5 Ways to Monitor Your Blood Pressure Wherever You Are

As the name suggests, the Complete is more than a blood pressure meter. It also includes a single wire electrocardiogram (EKG) that can monitor the electrical signals from your heart to detect issues such as atrial fibrillation. It uses a similar system to the heart sensor found on the Apple Watch. It is larger than a watch though: a cuff fits over your upper arm to measure your blood pressure, while the EKG is taken by touching two pads on each side of the shoebox-sized base unit. Your phone sits on top of this base unit, showing the results. This means that you can take blood pressure measurements without your phone, but your phone has to be in place and running the app to display and record the results of an EKG reading.

The process of getting results from the EKG is also somewhat complex. The first time you take a measurement, the device sends it through the Omron Connect app (available for iOS and Android) to be examined by a cardiologist. Omron says that will happen within 24 hours, but my report only took a couple of hours to appear. While you are waiting, the app won’t allow you to take another EKG measurement. Once your report is done, you can take an EKG any time, see the waveform on-screen, and be notified if the app detects any issues. If you want a cardiologist to take a look again, it will cost you an additional $19. Rating 7/10.

The QardioArm takes the minimalist approach to the maximum. The device itself is a plain white box with only a single LED light on it. There’s no power switch—you turn it on by unwrapping the the cuff from around the body of the device, where a magnet triggers a switch inside the case. You use the QardioArm with the accompanying Qardio app (available for iOS and Android) to start a measurement and log the results. The app can also feed data to Google Fit or Apple Health. Unusually, Qardio also offers an Apple Watch app and an app for Amazon Fire tablets that can be used to take measurements and view trends. The Apple Watch app is limited to seven days of data though, so you’ll need the iOS app to see longer term trends.

While the QardioArm has an admirably simple design, usability is a casualty. You can’t use the QardioArm without the app, and not everybody has their iPhone with them all the time. The QardioArm is powered by four AAA non-rechargeable batteries, a less elegant and flexible solution than the USB charging used by competing devices. Rating 6/10.

At less than half the price of the others, the iHealth Ease is the cheapest of the blood pressure monitors I tested by a considerable margin. It still does a decent job though, because it relies on your phone to do most of the heavy lifting. The device is composed of a cuff that fits around your arm, a connecting air tube, and a base station. The base unit communicates with your Apple or Android device over Bluetooth with the iHealth MyVitals app. Your phone sits on top of the base unit when you are taking a measurement, but the base unit has to be separately charged with the included USB cable.

It’s not a bad arrangement. The cuff is fairly comfortable and the connecting tube is long enough that you don’t have to be sitting right next to the base unit when taking a measurement. The device isn’t very portable though, and you can’t take a measurement without the phone.

The measured data is also automatically uploaded into an iHealth Cloud server, where it can be accessed with a username and password. That might be useful if you want someone else to see the data, such as a family member, caregiver, or doctor.

I found that the Ease was—true to its name—quite easy to use. The app takes you through the steps to put on the cuff and take the measurement in a simple way. It is a little slower than the others to get a reading, and it did pinch rather more than the others. There is an emergency stop button on the base: a useful feature for the pain sensitive or those with skin conditions that might be exacerbated by too much pressure. Rating 8/10, WIRED Recommends.