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Blood Pressure and Heart monitors on smartphones in the United States

Z

Zarath Strait

Lurker
Why the FCC not allowing Blood pressure and heart monitor enabled smartphones to be sold in the USA but they're allowed in china and others counties around the world?
 
I personally don't care. Back when Samsung Health and their smartwatches peaked, (2018+) all the data did was increase my stress level and disrupt my sleep (didn't help that it thought my normal sleep time of 10 hours was 'poor' while a crappy night's sleep of 4 hours was considered 'good') so that wouldn't have been healthy in the long term. I just gave up on it. I got a nice 50's mechanical scale and a BP monitor that work good enough.

The last thing we need is the FCC getting more deeper into our personal business. I never forgave them over analog TV disappearing or AMPS mobile phone service dying.
 
Zarath Strait said:
Why the FCC not allowing Blood pressure and heart monitor enabled smartphones to be sold in the USA but they're allowed in china and others counties around the world?
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Huh? I've certainly never seen such a device, and I'm in China. Do you know of any specific examples?

There's many smart-watches that have this functionality, that you can use with a phone. Those are available in the US AFAIK. There's also apps that can check heart rate, using just a smart-phone's camera and flash LED.
 
Samsung has the Galaxy Watch 4 (and I'm sure others have launched since) that had hardware for BP and ECG but only recently have only allowed ECG in US. The hardware exists but the government blocks any software from accessing it and it's been held up in court for a long time.

The only smartphone I've seen with a heart rate sensor was the Galaxy S5 in 2014. I doubt that even Samsung has a modern phone with nearly the same features that it had.
 
I still think a few folks remain who expect smartphones to just become watches and **shudder** skin implants/augmented brain implants like something out of that reboot of Total Recall (the 'hand phone')

The whole smartwatch novelty wore off long ago for me and I am happier with my mechanical pocket watch.
 
Zarath Strait said:
Why the FCC not allowing Blood pressure and heart monitor enabled smartphones to be sold in the USA but they're allowed in china and others counties around the world?
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Have these devices got any independent accreditation of their accuracy? It would be reasonable not to allow them if they haven't, since misleading medical information is never a good idea.
 
Despite that, Hadron, the Apple Watch (and Galaxy Watch) get away with false fall detection triggers all the time. Use a hammer, swat a fly, clap your hands, it thinks you fell and if you don't dismiss it quick enough it dials 911 or your emergency contact. The justification from both Apple and Samsung (after I took a hammer to my Galaxy Watch 4 when it gave me three seconds to dismiss and my dexerity issue prevented me from getting it to dismiss and dealt with embarrasing talks with the 911 dispatcher and my mother and still couldn't get it out of emergency mode) was "Well, better it false positives than never triggers at all!"

and anyone wonders why I gave up on smartwatches and most modern tech?

I often wonder how many times the iPhone 14 Pro Max false triggered its 'crash detection' from someone slamminig on their brakes to avoid hitting something or someone.
 
My Galaxy Watch 5 Pro has a so-called EKG app that records my heart activity, but it's very clear that it does not detect heart attacks or afibrillation. If it won't do that, what good is it? I'm pretty sure that it has nothing to do with technical limits, and everything to do with LAWYERS.
 
It is supposed to only detect A-fib and alert you (but you have to do it manually) which is akin to the Apple Watch's feature. I never got it to work at all since my heart rate is high (I've been tested and they assured me it's normal for my metabolism) and usually sticks around 90 bpm resting, so it always came up 'inconclusive' like the same feature on Apple Watch and ended up being utterly useless. Yet another gimmick that just made stress go up. Out of ten attemps only one came up with 'sinus rhythm' which I knew because if I had anything bad I'd be the first to notice it. I'm quite used to my body telling me when something is up.

Even if BP was enabled on Galaxy Watch, you'd still have to use a manual BP tester to 'calibrate' it every so often so it wouldn't be without its own annoyances. Also, if it's like their 'sleep tracking' it ain't for everyone. I swear it rated my best sleep as poor but rated my poor sleep as 'good' because it's got some crappy baseline that says that anything more than 6 hours of sleep is bad for you. Sorry, Samsung, if I lived on 6 hours I'd be dead by now. Or feel drunk as a skunk from narcolepsy. I need my 9-10 hours of sleep.

Heck I probably lost more sleep from being so stressed out from what it kept pinging me about. stress = lower life span.
 
nickdalzell said:
Also, if it's like their 'sleep tracking' it ain't for everyone. I swear it rated my best sleep as poor but rated my poor sleep as 'good' because it's got some crappy baseline that says that anything more than 6 hours of sleep is bad for you. Sorry, Samsung, if I lived on 6 hours I'd be dead by now. Or feel drunk as a skunk from narcolepsy. I need my 9-10 hours of sleep.

Heck I probably lost more sleep from being so stressed out from what it kept pinging me about. stress = lower life span.
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Their baseline is 6-9 hours, with a recommendation of 7-8. There are also baselines for each stage of sleep, they all contribute to the overall score. Mine is usually fairly accurate.

Before defecating all over a technology that isn't from 1978, as you typically do, please actually understand how it actually works.
 
It didn't work. That's the point. Their algorithm was messed up. If I went by their recommendations I'd be actually in worse shape. Sometimes it's best to just live life and not worry about so much.

My sleep scores were averaging in the 30s-60s. That's rated 'poor' and didn't reflect reality. The lowest scores were the best nights sleep I've had. Unless you're supposed to look at it like a golf score where lowest is best, which I doubt that's the point.

I don't just crap on technology because it's new. I actually try it first. Sometimes more than once. If it fails each time I go back to what worked previously, which often means vintage.
 
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