It's a minor breakthrough in the wearables space: the medical device manufacturer Omron has received approval from the North American Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for a smartwatch with integrated blood pressure measurement.
Blood pressure provides important data for assessing a person's health. In late December 2018, Omron Healthcare, a company owned by a Japanese conglomerate, announced for the first time a wearable in the form factor of an everyday wristwatch that can measure blood pressure - and apparently so accurately that the North American Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted the device approval.
Called Omron Heartguide, the smartwatch determines blood pressure using a tiny balloon inside the watch and wristband that is inflated to provide the necessary back pressure. This is said to work around 30 to 50 times on one battery charge. That should be enough to enable sufferers to monitor their health more easily than with the usual, much larger wrist cuffs, even in everyday life or when traveling.
However, it will not be possible to take 24-hour measurements as prescribed by a doctor. For the time being, patients will have to wear a conventional upper arm cuff and carry a comparatively heavy battery with pump on their belt or in a pocket.
The Omron Heartguide can of course also display the time, and it also counts steps, estimates calorie consumption and tries as best it can to analyze the wearer's sleep. It does not offer an optical pulse measurement on the wrist - there is no room for the necessary LED sensors because of the devices for blood pressure measurement.
The data is to be analyzed with the help of an app available for common smartphones running Android and iOS. The company wants to make sure that even people who are not medically trained can use the analyses. Omron itself points out, for example, that this is a particularly impressive way to see that blood pressure rises again when the corresponding medication is discontinued - even if the patient does not normally feel this.
Price and availability
Omron plans to sell the Heartguide for around 500 US dollars initially only in the USA. However, a release in other countries is not unlikely; the company has also been active in Europe for some time. The watch is quite large with a diameter of around 48 millimeters, and the weight is around 115 grams.
So far, there is no way to reliably measure blood pressure with such a wearable. There are rumors that companies like Apple, Fitbit and Garmin are working on methods to measure blood pressure similarly to pulse via LEDs with light reflections. However, none of these companies has officially commented on the topic. Omron has filed a number of patents for its technology, which other companies may be interested in.
On the one hand, blood pressure is an important value when it comes to diagnosing diseases of civilization such as stress, obesity or diabetes diabetes. On the other hand, if blood pressure is too high, it can cause serious problems if undetected. Put very simply, it overstretches the vessels, causing them to crack, which can lead to calcium deposits and block the flow of blood - in the worst case, this can lead to a heart attack or stroke. stroke.
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Source: golem.de
Published on: 15 January 2019