# Blood pressure apps
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/blood-pressure-apps/976031
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion
**Created:** [December 4, 2022, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/blood-pressure-apps/976031 "2022-12-04T22:10:53Z")
**Posts on this page:** 12
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)
#### Post date: [December 4, 2022, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/blood-pressure-apps/976031/1 "2022-12-04T22:10:53Z")
I am looking for a good pressure app for Android. I have downloaded four so far that do everything BUT actually take my blood pressure. Y’all have any advice?
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### Author:  [@Seanette](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Seanette)
#### Post date: [December 4, 2022, 10:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/blood-pressure-apps/976031/2 "2022-12-04T22:13:34Z")
I think you’d be looking for a blood pressure monitor with an app it reports to. Personally, I just enter my daily BP check in an Excel spreadsheet. Works for me.
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### Author:  [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)
#### Post date: [December 4, 2022, 10:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/blood-pressure-apps/976031/3 "2022-12-04T22:18:59Z")
There are no apps that take blood pressure, despite what a lot of them are claiming?
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### Author:  [@Seanette](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Seanette)
#### Post date: [December 4, 2022, 10:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/blood-pressure-apps/976031/4 "2022-12-04T22:20:36Z")
How would an app do so when installed on a device that is not physically equipped for that function? I cannot think of any Android phone/tablet (or anything iOS) that comes with a blood pressure cuff attached.
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### Author:  [@dolphinboy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dolphinboy)
#### Post date: [December 4, 2022, 10:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/blood-pressure-apps/976031/5 "2022-12-04T22:27:12Z")
My Apple watch connected to my iPhone can show my heart rate… but that’s about it.
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### Author:  [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)
#### Post date: [December 4, 2022, 10:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/blood-pressure-apps/976031/6 "2022-12-04T22:28:26Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#):
>
> There are no apps that take blood pressure, despite what a lot of them are claiming?
I can’t see how they would be able to, without a physical sensor that’s made to do so.
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### Author:  [@Seanette](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Seanette)
#### Post date: [December 4, 2022, 10:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/blood-pressure-apps/976031/7 "2022-12-04T22:33:39Z")
Taking blood pressure, using any equipment I’ve ever encountered (and I’m currently being treated for hypertension that probably caused a TIA in April, so get checked at a medical office at least once per month and do home readings daily), involves wrapping an inflatable cuff around upper arm or wrist, then inflating it to a certain point. This would involve physical equipment that a phone/tablet would simply not have unless someone’s come out with a device that can be attached to the phone/tablet.
The Wikipedia article below does make reference to a smartphone-based _device_ that can use oscillometry, but that’s still pretty new and the article makes it sound rather inaccurate. I favor a wrist meter myself, having larger upper arms that make that style of cuff rather painful if not done right. I chose a model with reviews that mentioned comparisons against medical office equipment that showed that wrist model to be accurate.
> **[Sphygmomanometer](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sphygmomanometer)**
>
> A sphygmomanometer (/ˌsfɪɡmoʊməˈnɒmɪtər/ SFIG-moh-mə-NO-mi-tər), a.k.a. a blood pressure monitor, or blood pressure gauge, is a device used to measure blood pressure, composed of an inflatable cuff to collapse and then release the artery under the cuff in a controlled manner, and a mercury or aneroid manometer to measure the pressure. Manual sphygmomanometers are used with a stethoscope when using the auscultatory technique.
> A sphygmomanometer consists of an inflatable cuff, a measuring unit (th...
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### Author:  [@bob\_2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bob_2)
#### Post date: [December 4, 2022, 11:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/blood-pressure-apps/976031/8 "2022-12-04T23:38:24Z")
If you buy a sphygmomanometer for use at home, it’s a good idea to take it with you next time you get checked out by a professional with a properly calibrated machine. My wife did this and found that hers is a couple of points out.
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### Author:  [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)
#### Post date: [December 4, 2022, 11:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/blood-pressure-apps/976031/9 "2022-12-04T23:41:11Z")
They might also be able to point out whether you’re using the device correctly.
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### Author:  [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)
#### Post date: [December 4, 2022, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/blood-pressure-apps/976031/10 "2022-12-04T23:44:08Z")
Also, posture matters when taking blood pressure, in ways that an untrained layman would be very likely to get wrong.
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### Author:  [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)
#### Post date: [December 5, 2022, 7:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/blood-pressure-apps/976031/11 "2022-12-05T07:15:37Z")
Very true, I use a wrist BP device, but my husband has the classic arm cuff and dial and stethoscope set up [he was trained by the navy as a medic, comes in very handy =)] so when we first got the cuff we checked it out to make sure it was reading accurately. I wish there was one that would bluetooth into my phone, would make a great companion to my Freestyle Libre 2 sensors that I can use my android phone to read.
[as an aside, there is a whole subculture of people who play with bluetooth enabled blood glucose monitoring systems, insulin pump systems and get them to talk to each other so it is like an artificial pancreas =) If I didn’t sleep flopping around like a dying trout I would check into it. I do know it played hell with me when I took home my infusion pump, I ended up having to try and train myself to sleep in one position, barriered in with tons of pillows to keep from flopping around. Not comfortable.]
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### Author:  [@echoreply](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/echoreply)
#### Post date: [December 5, 2022, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/blood-pressure-apps/976031/12 "2022-12-05T17:57:12Z")
The answer to the OP is the app on Android that measures blood pressure is [Samsung Health Monitor](https://galaxystore.samsung.com/detail/com.samsung.android.shealthmonitor?langCd=en), and it must be paired with a Samsung Galaxy Watch 4 or 5 (maybe others?). Samsung Health Monitor should not be confused with [Samsung Health](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.sec.android.app.shealth&hl=en_US&gl=US&pli=1), which is similar to [Google Fit](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.android.apps.fitness).
Health Monitor will keep a log of recorded blood pressures, and it can also sync measurements to Samsung Health, where you can also add manually externally measured blood pressure readings to create graphs of blood pressure over time.
I have a Samsung Galaxy Watch 5 which takes my blood pressure, but do not ask me how it does that with only a few LEDs. It requires calibration in order to work, and must be recalibrated every 30 days, or so. Calibration is not difficult, but it does require having access to another way to measure blood pressure. I have an automatic one at home, but many people use the ones found in grocery stores and pharmacies to do the calibration.
I recently had my blood pressure measured by an automatic machine in a medical office. Immediately after I let the watch measure my blood pressure, and the results were close enough for me to call the accuracy “fine”. The watch does have a warning that says, basically, “this is a toy, don’t trust it for real stuff.”
The other big downside of using the watch for blood pressure is that it only works out of the box for blood pressure if you also have a Samsung Android phone. [There are ways to make it work with a non-Samsung phone](https://www.xda-developers.com/how-to-enable-ecg-blood-pressure-monitoring-samsung-galaxy-watch-4/), which are a bit tricky even if you already know about using adb and Android debug. No root or real “hacking” is required, though. Once setup with my non-Samsung phone, it’s worked fine.