It is normal for a smartwatch to count your steps, check your calories burned, and even show you a demo of what exercise you would like to focus on. Today, ASUS just upgraded their smartwatch, the VivoWatch, by adding a unique feature that allows it to detect Blood Pressure in just 15 seconds. Ladies and gents, this is the ASUS VivoWatch BP.
The inspiration for adding the Blood Pressure Tracking on the VivoWatch is the increase of the people having hypertension worldwide. Based on their statistics, an increase of 60% is projected for the year 2025. They also claim that it will most likely happen. Now, the main aim of ASUS is to make a Blood Pressure monitor as portable as possible and amazingly, they did it.
For the ASUS VivoWatch BP, you still get what a normal smartwatch can do like tracking your activities, checking your heart rate, level of sleep quality and de-stress index. To accurately measure a user’s blood pressure, an Electrocardiogram (ECG) sensor was added to the device, along with an additional Photoplethysmogram (PPG) sensor. Technically speaking, the ECG sensor mainly reads your heart rate signal while the PPG reads pulse (blood flow) from user’s finger.Comparing it into a normal blood pressure monitor, the VivoWatch BP is 70% smaller and 50% lighter. Its battery can last up to 28 days on a single charge with normal use. The VivoWatch BP still has a touchscreen panel with one button at the right for easier navigation. The magnetic panel on the left side attaches into a dock for charging. The main BP sensor is both located in front and back while the PPG sensor is located only below the smartwatch.
We are not quite sure yet whether they’ll bring this to our shores or not. If they do, this will help Filipinos control their eating habits and change their usual sedentary lifestyle.
Gianfranco is the co-founder of gadgetpilipinas.net. He graduated from Far Eastern University. A Psychology student turned tech-savvy. He's currently the HR Supervisor of Blip Media and one of the content producers of Gadget Pilipinas. He enjoys playing competitive video games and binge-watch American TV series.