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Phoenix666 [soylentnews.org] writes:

What if there were a wearable fitness device that could monitor your blood pressure continuously [phys.org], 24 hours a day?

Unfortunately, blood pressure (BP) measurements currently require the use of a cuff that temporarily stops blood flow. So a wearable BP "watch" using today's technology would squeeze your wrist every few minutes, making it impracticable to use – not to mention annoying.

A better method might gauge subtle pressure changes at the surface of your skin above one of the main wrist arteries – the radial artery – without regularly cutting off your circulation. But before scientists can create this new technology, they need to understand what the pressure inside a blood vessel "looks" like on the surface of the skin. And to do that, they must make a physical model that can be used to test wearable devices in a laboratory.

NIST's Physical Measurement Laboratory (PML) is currently collaborating with Tufts University's School of Medicine to develop just such a model, a blood pressure wrist "phantom" – essentially a fake arm that mimics the mechanical properties of blood pulsing through an artery surrounded by human tissue.

All watches are not wearable?

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