Yes, several smartwatches and wrist-worn devices can measure blood pressure, though they vary widely in how they work, where they’re available, and how accurate they are. The technology is real but still maturing, and no wrist-worn device yet matches the reliability of a standard upper-arm cuff.
How Smartwatches Measure Blood Pressure
Blood pressure watches use two fundamentally different approaches. The first mimics a traditional cuff: a tiny pump built into the watch strap inflates an air chamber that presses against your wrist arteries, measuring pressure the same way a doctor’s office cuff does, just in a smaller package. The Huawei Watch D2 uses this method. The second approach is cuffless. These watches shine light through your skin using optical sensors, read the patterns in your blood flow (a technique called photoplethysmography), and use algorithms to estimate blood pressure from those signals. Samsung’s Galaxy Watch series and the Aktiia bracelet both take this cuffless route.
The cuffless approach is more convenient because it doesn’t require inflating anything, but it comes with a tradeoff: you need to calibrate the device against a traditional blood pressure cuff regularly to keep it accurate.
Devices Currently Available
Samsung Galaxy Watch
Samsung’s Galaxy Watch line includes a blood pressure monitoring feature through its Samsung Health Monitor app. The watch uses optical sensors to estimate blood pressure, but it requires calibration with a separate upper-arm cuff every 28 days. After that window, the watch blocks new measurements until you recalibrate. If someone else wants to use the same watch, they need to go through their own calibration first. This feature is certified as a medical device in South Korea and parts of Europe but has limited regulatory approval in other markets.
Huawei Watch D2
The Huawei Watch D2 takes the mini-cuff approach, with an air pump physically built into the strap that inflates during measurement. It’s certified as a medical device under European regulations and is available across Europe, the UK, and several other regions. It is not currently available in the United States, and there’s no indication of FDA clearance or a US launch.
Aktiia Bracelet
Aktiia is a dedicated blood pressure bracelet rather than a full smartwatch. After an initial setup using a standard cuff, optical sensors in the bracelet take readings automatically throughout the day, sending results to a smartphone app. Aktiia recommends recalibrating with a traditional cuff at least once a month. In a clinical study of 52 patients in a cardiac rehabilitation program, daytime readings from the Aktiia bracelet showed no significant difference from a standard 24-hour ambulatory blood pressure monitor for systolic pressure, with an average difference of just 1.6 mmHg. The device is CE-marked in Europe but not FDA-cleared in the US.
How Accurate Are These Watches?
This is where things get complicated. Wrist-based blood pressure readings are sensitive to positioning in ways that upper-arm cuffs are not. The Mayo Clinic notes that wrist monitors often give falsely high readings due to poor positioning. To get a usable reading, you need to place the sensor directly over the artery on the inside of your wrist, keep your wrist at heart level (not resting in your lap), stay completely still, and avoid bending your wrist during the measurement. Bending alone can produce incorrect readings.
Even under ideal conditions, the American Heart Association has raised a broader concern: FDA clearance for a blood pressure device does not require formal accuracy testing under a standardized protocol. That means a device can be legally sold as a blood pressure monitor without proving it meets the same accuracy standards as a validated arm cuff. Regulatory clearance does not guarantee measurement accuracy.
Cuffless watches face an additional challenge. Because they estimate pressure indirectly from light-based readings rather than physically measuring the force against your artery walls, their accuracy depends heavily on their calibration. If your blood pressure changes significantly between calibrations (due to medication changes, stress, or health shifts), the watch may not catch the change until your next calibration session with a real cuff.
What These Watches Can and Can’t Do
The genuine value of a blood pressure watch is spotting trends over time. Taking dozens of readings across the day gives you a pattern that a single visit to the doctor’s office never could. Some people experience “white coat hypertension,” where their blood pressure spikes in clinical settings, or “masked hypertension,” where their pressure is normal at the doctor but elevated at other times. Continuous or frequent monitoring can reveal those patterns.
What these watches can’t reliably do, at least not yet, is replace a validated upper-arm cuff for diagnosing or managing hypertension. If you’re tracking blood pressure for a medical reason, you still need a standard cuff as your baseline, and you’ll be using it regularly anyway for calibration. Think of a blood pressure watch as a supplement to traditional monitoring, not a replacement for it.
Tips for Getting Better Readings
If you do use a blood pressure watch, positioning makes a bigger difference than most people realize. Sit down, rest for a few minutes, and raise the wrist wearing the watch to the level of your heart. You can do this by bending your elbow and holding your forearm across your chest. Don’t talk, don’t move, and keep your wrist straight throughout the reading. Taking multiple readings a minute or two apart and comparing them will give you a better sense of your actual pressure than relying on any single number.
Keep your calibration schedule consistent. Both Samsung and Aktiia enforce roughly a 28-to-30-day recalibration window for a reason: accuracy drifts over time. If you’ve recently changed blood pressure medications or experienced a major health change, recalibrating sooner is a good idea. And always compare your watch readings against a validated arm cuff periodically to make sure the two are still in reasonable agreement.