The smartwatch will see you now: Huawei unveils a £400 wearable device that can take your blood pressure by INFLATING around your wrist
- Chinese company’s new Watch D is being demoed at IFA 2022 in Berlin this week
- It has an airbag on the inside of the strap that inflates like a cuff around the arm
- The Watch D will retail at £400 and be available to buy in the UK from October
Huawei has launched a smartwatch that inflates around the wrist to take accurate blood pressure readings, just like a cuff around the arm at a doctor’s surgery.
The new Huawei Watch D, which is being demoed at IFA 2022 in Berlin this week, has an airbag on the inside of the strap that slowly inflates around your wrist.
Blood pressure is a critical indicator of overall health, but when it’s being taken by the doctor it can be altered by something known as the ‘white coat’ effect.
This is where blood pressure rises slightly when we’re at the doctor, because of the slight increase in anxiety from being in a clinical setting.
The new Huawei Watch D, which is being demoed at IFA 2022 in Berlin this week, slowly inflates around your wrist
The strap includes a component that gradually inflates, like a cuff around the arm at a doctor’s surgery
HOW IS BLOOD PRESSURE MEASURED?
Blood pressure is a measure of the force that the heart uses to pump blood around the body, and it rises and falls in a cycle with each pulse.
It is measured in units of millimetres of mercury (mmHg), and the reading is always given as two numbers – systolic (pressure when the heart pushes blood out) and diastolic (pressure when the heart rests between beats).
Systolic represents the maximum blood pressure and diastolic is the minimum blood pressure.
By taking their blood pressure at home, Huawei Watch D users will be able to avoid the ‘white coat’ effect and take precise readings.
Huawei Watch D will be launched on the European market as a certified medical device, so users can trust that information from it is accurate.
It will retail at £400 and will be available to purchase in the UK from the Huawei Store from October.
The device has a ‘tensile strap, ergonomically-arced airbag, and butterfly clasp’, Huawei says, which are all designed to remain stable during inflation to ‘enhance the precision of impromptu blood pressure readings’.
At IFA 2022, MailOnline tried out the device and was given a blood pressure reading in the ‘normal’ range.
Users just have to wear the watch for one minute and keep their arm still as the strap gradually inflates and gets tighter and tighter around the wrist.
After the minute, the watch display gives readings for both systolic and diastolic pressures in colour-coded categories – low, normal, pre-hypertension, stage 1 hypertension and stage 2 hypertension.
The systolic reading represents the maximum blood pressure and the diastolic reading is the minimum blood pressure.
A high systolic reading even in just one arm can increase the risk of strokes, heart disease and chronic kidney disease.
Huawei Watch D can also take an electrocardiogram (ECG) test, which can be used to check the heart’s rhythm and electrical activity, although Huawei advises anyone with pacemakers or other implantable devices not to use this feature.
To take the ECG test, users just need to hold their finger against a sensor module on the side of the watch for 30 seconds.
MailOnline’s ECG results were also ‘normal’, although the watch told me ‘this information is for reference only and should not be used for a medical diagnosis’.
Huawei Watch D also supports sleep monitoring, blood oxygen saturation monitoring, skin temperature detection and stress monitoring, and is equipped with more than 70 workout modes.
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