3 ms·

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

adrian_b 7y ago
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.
- adrian_b 7y ago
  CORRECTION: I have written the above before reading the manual, so I was wrong. This cannot be used for continuous measurement as I hoped, it is just a more convenient variant of the older Omron wrist drvices, which I was already using. There are actually prototypes for non-invasive continuous blood pressure measurement devices, based on the same methods as the pulse monitors. There are now even experimental kits, e.g. from Maxim. However, those devices require individual calibration, because they measure how much the arteries are dilated at the peak of blood pressure but that must be correlated with the blood pressure measurements taken with a traditional instrument. Such devices have just started to appear and at the first glance I have believed that this is one of them. This watch can be useful too, but it is not applicable for continuous monitoring.
- asjw 7y ago
  > 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 7y ago
    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.
- loeg 7y ago
  This is not any more functional than the wealth of other cheap, functional BP monitors that have been on the market for decades. Sorry for your loss, but this device isn't magical and wouldn't change anything.

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.

adrian_b 7y ago
CORRECTION: I have written the above before reading the manual, so I was wrong. This cannot be used for continuous measurement as I hoped, it is just a more convenient variant of the older Omron wrist drvices, which I was already using. There are actually prototypes for non-invasive continuous blood pressure measurement devices, based on the same methods as the pulse monitors. There are now even experimental kits, e.g. from Maxim. However, those devices require individual calibration, because they measure how much the arteries are dilated at the peak of blood pressure but that must be correlated with the blood pressure measurements taken with a traditional instrument. Such devices have just started to appear and at the first glance I have believed that this is one of them. This watch can be useful too, but it is not applicable for continuous monitoring.
asjw 7y ago
> 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 7y ago
  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.
loeg 7y ago
This is not any more functional than the wealth of other cheap, functional BP monitors that have been on the market for decades. Sorry for your loss, but this device isn't magical and wouldn't change anything.