like the state of the art for wearable fitness
gadgets.

~~~
mk89
Yeah, except... Who wants to be the guinea pig here? There is a difference
between "oh, I did 7000 steps instead of 6000" and "oh my blood pressure is
200/90 instead of 120/70".

We are getting so used to poor software just for the sake of "innovation"
(release fast) that I am wondering what's the difference between buying a fake
watch and a real approved one - like this one from omron.

~~~
gumby
There are four different scales here.

One is the current generation of sleep trackers or Bluetooth toothbrushes (I
own both, just for curiosity’s sake and amusement) which at best tell you only
what you already know, and often not even that.

Next is the coarse 6K/7k step case you talk about. The measurements on the
gym’s treadmills are similarly arbitrary. That kind of gamification is useful
to get people moving and as you say accuracy isn’t important.

Next is the gross trend...if you’re in a pattern and deviate then it _could_
be a sign of something and could be that you put the device on loosely or that
it is dirty.

Which is the last kind: even though I have the watch i still use a pressure
cuff, though not often, and even occasionally exercise with a heart rate
monitor and even a pressure cuff. They suffer from the worst sort of
measurement problem: inconvenience. Just as “the best camera you have is the
one with you” the same applies to health monitoring.

As for the importance of health monitoring...how often do you look at your
poo? Even in Germany where many toilets are equipped with a “shelf” for
inspection, an informal (and amusing) survey I conducted revealed that most
people never looked even when they weren’t feeling well.

~~~
WorldMaker
> Next is the coarse 6K/7k step case you talk about. The measurements on the
> gym’s treadmills are similarly arbitrary. That kind of gamification is
> useful to get people moving and as you say accuracy isn’t important.

I wish the industry had converged on a more abstract metric name than "steps".
Just as I shudder at how many fitness trackers now have been moving to metrics
called "calories" or "active calories", which seems like an over-correction
away from "steps" to a more dangerous alternative. They imply a physical
specificity that isn't that clear cut a direct correlation.

> Just as “the best camera you have is the one with you” the same applies to
> health monitoring.

This does seem to generally be the case. Where most people never bother to
check their blood pressure at all, even a false positive is more awareness of
their health and its implications/consequences than they likely had before. So
long as warnings are (as they usually must be, given laws and liabilities)
highly couched in the usual disclaimers to seek further medical advice.

It's amazing what data we are slowly accumulating from our wrist-based
tricorders, even if this is all still very early days in figuring out how
useful any of it is, how accurate we can get any of it.

~~~
gumby
At least "steps" are understandable, and the data are roughly correlated.

It could be a lot worse: I own several sleeping bags for winter backpacking.
Each has been variously rated by its manufacturer as 10 C, -10 C, -30 C etc.
There is no standard for this and in fact there is no correlation with
performance: the best one for really cold conditions is rated -10 C.

I think Fitbit and Apple at least tried to have the number of steps taken by
an "average" user registered as about the same number all the time.

~~~
WorldMaker
> At least "steps" are understandable, and the data are roughly correlated.

The point though is that it is _very_ rough, and they may as well have always
been called "fitpoints" or "beans" or "gimmicks" for what good it does calling
them "steps", especially because of that confusion both inside the industry
and out that A) devices have moved from being directly pedometers at the foot
to being indirectly pedometers at the waist or now the wrist, and more
critically B) that they were always meant to be more of an overall aggregate
activity score and the one specific physical action of a "step" never the end
goal in measuring the metric anyway (it was just the easiest metric to measure
in the early days of pedometers, and being called "steps" as much a historic
throwback than an accurate name even in the early days of pedometers).

Whether or not the metric is consistent today, it's at least somewhat in one
direction or another inconsistent to call it a "step" and an abstract name
would have been more fun and also likely avoid more confusion than the "rough
correlation" suggested today.

------
m45t3r
I have high blood pressure, and this is a step at the right direction. Current
home devices to measure blood pressure are not really convenient, so I tend to
only measure my blood pressure at home.

However, this is not what I want. I want a device that measure my blood
pressure continuously (not necessarily all the time, let's say each 15
minutes). Why? Because I want to know how my behavior impacts my blood
pressure. For example, does eating salty foods really increases my blood
pressure, and for how much time.

Anyway, I still want this device since it seems so much better than what is
currently available.

~~~
emmanuel_1234
That last thing about the effect of salt is something that has been bugging me
for a bit. My understanding (at this stage, due to my lack of knowledge, it's
more of an _opinion_ , really) of this is that salt consumption slightly and
temporarily raise blood pressure, but in no common measure to what an actual
high tension is. But I have no real way to experiment with it.

~~~
heymijo
> _The relationship between salt and blood pressure (and the role of sugar)
> [5:45]_

[https://peterattiamd.com/rickjohnson/](https://peterattiamd.com/rickjohnson/)

 _#87 – Rick Johnson, M.D.: Fructose—The common link in high blood pressure,
insulin resistance, T2D, & obesity?_

Just listened to this podcast the other day from a preeminent researcher who
studies this. Had some new to me information. Have a listen!

~~~
oz
Was just about to post this. I listened to this yesterday, and it squares with
what GP said about alcohol raising his BP.

------
eb0la
This is a _huge_ improvement against regular blood presure monitors (which are
heavy, and nonportable).

If I remember well Lenovo smartwatches had a similar feature but they needed
calibration for this to work.

Omron has the advantage they've been building blood pressure monitors for
years and they know how to make medical grade devices (looks there's no need
to calibrate anything).

~~~
johnchristopher
> This is a huge improvement against regular blood presure monitors (which are
> heavy, and nonportable).

Is the product reliable ? I am in the market for something like that but $500
for something that could just be an expensive gadget is hard to justify :/.

~~~
loeg
[https://www.amazon.com/dp/B003XM8XMO/](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B003XM8XMO/)

$25, reliable, 1.5 lbs shipped. I have this one (or a similar model by the
same brand).

~~~
consp
I have something similar in price but for my wrist and it is ballpark accurate
(so up to about 5 off depending on many factors). But only when used as
described on the correct wrist. Tested with my doctor and he showed the other
wrist is highly inaccurate.

Good enough for home testing but that is about it.

~~~
loeg
The device I linked is an upper arm cuff, not a wrist device (measuring at the
wrist is less accurate either way).

------
reportgunner
What is the use case for this watch ? Is it for when you have heart problems
but still need to run a supermarathon ?

~~~
C1sc0cat
If you have a number of medical conditions you take your BP multiple times a
day

~~~
reportgunner
.. so will this watch let you not do that ? or will it take your BP
automatically ?

I honestly still don't get it, no negativity intended.

~~~
C1sc0cat
Its much easier than carrying a blood pressure monitor around which you have
to get out of it's cary case etc.

You can just hit the button and take the obs (the bp reading)

~~~
scotty79
I think that to get accurate measurement you still need to sit down, rest a
bit and put your wrist on some support relaxed on the heart level.

------
majkinetor
FYI it doesn't measure BP all the time, just when you tell it too.

~~~
kjaftaedi
I think it would be rather annoying and inconvenient if it just inflated at
random times.

~~~
dariosalvi78
actually it would be extremely useful for ABPM:
[http://www.bloodpressureuk.org/BloodPressureandyou/Medicalte...](http://www.bloodpressureuk.org/BloodPressureandyou/Medicaltests/24-hourtest)

------
Gatsky
Interesting. Does anyone know how the pressure measurement works?

~~~
elric
It inflates the wristband and uses oscillometric measurements to estimate the
BP. Source: the user manual (linked on the site near the bottom of the page).

It's the same way most home blood pressure monitors work. It's not as accurate
as good old mercury+stethoscope, but it's pretty decent. Generally speaking,
measuring on the wrist further reduces accuracy. The absolute values might not
be the most accurate, but I suspect the trend over months/years will be
accurate enough.

~~~
Gatsky
Thank you.

------
amdavidson
In their tech specs:

> Battery lifespan: Will last for approximately 500 cycles, 8 times/day
> measurements in normal temperatures of 77 °F (25 °C) when new battery fully
> charged

> Battery life: A typical user can expect to charge HeartGuide approximately
> 2-3 times per week, depending upon the frequency of use of HeartGuide’s
> features

500 cycles at 8 cycles per day. Does that not mean that they expect the
battery will fail after 62 days?

~~~
bsurmanski
No, by cycles they mean charge cycles. 2-3 times a week is 166-250 weeks.
About 3-5 years of active use.

------
mrfusion
Offshore but quoting coffee really lowered my blood pressure but I keep
reading that caffiene isn’t a factor for high blood pressure. What gives.

~~~
jklehm
Caffeine triggers a stress response, stress is a cause of high blood pressure.

------
smaili
Next day: _Apple acquires Omron to improve their Watch product line._

~~~
mtw
Measuring the body temperature would be a better target for Apple Watch in my
opinion. Body temperature tells a lot, for anyone, from kids to seniors,
athletes to disabled. I'd buy one in a heartbeat, as opposed to one with blood
pressure monitoring

~~~
nradov
You're never going to get an accurate body core temperature based on a wrist
measurement. It's just not physically possible. An external sensor elsewhere
on the body would be needed.

~~~
samatman
Y'know, the ear canal would work pretty well...

------
scrollaway
Hey resident smartwatch experts, is there a _good_ watch that monitors sleep
and has excellent battery life (measured in weeks not hours)?

I use the Withings (ex-Nokia) Steel HR, but it … kinda sucks. The bluetooth
pairings very often lose sleep data, it's very inaccurate, the reporting sucks
for non-24s, and the leather bracelet is of very poor quality, keeps breaking.

I really don't care for the fitness/step tracking which, as someone else here
put it, thinks typing on a keyboard or eating is a step.

I also briefly tried an Oura ([https://ouraring.com/](https://ouraring.com/)),
but I never got it to work and had to send it back.

I also don't care much for any of those "sleep quality" trackers that try to
detect if I snore and what not. I can do sleep studies in my own time, I just
want to have accurate stats on whether and when I am asleep.

~~~
Youden
> it's very inaccurate

That's going to be the case for any kind of wrist-based or bed-based sleep
monitor. It simply isn't possible to derive accurate information about sleep
by observing basic heart-rate and/or movement readings.

If you want real accuracy, look at the headband sleep trackers like Dreem or
the Philips SmartSleep Headband. These use EEG to measure your brain activity.
Personally, I'm very happy with Dreem.

~~~
scrollaway
I dunno, I feel like there's inaccurate and _very_ inaccurate. The Withings
does detect my sleep times but it can vary by up to an hour, and it doesn't
detect when I wake up for ~15 mins then fall back asleep.

I'm looking at the Dreem and SmartSleep headbands right now. Can you tell me
more about them? They both claim to "improve sleep" but their marketing site
doesn't really say how.

Keep in mind that all I want in the end is to have the numbers of when I was
asleep, and when I was not. My goal being to have a graph of those numbers to
see when I actually sleep. (eg. how much do my sleep times drift every day,
how much do i sleep per week, etc)

Edit: Actually, the Dreem looks a lot closer to what I want. My main problem
with it is I wouldn't be wearing it constantly, so it wouldn't catch a
powernap unless I both carry it with me, and remember to take it with me.
Nethertheless, shoot me your referral code, I may end up buying it.

~~~
Youden
Personally I only use Dreem so I can't tell you much about SmartSleep.

> Can you tell me more about them? They both claim to "improve sleep" but
> their marketing site doesn't really say how.

For Dreem, there are a few ways it's intended to improve your sleep:

\- Directly: It applies "stimulations" to "enhance" your deep sleep. These are
sounds that are meant to intensify certain kinds of brain waves. I don't know
much about them and can't say that they've improved my sleep quality.

\- Education: In addition to simply showing you how much you sleep (which I
find immensely useful) and how well you sleep (duration, stages of sleep,
every single time you wake up during the night, no matter how short), the
mobile app includes what I can only call training programs that are intended
to help you improve your sleep yourself. These range from the introductory
"this is how to use the headband" to a full-fledged CBT course.

\- Small improvements: The app has a sleep routine feature that reminds you
with a mobile notification when it's time to go to bed and automatically sets
the alarm in the morning. The alarm sound is produced by a bone conduction
speaker embedded in the headset. You can allow the headset to wake you early
and if you do so, it will try to find the least disruptive time to wake you
within the allowed period. Finally, it can play various sounds through the
speaker to help you get to sleep, both ambient sounds (e.g. birds, waves, rain
etc.) and guided-meditation type stuff.

> Keep in mind that all I want in the end is to have the numbers of when I was
> asleep, and when I was not. My goal being to have a graph of those numbers
> to see when I actually sleep. (eg. how much do my sleep times drift every
> day, how much do i sleep per week, etc)

For regular sleep at night it will do that perfectly. For random naps and
dozing during the day, it won't be any help at all.

However the app is integrated with Apple Health, so if you wear something else
that can detect those short dozes during the day, you can unite the two
devices there.

------
0xff00ffee
I really hope I can download my data without having to pay extra, and that I
can opt-out of their central data collection.

If not, I'm unlikely to buy this. But $500 already puts this out of my range
so my point is moot.

------
gumby
This is Omron, a legit Medical instrument company, but I checked the FDA web
site for omron HeartGuide and for BP8000-M and found no premarital clearance.
So despite saying “clinically accurate” (a risky statement for a legit medical
company to make unless they’ve cleared the data with the FDA) this looks like
simply an entertainment device like the Apple Watch 0-3 (FWIW I still have an
Apple Watch 0 and love it).

IT looks like it’s been on the market a while so this isn’t a preannouncement.

------
waynenilsen
500 USD took a bit to find it

------
tomclive
This is really interesting in that it doesn't use photoplethysmography (PPG)
in the same way that the Galaxy Active 2 does(an optical sensor that measures
bounced back light.) There's an inflatable cuff within the wristband.

I'm assuming this will be a lot more expensive but calibration shouldn't be as
much of an issue and it should be more accurate.

------
mrfusion
I wonder how accurate this is. I can’t get an accurate reading from most arm
monitors because I have large arms.

~~~
incone123
Does your doctor switch over to a bigger cuff? They should. There are small
cuffs for kids too.

~~~
ken
I have average size arms. No _human_ taking my BP has ever switched to a non-
standard cuff size for me.

And yet, when I tried a consumer-grade automatic arm band blood pressure test,
we couldn't get it to read within 100 mmHg of what any other machine or person
had ever gotten. It was consistently claiming something crazy like 250/150 for
me, though for most other people's arms it seemed to be somewhat more
reasonable. We tried rolling up my sleeve, un-crossing my legs, the whole nine
yards.

We even pulled out a stethoscope and had some of us (non-medical-
professionals) listen to my arm, and nobody had any trouble hearing the
change. No doctor, nurse, or phlebotomist has ever had any trouble taking my
BP, either.

I am apprehensive of expensive, complex machines that attempt to replace what
a human can do by hand in about the same amount of time with only a tiny
amount of training.

------
monkeydust
Looking at reviews seems questionable accuracy but a step forward from
existing offerings in that form factor.

~~~
adrian_b
This does not need to be very accurate to be useful, because you can measure
sporadically the blood pressure with a traditional instrument to also have
accurate values.

If this device would have appeared on the market a few months earlier, my
mother could have been still alive.

During 2 years she had been in permanent danger of death, because she had to
be treated against 2 dangers, but the treatments were incompatible.

She could no longer control well the concentrations of sodium & potassium in
her body, so for that she had to take sodium & potassium supplements and not
take drugs against blood pressure, which would eliminate the sodium &
potassium.

On the other hand, she had fragile blood vessels and was in permanent danger
of having a hemorrhagic stroke, for which she needed to take blood pressure
drugs.

During 2 years I have succeeded to balance the incompatible requirements, but
one day came when that failed.

The reason why the balance was very difficult to achieve was the lack of non-
invasive methods for measuring both the electrolyte concentrations in blood
and the blood pressure.

Because the measurements were extremely unpleasant, I had to measure the Na &
K concentrations just once per month and the blood pressure at most once per
day. So most of the time I had to just guess the dose of drugs to be given.

If this new Omron device would have been available earlier, I would have
certainly bought it. If it would have been used all the time, then it is
likely that I would have been warned early enough of the unexpected peak of
high blood pressure that caused the stroke, so I might have prevented the end.

~~~
asjw
> So most of the time I had to just guess the dose of drugs to be given.

I'm sorry for your loss.

Just a question: isn't this the doctor's Job?

My mother suffered from high blood pressure for the past 50 years, we have
this running in the family, her father died from a stroke, I have high blood
pressure too. She also had a few serious other health problems (she took
tuberculosis from a patient - she used to be a nurse - had a cardiac infection
and an almost permanent renal insufficiency) and the drugs she had to take
were incompatible with blood pressure drugs, but she always solved because she
was under continuous medical check and the doctor adjusted the doses on a
weekly bases, sometimes even daily.

~~~
adrian_b
It should be a doctor's job to determine the doses, when they have to be
changed every day, but I am not the CEO of some company, to be able to afford
the fees of a doctor that would have to come every day to my house for years.

Before bringing her home, 2 years ago, I already had to pay, for an emergency
surgery and for 2 weeks in intensive care, an amount of money with which I
could have bought a new home (here in Europe houses are much cheaper than in
USA).

Moreover, no doctor could do any better, because without continuous
measurements nobody could guess the state of the patient better than me, who
had a long experience about how her fluctuations in blood concentrations and
pressure would manifest. Actually all her problems were caused in the
beginning by wrong diagnostics put by real doctors, before I learned enough to
be able to take care of her.

Even this Omron watch is not what I would have needed, devices for non-
invasive (i.e. without artery constriction) continuous monitoring of blood
pressure are a very active area of research and are expected to become soon
widely available, so in the not-distant future the treatment of such patients
will become much easier.

------
Oras
This looks really cool and happy to see a clinically validated watch but am I
the only one who does not see any mentions for battery life for this watch?
Even in their FAQ section they just have a question about low battery
indicator but nothing on how long does it last.

~~~
pyvek
They do have this under tech specs:

Power source: 1 Lithium ion polymer rechargeable battery, AC adapter

Battery lifespan: Will last for approximately 500 cycles, 8 times/day
measurements in normal temperatures of 77 °F (25 °C) when new battery fully
charged

Battery life: A typical user can expect to charge HeartGuide approximately 2-3
times per week, depending upon the frequency of use of HeartGuide’s features

------
teekert
And here I am just wanting a fitness-stuff-less watch with long battery,
always on screen (monochrome is fine) for under 150 euro's. For simple things
like notifications. RIP Pebble.

~~~
konsumer
Agreed. I loved pebble so much. Amazfit Bip is cheap, has really long battery
life, always on color screen. It does basic notifications fine. It is
definitely less configurable, and it's built in apps suck compared to pebble
(eg you have to setup alarms on your phone!) It's also not as programmable,
but there are hacks to make new watchfaces so you can do basic stuff. I had a
Fitbit versa, and even though I liked the built in apps and how programmable
it is, it has a 2 day battery vs like a month, and it kept not handling
notifications with my Android. I really wish my pebble just worked still,
though. It was the perfect balance of battery life and configurability.

~~~
teekert
Yeah, my Pebble Time Steel, 10 day of battery time, always on screen, shows me
a map and/or directions while biking, allows me to answer calls and control
volume/play-pause on the phone and Sonos at home, indicates the next train
home, allowed me to set alarms and was a comprehensive stopwatch. Allowed for
standard answers to any notification, allows me to filter for only important
things to come through... It was the pinnacle of smart watches. Now all I see
is trackers. I don't understand where Casio is in all this, give me a G-shock
with notifications... I'd be very happy with it, even with just a monochrome
screen.

------
mosselman
I have been in the market for watches, regular analog automatics, and many of
the images of people wearing them are so frustrating. Why? Because they are
wearing them upside down!

Just look at the first image of the watch next to the header "THE PREMIER
WEARABLE BLOOD PRESSURE MONITOR AND MUCH MORE."

Why is it like that? You wouldn't wear the watch that way. Why is this a
problem you ask? Because now I can't imagine what it looks like anymore. Just
picture the watch as you'd wear it!

I expect I am not in a majority with this opinion, but that doesn't really
change how I see it ;).

~~~
Ma8ee
You don't think that this specific watch always show the face turned "right",
in the same way as your phone does when you turn it?

~~~
mosselman
That would make glancing at it when it isn’t ‘facing up’ kind of annoying. So
I doubt it. Then again, the alternative is that they pictured it wrong. Either
way sucks.

------
AGivant
I have checked the price and my blood pressure went up!

------
shaunw321
Welp, I just bought one. Haven't worn a watch in maybe 10 years, but I've been
thinking about fitness and sleep tracking.

~~~
netsharc
I don't wear a watch most of the times, I feel like wearing one to bed would
be uncomfortable. Maybe I should hack together a sleeping monitor that tracks
movements during sleep using a Kinect camera...

------
exabrial
It's a traditional pressure cuff in watch form. Is It possible to measure
blood pressure optically/continuously?

------
paulie_a
Arm monitors are not accurate. Many nurses use them as a stand and do it
manually.

Home ones are less accurate

Source. I had 500-600 BP checks in 2019

------
md2be
Blood pressure measurements are a challenge - readings are a function of body
postion / arm position.

------
Hamuko
What's the benefit of an on-demand blood pressure tester constantly being
strapped to my wrist?

~~~
4gotunameagain
Satisfy your fixation with data?

~~~
loeg
Sure, but why strap it to my wrist? It's a lot less functional than my
existing sports/gps watch, and I've already got a BP monitor.

------
seshagiric
Fun fact: Sphygmomanometer is the name for blood pressure meter

------
renw0rp
Anything what measures heart rate and spo2?

------
bloodm
Anyone interested here interested in investing in a (continuous) blood
pressure measurement device?

We will submit the first patent within a few weeks.

Contact: hn.50.j4848@spamgourmet.com

------
C1sc0cat
Want one !

------
preshold
I'm very happy with this watch: "Heart Rate Monitor with Running Pedometer
Step Counter Sleep Tracker for Women Men with iPhone & Android" Battery life
is close to 18 days. Amazon price ~55 USD.

It seems that BP is measured by processing heart rate similar to the method
described in US 200901 63821A1 patent.

