Can Fitbit Measure Blood Pressure? Lets Find Out

Millions of people out there lead busy lives working at desk jobs. As a result, they try hard to maintain an exercise routine. But, thanks to ever-advanced technology, you can track your health using smart devices.

With these smart devices, you can know how many steps you walk in a day, the number of calories you consume daily, and have a general statistical summary of your health. This will give you an easy time and let you know if you are healthy or you need to work on it. Generally, there are many benefits of mobile smart devices used in healthcare.

Fitbit is one of the major brands of smart devices used to track someone’s health. One of the Fitbit devices used for healthcare is the wearable wrist monitor. With this wrist monitor, you can track some of the most important health stats including heart rate, calories count, and even how much you walk. But most recently, there has been an addition to these devices, and that is the blood pressure monitor.

Do Fitbit Monitors Track Blood Pressure?

The most important point of concern is whether the wrist monitor can track blood pressure or not. A few years ago, Fitbit wrist monitors didn’t come with the blood pressure monitoring feature. They only measured the heart rate, calories, and other health stats.

But there has been an update in these wearables, and today, you can comfortably wear these devices and keep track of your blood pressure.

How Does This Happen?

First off, the blood pressure monitor will track the blood pressure by reading the pulse. Too many times, people conclude that the wrist monitors will not accurately deliver blood pressure readings. They, therefore, opt for the inner upper arm reader.

The main reason why people conclude that the wrist monitors won’t read blood pressure accurately is that they highly depend on the position of the body. For instance, you will need to place your arm and wrist at the heart level. This will then allow the monitor to get an accurate reading of your blood pressure.

Besides that, write arteries tend to be narrower and they don’t go deep into the body as compared to those in the upper arm. That is why you need to be careful to choose an accurate device that will deliver the blood pressure readings.

In some cases, a person might have a large arm or they can find blood pressure measurement painful. Here, the wrist monitors would be the best option to monitor the blood pressure.

What Are the Available Fitbit Blood Pressure Monitors?

Fitbit is a large brand that delivers multiple monitors for blood pressure tracking. You should always choose the monitor that suits you best when choosing a Fitbit blood pressure monitor. That being said, here are the common types of Fitbit blood pressure monitors:

1. Sleeping Monitors

These Fitbit monitors will be designed to track your sleep patterns. They will read the length of your sleep along with how much time you experienced deep sleep. This way, you can know if you had a healthy sleep and if your general health is on the right track.

2. Metabolism Monitors

The metabolism monitors will specifically be designed to track your heart rate, along with the number of calories you burned in a day. Most blood pressure monitors will come with metabolism features. This will then give you a whole package. You can know if you are on the right health and fitness track.

3. Exercise Monitors

These monitors are designed to be used when working out. They will help to track the number of stats including steps, calories burned, distance traveled and even active minutes. The exercise monitors will also come with a heart rate monitor to track the health of your heart. They will alert you when your heart rate is too high.

4. Sedentary Alerts

The sedentary monitors are almost similar to exercise monitors and they are mostly meant to keep you active all along. What happens is that the device will vibrate to alert you whenever you are idle for a long time. Having a blood pressure monitor with these capabilities can be a plus for you. Such a monitor will help you stay active all along.

The other range of Fitbit blood pressure monitors is phone reminders. These monitors will have features that are linked to your mobile phone through Bluetooth connectivity. The monitor will alert you when you have incoming or missed calls, along with messages too. Some can have social media features to give you notifications.

How to Use a Wrist Blood Pressure Monitor

As we have mentioned earlier, the positioning of your body and how you use the wrist monitor will determine if you will get accurate measurements or not. Generally, here is the proper way to use a wrist blood pressure monitor.

Wear it Appropriately

You should start by wearing the monitor on your wrist for it to read your blood pressure. Here is how to go about it;

• Roll up your sleeve to wear the monitor directly to your skin. The monitor should not be applied over clothing lest it gives wrong readings.
• As you wear it, you should check that the sleeve isn’t too tight and that it does not prevent the flow of blood in your arm.
• After that, place the left wrist with a palm/thumb facing upward.
• Ensure that it fits comfortably. It shouldn’t be too tight nor too loose.

As you were the wrist monitor, check that it doesn’t cover the ulna (protruding part of the wrist bone) on the outside of the wrist.

Taking a Reading

• If you want to take a blood pressure reading, you’ll need to sit comfortably and hold your arm across your chest. Make sure that you are relaxed when doing this.
• When you are totally relaxed, press the Start/Stop button to start up the device.
• Your arm should be held across your chest so that the fingers touch the opposite shoulder. In the event, align the wrist cuff with the level of your heart. You can then support your left arm with your right arm, but you shouldn’t touch the monitor at this point.
• After the monitor gets the final blood pressure and heart rate, it will give a beeping sound.

Always ensure that you follow the user instructions when working with the wrist monitor. Remember that a monitor will only track your blood pressure. Follow the proper tips to help reduce your blood pressure if it is too high.