How Do Smart Watch Measure Blood Pressure

According to the Center For Disease Control and Prevention, 116 million Americans live with hypertension( high blood pressure). farther exploration published by the American Medical Group Foundation estimates that 20 of those living with hypertension do n’t know they've it.

Regularly checking blood pressure is crucial to detecting hypertension beforehand and seeking medical help. Your family croaker can check your blood pressure with the traditional cuff anthology connected to a examiner. also, you can buy this outfit for home use or pass through the medicine store/ drugstore to have a specialist take your blood pressure readings.

still, all these cases aren't good enough to measure your blood pressure doubly daily as recommended by medical specialists. either, the bond are uncomfortable for some people, especially those with bigger arms, and may record crimes to elevated blood pressure caused by sanitarium anxiety.

It’s out of this need that health tech companies have developed wearables to help druggies measure their blood pressure on the go. The smartwatch is one of these wearables whose donation to covering blood pressure is astounding.

But how do smartwatches measure blood pressure?

Quick Answer

Smartwatches use two technologies to measure blood pressure electrocardiography( ECG) and photoplethysmography( PPG).

For smartwatches using ECG technology, a detector at the reverse of the watch records the timing and the strength of the electrical signals that make a twinkle.

On the other hand, PPG technology uses a light source and a photodetector to quantify volumetric divagation in the blood flowing through the highways.

This composition explores how smartwatches measure blood pressure.

How Smartwatches Measure Blood Pressure

To understand how smartwatches measure blood pressure, we need to know how blood circulates in the body. A twinkle occurs when the heart pumps blood to the body corridor, and the blood returns to the heart after nourishing the body with oxygen.

The heart pumps oxygen-rich blood to the body at a advanced pressure than when the blood flows back to the heart. The former is called systolic blood pressure and should be around 120mmHg in a healthy person.

As the deoxygenated blood flows back to the heart from the body corridor, the pressure is known as diastolic blood pressure, and the optimum dimension is 80mmHg.

Millimeters of Mercury( mmHg) is the dimension unit of blood pressure.

Note that high blood pressure is expressed as systolic dimension/ diastolic dimension. For case, if your systolic dimension is 120mmHg and your diastolic dimension 77mmHg, your blood pressure reading is 120/ 77mmHg.

Now moving on to how smartwatches measure blood pressure, these hand- worn smart widgets use two technologies to cover the heart rate and, accordingly, the blood pressure.

system# 1 Using Electrocardiography( ECG) Technology

Electrocardiography technology is a conception that uses a detector that monitors the timing and the strength of electrical signals that make a twinkle. The detector measures the time taken by a single palpitation to travel from the heart to the wrist. This miracle is also appertained to as palpitation conveyance time( PTT).

A briskly PTT is recorded as high blood pressure, while a slow PTT indicates low blood pressure. You ’re advised to sit still and elevate the watch- wearing hand to the heart position when using this system. also, wear a cuff on the upper arm to stop blood rotation for a while before measuring the blood pressure.

Likewise, avoid caffeine and alcohol thirty twinkles before measuring the blood pressure because similar substances elevate heart rate leading to incorrect readings.

An illustration of a smartwatch using ECG technology is the Samsung Galaxy Watch 4, which monitors your blood pressure alongside a Health Monitor App.

System# 2 Using Photoplethysmography( PPG) Technology

Photoplethysmography comprises three words print, “ plethysmo ”, and graph. print means light, “ plethysmo ” means variation in volume in a body part, and the graph is a illustration showing the relationship between two variables.

In other words, photoplethysmography uses a light detector to determine the volume flowing in the highways. Changes in volume can beget oscillations in the heart rate, thereby recording varying blood pressures.

This system has a limitation in that you need to calibrate the smartwatch using a standard blood pressure examiner originally and after every four weeks to maintain accurate readings. The Apple Watch uses PPG and ECG detectors to cover blood pressure, alongside third- party apps similar as Qardio.

Conclusion

One of the numerous ways smartwatches have proved helpful is by covering blood pressure. These smart widgets measure your blood pressure using two technologies, videlicet electrocardiography and photoplethysmography.

The former involves measuring the timing and strength of electrical signals that make up a twinkle. At the same time, the ultimate uses high- effectiveness light detectors to descry volume changes in the blood, denoting changes in blood pressure.

constantly Asked Questions

Is Smartwatches ’ blood pressure accurate?

Does the Samsung Galaxy Watch 4 cover blood pressure?