Those Medical Smart Watches

[leon]

Hi Guys, just asking, does anyone here own or use one of these smart watches that monitors your heart, pulse and other medical stuff.

If so, what do you use and what would be a very good unit for an old fella like me, I am 75 and reasonable fit for my age.

I have type 2 Diabetes, don't really sleep that well and have the normal aces and pain of the older generation.

Or are these things a waste of time and money

Thank You.

Leon

[alan meehan (Alan)]

hI Leon i dont own a fancy one but do have one from aldi its a bruan seems good and they do help to save lives ,i did read a story in the senior magazine of a jnr doctor who got one for his mum and and made her aware of a impending heart attack and she was taken to hospital and found to have a failing heart so maybe they are good sort of pre warning system ALAN

[NCRAW]

I'm an avid watch wearer and own some mechanical and quartz watches. Since I purchased my Apple iWatch 7 (the gsm version which came handy multiple times), I have rarely wore any other watch. At almost 48, I use it all the time for my gym workouts (I maintain a certain BPM through whole workout including weight lifting), finding my phone , running (even gives me historical route times and personal best for specific routes, notifications and answering calls, weather reports and maps etc. It has all the health functions, from sleep patterns, ecg, blood O2, relaxation exercises, heart rate monitoring. The new ones even do more.

It does sometimes feel your life revolves around it but you can limit it to your liking. I'm gonna beat this one to death for a few more years (it's still super responsive and full day battery) then get a new one.

[leon]

Thank you indeed for your answers, I really don't need it for gym work and that sort of stuff, rather more medical like sleep patterns, heart and blood pressure maybe and things like that.

Leon

[JeniSkunk (Jenifur)]

Originally Posted by leon

Thank you indeed for your answers, I really don't need it for gym work and that sort of stuff, rather more medical like sleep patterns, heart and blood pressure maybe and things like that.

Leon

Evening Leon, I use a Fitbit Charge 6. It's a pretty good fitness tracker, though it doesn't do heart or blood pressure. I do have an Omron Automatic Blood Pressure Monitor HEM-700 for checking my blood pressure and pulse rate.
Pulse rate monitoring when using my exercise bike, and sleep pattern monitoring for my sleep apnoea were the major items I got the Fitbit for.
It can do a fair bit more monitoring as well, including calories burned, sustained effort, and oxygenation monitoring.
The thing that annoys me about it though, is it's tied, extremely heavily, to Google, and you can't use any third party services with it. So basically if you use Apple, then a Fitbit is really not for you. If, like me, you use Android, then it's worth considering.

[pmrid (Peter)]

Hi Leon,
I have used a blood pressure monitor for the past couple of years because of a heart condition. I also own one of those BAUN Smart watches which purport to have the ability to read both blood pressure and heart rate. But there is usually a wild diference between the dedicated BP device and the so-called "Smat" watch. I have found I annot rely on the watch for that sort of information. But for $40 bucks or so at ALDI I don't suppose you can expect too much.

[blindman]

Sad thing is that it is wasting your health, make yr own research.

[leon]

Many thanks for your response, I will do some research and ask some questions and see where that leads me.

Leon

[iborg (Philip)]

Hi Leon


This link to an ABC article might be a good place to start looking.


Philip

[Leo.G (Leo)]

I had a cheap Braun, it went in the trash, it was the most inaccurate watch/device I've ever owned from time to steps to BP to every bit of it, I giess it was $79 but still, some functions shouldn't be so hard to meter.
I can't afford a Samsung or Apple smart watch.

[Shano592 (Shane)]

Hi Leon,


I have a Fitbit Versa 3, which I wear daily ... mostly to tell the time and let me pay for things with Google Wallet.


However, it does give you access to quite a lot of information.


Heart rate;
Heart rate variability;
resting heart rate;
O2 sats (on the watch only);
elevated heart rate zones;
sleep duration (it tracks light, deep and REM sleep, as well as awake times during the night);
Daily readiness (some algorithm about how tired it thinks you may feel. I don't really pay much note to it);
Cardio load for the current day. eg my target today was between 22 + 47, but I am currently at 121. Physically, it was a big day;
Steps taken (I am not convinced that this is accurate);
Distance covered (I think it works on steps multiplied by stride length);
Calories burned;
Floors climbed;
Plus a few others, all in the free version of the app.


A lot of it is unnecessary I reckon, but the sleep tracker seems quite accurate.

[DavidTrap (David)]

The main thing they're good at picking up is when your heart flips into an irregular rhythm called atrial fibrillation. The pulse becomes irregularly irregular and they're pretty good at picking a change from a previously regular pulse. Have seen plenty of patients who are prompted to see a doctor because of this. The longer AF is present, the harder it is to get your heart back into a normal rhythm, so early detection is beneficial.

Not sure about the usefulness of the rest of the data they collect.

DT