Performance Monitor

my cardiologist just adjusted some of my meds due to blood pressure spikes and low heart rate, so i had already purchased a blood pressure meter, an oxipulse, and the new kardia ecg device when i came across the bodimetrics by accident in a search. i admit to being put off a little by the price and i wasn't able to find any reviews or documentation other than a quick start guide and a qvc video which hardly inspired confidence. (!)but amazon is excellent with returns and i thought i'd risk it despite having already purchased instruments for most of the functions this device provides. and the risk seems to have paid off beyond my hopes. when i opened the box i was amazed at how tiny it is--lay a business card on top and you only see slivers poking around the edge. i mean, thought i, the omron bp meter is the size of a honeydew melon--how's this tiny chunk of plastic going to replace that?from the very beginning the engineering and design shone through (with only one exception i'll get to later). i've been a collector of various gadgets for decades and have been a beta tester for several hardware projects over the years and i know how hard it is to get all this right and then get quality manufacturing for it. as i set it up i just kept discovering nice little touches to aid in learning and using the device--no wonder there's no real manual out there--unless you need a lot of tech specs, the info is provided on the device itself or in the quick start.in way less than 20 minutes i had it configured for me and was testing all the modules and it only took that long because i'm a geek and had to go in and out of every setting and function and option first. following the real-time pictograms and instructions i easily calibrated the blood pressure function using my omron bp meter--the same one they show in one youtube video i found.although there's a composite module called 'body check' which will consolidate several tests into one report, i went through each individual module and compared the readings against devices i already owned and found hardly any differences, which eased my mind considerably about trusting the data it generated.btw, one module which many won't have a clue about is the /hrv/ function. this stands for 'heart rate variability' and is used to sync your heart's electrical signals with your breathing. years and years ago i bought the first portable device, the em-wave, to use this method of relaxation and that device cost about as much as the bodimetrics which does so much more. i think it would still cost about 1/3rd of what the bodimetrics cost just for a portable hrv device.this was saturday evening and after playing with it a couple of hours, i had questions and suggestions and used the webform at the bodimetrics site to contact them. less than two hours later i got a response and i think it was from the ceo and we've exchanged a few emails since then--an unimagined level of support.the only criticisms i have are with the app, not the device. the app works nearly perfectly (i had to back out of it and then go back in to get it to prompt to search for the device at times) for transferring your files from the device to your phone from where you're able to share them to other places. but it needs some tweaks for things as simple as using the date/time in the filename and with a feature called 'air trace' which displays the ecg data on your phone in real time which you can't exit gracefully from. nearly every bug i relayed to them should be relatively easily fixed in software without even a firmware update being needed and i was told they were working on most of what i suggested.at first glance, i disliked that it's white as discoloration seems inevitable, but in the box was a nice clear silicon skin, so problem anticipated and solved. there's little touches like that throughout which show the thought that was put into nearly every aspect of this project.i do wish they could have incorporated a backlight, but that would be a major hardware alteration in such a tiny device and a drain on the battery as well. i wish it had 24hr time, but bodimetrics says they do have that on their medical version and that this model is targeted at consumers to whom that might not matter as much.couldn't be happier with this purchase and mine will travel with me everywhere from now on./guy

As I doctor, I think it is an excellent way to determine heart rate and presence of arrhythmias. The EKG produced by it provides what looks like Lead I of a standard 12-lead professional EKG. To get a good tracing, be sure to be still, relaxed, with minimum muscle activity in arms. The EKG wave form seems good enough for a doc to determine nature of arrhythmia, and on occasion, a few other cardiac conditions.

Wonderful product! The EKG lead is accurate, but only if you are holding the device without any movement. Any slight movement will alter the reading, but this is also true for a professional grade 12 lead EKG. You can store information- 100 reads- without any monthly service or fee. You can also pair this with your mobile device via an APP. This device accurately measures heart rate, heart rhythm, oxygen saturation, temperature. It also has a pedometer feature, but I have not used it yet. If hesitant to buy this because of price, it is worth every cent. Also, multiple users- 3 plus a guest, can track their individual data. Excellent, excellent product.

What prompted me to order the unit is that a week before I ordered it I am in my early 40's and had some odd chest spasms that went on for a few days, my Grandfather died of heart problems when he was pretty close to my age so my Wife told me I needed to get in and get my heart checked out. She is about to finish her FNP so I figured I better listen to her so I went in and spent the day in the ER getting an ECG, blood levels and everything else checked out. I came out with clean bill of health with no heart issues. Just had a strained muscle is what the doctor ended up telling me.I joked around with my Wife and told her it would be cheaper to by an ECG machine than to go to the ER and not expecting to find any type of home/portable unit at a reasonable price I searched amazon and surprisingly came across this unit. So on a whim I ordered it not really expecting it to work.I received the unit on a Saturday and had a hard time with the Pulse Oximeter reading and I ended up loading an older version of the firmware on the unit than it shipped with. I thought what the heck I will try to call support not thinking that they would be in on a Saturday afternoon. When I called I got voicemail and just figured they weren't open so I didn't leave a message and planned on calling them up on Monday, well to my surprise about 5 min later my phone rings and it was Neil from Bodimetrics calling me back even though I didn't leave a message. I explained to him the issue I was having and he said he would be happy to help me with it. He walked me through the proper way to position my finger in the O2/pulse sensing area and it has worked fine every try since then. He also spent a good 20 min or longer on the phone with me walking me through all the different tests, setting everything up and explained to me what everything meant and how it was useful real world. He also emailed me the current firmware so I could get the latest version loaded back up on the device allowing me again to get it paired with my phone and their app to transfer the tests the unit runs to my phone.You can have a guest and 3 users on the device and to run the complete body check you have to calibrate the unit for each user to run the body check. The small manual does a pretty good job walking you through the process, in short you have to take your Blood Pressure and know what your top number is before you start the calibration. Once you know that the unit will do two tests during the calibration and after each test you have to enter your top BP number after the test is done, it's a little tricky the first time you try it but it's not too bad.I think one of the best features on the device is that it will do a "Body Check" where it uses all the sensors on the unit "other than the thermometer" and gives you an overall RPP rating that is an indication of your overall fitness level and heart health. The test shows your heart rate, SpO2 %, and systolic blood pressure. It will also save all of your tests to the device for you to go back and review. If you download the app to your phone you can pair the unit via bluetooth to your phone and once paired you can download your tests from the device to your phone where it will save them for you to look at in more detail, and you can track your stats by day/week/month/year. When you pull up the tests on your phone you can look at the ECG waveform in detail and you can even click a button in the upper RH corner of the screen to share the test using the share function on your phone, so you can email it to your doctor etc.I am not saying this device is a replacement for the doctor or ER if you think something is wrong but if you were to use this device daily and all of a sudden your numbers were out of whack it would be a good indication that you needed to get checked out. In my case if I would have had this before I started having the chest spasms and been performing the Body Check daily I could have looked at my history and realized that nothing had changed and probably wouldn't have spent a day in the ER getting tests. On the other had if I would have had a Body Check that was not consistent with my normal daily check I would have probably went in sooner than what I did. I bike ride and as Neil explained it to me if you do the Body Check daily and you get up one morning run the test and it is not normal you probably don't want to be exercising that day and want to get it checked out.As a side note once I got the unit all figured out I showed it to the wife and she rolled her eyes at me when I first showed it to her, but I got her user account setup on it then helped her through all the tests and she like me was pleasantly surprised at how well the unit worked and the information that it allows you to gather and track on your own.Bottom line is if you are active and use this thing daily it may be cheap insurance to keep you from dropping dead from something that you could possibly prevented.