The Samsung Galaxy S9 and S9+ come with sound health tracking features. Apart from regular health stats, you can also use the phones to monitor your heart rate and blood pressure using sensors. While the heart rate sensor has been on Galaxy devices for several years, BP sensor is Galaxy S9 exclusive – making it the first commercial phone that can measure your blood pressure.
However, the BP sensor was inactive as it requires a separate app to function. Now, Samsung, in collaboration with the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), has announced an app called My BP for blood pressure measurements. The app is available in Google Play Store, but only in the US for now.
You can still download My BP Lab app’s Apk file and test it on Galaxy S9 in India.
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Here’s How To Measure Blood Pressure Using Galaxy S9/S9+:
Step 1: Download the My BP Lab app and install it on your Galaxy S9 and S9+.
Step 2: Now follow the instruction and register yourself. The app will ask details from you such as your age, height, weight, sex, education qualifications, followed by smoking habits and whether or not you smoke or not. You can skip some of the questions if you are not comfortable answering them.
Step 3: Once you do that, your Galaxy S9 is all set to measure blood pressure. The process is similar to that of BP monitoring machine that people use at home. All you have to do is sit down in a comfortable position, cover the sensor on the rear panel with the index finger, raise your arm and phone to the same level as the heart, and let the phone record blood pressure for few seconds.
Also Read: 15 Samsung Galaxy S9 and S9+ Tips and Tricks You Should Know
Step 4: That’s it, the app will now process the information and tell you how high your BP is from the normal rate in percentage.
Step 5: Further, the app gives you the freedom to record data in frequent intervals ( for which a reminder can be set from inside the app) and report other data, such as their sleep hours and diet information, to build up a profile with insights on their health.
Step 6: After the three-week period, this data will be shared with UCSF, who will use it to improve the accuracy of the blood pressure readings in My BP Lab app.
How to Check BP Using Galaxy S9 and S9+
The app worked fine for us but we still wanted to see few changes, like showing the blood pressure in numbers rather than in percentage. Also, there are some bugs that need to be ironed out to make it more reliable.
Also your non-dominant hand is not always the left hand. BP should preferably measure on the hand which is on the side of your heart. This cannot be too accurate as it measures BP too low (finger), which might be fine for pulse but not for BP measurement. Much better to get an automatic BP monitoring machine with the cuff.