BP Doctor PRO specifications
Here are the basic specifications listed in the user manual:
An air cuff is attached to the wristband that will inflate and deflate for blood pressure measurements, the heart rate monitor (HRM) sensor, and 4 pads for charging with provided the dock.
MCU – MediaTek microcontroller @ 208 MHz, probably the MT2523D Cortex-M4 microcontroller
Memory – “256M” That probably means 256Mbit flash
Display – 1.41-inch AMOLED touchscreen display with 360×320 resolution
Connectivity – Bluetooth LE 4.2
Sensors – PPG heart rate sensor, 3-axis accelerometer, gyroscope, and pressure sensor
Battery – 170 mAh Lithium battery
Dimensions – 54 x 35 x 12.9 mm (Medical-grade stainless steel enclosure)
Weight – 80 grams
User interface
Let’s put our phone on the side for a moment, and check the user interface on the watch itself.
We can quickly access the main features of the watch by swiping left or right to access fitness data (estimated distance and burned calories, plus steps), the latest blood pressure measurements, heart rate data, and Sp02 percentage (aka oxygen saturation).
BP is obviously the blood pressure monitor function with a standard mode that will synchronize to the mobile app to keep a history of measurements, and a guest mode in case you’d like to take a measurement from a friend or family number and not mess up with your own data. I’ll go into more details about the blood pressure function in another section below.
SpO2 or oxygen saturation level is said to be normal at 95–100 percent. The data can be used to detect sleep apnea, and you may also remember that some COVID-19 patients had low levels. Taking a measurement is super easy: just enter the menu and wait for a couple of seconds. Sorry that I did not get COVID-19 during the review, so I just measured my SpO2 while being healthy, and I always got 98%. Worth noting is the smartwatch can detect sleep apnea and if the option is enabled, the watch will vibrate in that case.
The heart rate monitoring function works as expected, and I actually never had to manually trigger it during regular usage since I enabled auto-measurement (Auto MEAS), so that it will automatically take measurements every few minutes and synchronize the data in the app.
The workout part comes with three options: Outdoor Walking, Indoor Running, and Outdoor Running.
If you don’t wear your watch while sleeping, you’ll just see “No sleep record”, but if you do, the watch will tell you how long you slept, how well with a sleep quality score, and split light and deep periods.
HRV (Heart Rate Variability) is measured at night, so if you don’t wear the watch while sleeping you’ll just see a black chart (left above), but if you do, you’ll see a data plot with red dots (right above). That does not tell us, but more details will be provided in the app. HRV measurements can help identify anomalies, and a reduced HRV is associated with an increased risk of death, arrhythmias.
Two alerts are available: Apnea alert and Move it. The former will trigger if you suffer from sleep apnea, while the latter if you sit too long on your chair. Like for the alarms, the watch will vibrate and show a visual reason for the alert.
The watch supports five languages: simplified Chinese, traditional Chinese, English, Japanese, and Spanish. This subset of languages may also impact your ability to read messages from your smartphone (e.g. SMS, Facebook Messenger, LINE, Whatsapp…) in an unsupported language. For example, the watch won’t be able to display messages written in the Thai language.
The Unit function allows you to select whether the distances are displayed in kilometers or miles and the temperature in Celcius or Fahrenheit. Reset will delete all data, and restore the watch to its factory settings.
Blood pressure monitoring with BP Doctor PRO smartwatch
Let’s have a closer look at the blood pressure monitoring function. But before dong, I took a measurement with the Koogeek BP2 blood pressure monitor that uses a traditional inflatable arm cuff. SYS/DIA was 104/55 and the heart rate was 61 bpm.
There are two ways to start the measurement, either through the menu as seen before, or by pressing the Home button for two seconds in which case the measurement will start automatically.
The air cuff will slowly inflate feeling tighter and tighter around your wrist with the SYS number going up, and once the measurement is complete, which should take around 30 seconds, you’ll get the SYS/DIA numbers in mmHg as well as your heart rate. I got 110/68 mmHg and 65 bpm, which is not that far off from the 104/55 mmHg and 61 bpm numbers I got with the BP2 in the sense both results are still in the safe zone.
BP Doctor Plus Android app
While it’s possible to use the watch without the app, after initial setup, you’ll get most of the analysis and health history from the BP Doctor app.
The main page has all information for the current day on a single page with blood pressure, SpO2, HRV, weight, workout data, step count, calories burned, and sleep monitoring.
BP Doctor PRO Battery Life
The smartwatch will not last as long as some others based on an e-paper display, and also because of the features like continuous HRM and blood pressure monitoring. In my case, I used the watch with maximum brightness, a 20 seconds timeout, raise to wake, automatic HRM, and I took one blood pressure measurement per day. After charging the watch, which typically takes over one hour from 10%, I could use it for 2.5 days, which in practical terms means 3 days from Monday morning until Wednesday evening.
Conclusion
I’m overall happy with the watch, and it is especially useful for people needing to regularly monitor health vitals like blood pressure, heart rate, oxygen saturation, and so on, without having to carry around larger devices.
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Source: https://pezcyclingnews.com/newswire/bp-doctor-pro-review-a-2-in-1-smartwatch-blood-pressure-monitor/
