High Blood Pressure Wearables: A New Era in Monitoring?

I have high blood pressure and I've been interested in blood pressure wearables for years. I looked at Omron's inflatable cuff watch, as well as standard cuffs, and sensors on smart watches. However, there is one company that has caught my attention - Valence Cell. This company has been working on developing a little blood pressure sensing device that uses optical heart rate technology.

What sets this apart from other devices is its use of light to measure blood flow. The technology used is called PPG (Photo-Puls Oximetry), which is similar to the technology used in pulse oximeters. However, instead of measuring oxygen levels in the blood, it measures the amount of light that bounces off of your finger. This light is then interpreted by algorithms to determine your blood pressure.

The device itself is small enough to be clipped onto a finger, much like a pulse oximeter. It's also very lightweight and can easily be taken with you on-the-go. The idea behind this device is not to replace traditional blood pressure cuffs, but rather to supplement them. According to Dr. Stephen LaBeouf, the CEO of Valence Cell, this device may experience accuracy issues when it comes to very high blood pressures.

However, even if there are some accuracy problems, the device can still provide valuable information about your blood pressure. The idea is that you can use this device more frequently than a traditional cuff, which would be especially useful for people who need to monitor their blood pressure regularly. I recently had the opportunity to take a reading with this device at CES in Las Vegas.

I took the measurement while wearing a mask and feeling stressed, which made it an ideal test for the device's accuracy. The reading came back as high as expected, despite my dehydration and stress levels. However, without being able to compare it to a traditional blood pressure cuff, I couldn't say for sure how accurate the reading was.

The cost of this device is around $99, which is relatively affordable compared to other wearable devices on the market. While I haven't had a chance to use the device extensively yet, I am eager to try it out and see if it provides the information I need to manage my high blood pressure.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enI have high blood pressure and I've been interested in blood pressure wearables for years I looked at omron's inflatable cuff watch I've looked at standard cuffs I looked at sensors on smart watches valence cell is a company that's made sensors that use Optical heart rate for years and they've been working for a while on trying to make a little blood pressure sensing device what they've centered on is something that uses your finger kind of similar to a pulse oximeter it's a little clip-on monitor that's supposed to work without any calibration to a blood pressure monitor and it takes a reading at about the same time that it takes to get an inflatable cuff measurement so what's the difference it's a lot smaller this thing is so small that you could just you know tuck it in your pocket put it in your bag the technology is similar to a pulse oximeter in that it uses light that bounces off of your finger to measure for blood flow using a technology called PPG that gets interpreted with different algorithms here to find out your blood pressure what it does ask for is your weight and height to come up with something that helps the algorithm calibrate better to figure out what your blood pressure is I took a reading in a very crowded CES in Las Vegas not an ideal situation for blood pressure I'm dehydrated I was wearing a mask you know I was feeling stressed once it took a measurement which again took about 30 seconds I got to see that lo and behold blood pressure was high now I had no way of checking that against the blood pressure cuff so I don't actually know how accurate it is but the claim is that it will be equivalent although a very very very high blood pressures like we're talking really high blood pressures according to Dr Stephen LaBeouf who runs the company you might run into some accuracy problems but apparently if you did get that high you'd still know you had high blood pressure just not how high now the idea of this type of a reader is not really meant to replace a blood pressure cuff that's meant to kind of supplement it so this product which may cost about 99 is something that you carry around and measure more frequently when it comes out I'll be really curious to use it it may let you know if you have high blood pressure and for that alone it could be usefulI have high blood pressure and I've been interested in blood pressure wearables for years I looked at omron's inflatable cuff watch I've looked at standard cuffs I looked at sensors on smart watches valence cell is a company that's made sensors that use Optical heart rate for years and they've been working for a while on trying to make a little blood pressure sensing device what they've centered on is something that uses your finger kind of similar to a pulse oximeter it's a little clip-on monitor that's supposed to work without any calibration to a blood pressure monitor and it takes a reading at about the same time that it takes to get an inflatable cuff measurement so what's the difference it's a lot smaller this thing is so small that you could just you know tuck it in your pocket put it in your bag the technology is similar to a pulse oximeter in that it uses light that bounces off of your finger to measure for blood flow using a technology called PPG that gets interpreted with different algorithms here to find out your blood pressure what it does ask for is your weight and height to come up with something that helps the algorithm calibrate better to figure out what your blood pressure is I took a reading in a very crowded CES in Las Vegas not an ideal situation for blood pressure I'm dehydrated I was wearing a mask you know I was feeling stressed once it took a measurement which again took about 30 seconds I got to see that lo and behold blood pressure was high now I had no way of checking that against the blood pressure cuff so I don't actually know how accurate it is but the claim is that it will be equivalent although a very very very high blood pressures like we're talking really high blood pressures according to Dr Stephen LaBeouf who runs the company you might run into some accuracy problems but apparently if you did get that high you'd still know you had high blood pressure just not how high now the idea of this type of a reader is not really meant to replace a blood pressure cuff that's meant to kind of supplement it so this product which may cost about 99 is something that you carry around and measure more frequently when it comes out I'll be really curious to use it it may let you know if you have high blood pressure and for that alone it could be useful\n"