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I didn't reverse-engineer the protocol for my blood pressure monitor in 24 hours

james.belchamber.com

131–140 of 163 posts

Re: I didn't reverse-engineer the protocol for my blood pressure monitor in 24 hours

#131
post #90
post #2

Regarding white coat hypertension, the shot isn’t always necessary. Some people’s blood pressure just goes up from the stress of the clinical setting.

I had a doc appointment a couple of weeks ago. My wife was driving and we were running late, so I was getting stressed about missing the appointment on top of being stressed about going to see the doctor. There was a lot of traffic so I decided to get out at a red light and run to my appointment while my wife parked the car. I only barely made it and the first thing they did was take my pressure. They took it twice,…

I've never been to a doctor where they waited the appropriate amount of time. It's always almost immediately as you sit down. This has caused a lot of problems for me. I learned most insurance companies require a doctor hold you until your blood pressure is "normal" (where normal is Blood pressure is highly variable even moment by moment. A single data point at your yearly visit is basically meaningless. Even your posture can shift it. Legs in a different position? Too much tension in one arm over the other? Seated awkward? Have gas? Unfortunately, it's also very difficult to get a 24 hour monitor unless you have another suspected condition (such as kidney problems).

Re: I didn't reverse-engineer the protocol for my blood pressure monitor in 24 hours

#132

Orange juice and bannas. My BP was 142/90 and is now 125/80. Eating these twice a day nets you nearly 2000 MG potassium.

A concerted effort to consume 2-4g of potassium daily has definitely helped lower my blood pressure.

I'd be wary of the sugars in bananas and orange juice.

Re: I didn't reverse-engineer the protocol for my blood pressure monitor in 24 hours

#133

Buried deep is this gem: I tried feeding a lot of this into various Als (Kagi gives you access to a few with a nice interface) and I found that they mostly were stupid in ways that made me think. Perfect summary of why AI is useful for rubber ducking. Doing this with a co-worker you always get some questions that are a few layers too shallow for what you need (because they haven't been thinking about it more than a f…

But the very next sentence is the important bit:

> A few times I thought they had "cracked the case" but actually they just made me waste time.

Despite trying various models and services for years now, I've come to the conclusion that the current iteration of AI services hurts more than it helps. I spend more time prompting, reading pages of babble, and trying to find signal in the noise that I would just chilling out and thinking through the problem.

The technology is neat but not productive.

Re: I didn't reverse-engineer the protocol for my blood pressure monitor in 24 hours

#134

Buried deep is this gem: I tried feeding a lot of this into various Als (Kagi gives you access to a few with a nice interface) and I found that they mostly were stupid in ways that made me think. Perfect summary of why AI is useful for rubber ducking. Doing this with a co-worker you always get some questions that are a few layers too shallow for what you need (because they haven't been thinking about it more than a f…

Even when the duck doesn't answer at all it still often works.

I worked next to another engineer in the early eighties who was working on a different project. At tea break time we got into the habit of sitting opposite each other and explaining the problems we were having. Neither of us put much, if any, effort into trying to solve the other's problems because it often turned out that simply attempting to formulate the problem in a way that would make sense to the other party was enough to reveal the answer or at least a promising idea to try.

Re: I didn't reverse-engineer the protocol for my blood pressure monitor in 24 hours

#135
I enjoyed the writing style (maybe it's the mistrust of Windows).

I'm currently wearing a cheap smart-watch (<£20) that I spotted on AliExpress (i.e. Chinese product) that unbelievably records biometrics such as blood pressure and blood lipid profiles. I was mainly curious about the uric acid measurements as I get the occasional attack of gout, but am curious as to whether it actually does measure anything like blood pressure. I've previously compared the blood glucose measurements by getting my diabetic brother (type 1) to wear it and compare it to a pinprick measurement - within 10% which is pretty much useless for medical usage.

Re: I didn't reverse-engineer the protocol for my blood pressure monitor in 24 hours

#136
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

White coast hypertension isn't just about a clinical setting, it's more generally about the worry about the results of having your BP measured. [EDIT] OK, well maybe there's another type of hypertension which is related to anxiety about a high result regardless of the measurement setting. I have to take daily BP measurements during titration for ADHD medication. (Using an _A&D UA-611 Plus_ machine at home.) I can put…

> I can put the cuff on my arm and sit at my desk for 20 minutes to be nicely rested and calm, and then take 5 different measurements with a few minutes between each one. ... Doesn't it take more than a few minutes for one's circulation to return to normal after a BP measurement?

No I have a machine, you can take multiple readings even 15-30s apart and they will be very similar

Re: I didn't reverse-engineer the protocol for my blood pressure monitor in 24 hours

#137
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you've got one of these machines at home it seems you really want to run it a couple of times. Often I find the first reading I get is quite alarming but then if I sit for a bit longer and run it another 1-2 times I get a very normal reading.

Also, they can read high if the batteries are low.

I wonder why that would be? Presumably if the batteries are low then the pressure the machine "thinks" it's inflated the cuffs to is higher than the actual pressure...

Re: I didn't reverse-engineer the protocol for my blood pressure monitor in 24 hours

#138

So I did something similar (well less cool), but as old Software devs start finding our bodies don’t work as well after a while we will see more and more of this sort of “taking control” https://mikado-aktiia.readthedocs.io/en/latest/

> "It will not connect to Apple Health" FWIW the latest version of the app does export the previous day's averages to Apple Health (only when you open the app, mind, which can make it look like there's missing data.) I use BPExtract to read the PDF and export every reading to Apple Health but I'll definitely be giving your stuff a go as well (because automation >> manual every time.)

So this when they became a new brand (?) called Hilo.

I am not following their business but presume something is up.

Of course the format change seems to have broken the extractor so the next free lunchtime(s) I get will fix it. I assumed no one else uses it so was not in a hurry - any feedback gratefully recvd :-)

Re: I didn't reverse-engineer the protocol for my blood pressure monitor in 24 hours

#139
post #47

my best shot at it: year: bits 0-6 reversed month: bits 6-10 reversed hour: bits 13-18 minute: bits 18-24 day: bits 24-29 (maybe reversed) unsatisfyingly I don't have any idea what the gaps are or why parts need to be reversed, so i could be wrong. With the data from the post: y mo d h mi 25 11 10 11 3 25 11 10 11 31 25 11 10 12 1 25 11 10 12 35 25 11 10 13 0 25 11 10 13 31 25 11 10 13 31 25 11 10 14 0

I think this is the format, some parts are split ( maybe some obfuscation attempt ) 0-4 month 4-7 year 8-10 hour 11-15 day 22-23 hour 24-29 flags 30-31 year

I might be misunderstanding, but this seems very wrong. your method on the first entry:

  10011011010100101100001101010000
  year = 101 00 (20? year should be 25 or 2025)
  month = 1001 (9, but month is Nov)
  day = 1001 (9, not enough bits to encode large days)
  hour = 01 1 or 01 11 (3, 7, or 14 reversed, should be 11)
  no minute field

Re: I didn't reverse-engineer the protocol for my blood pressure monitor in 24 hours

#140

I am having issues with hypertension and purchased one of these: https://hilo.com You put on a cuff (supplied) to calibrate it, and then you wear a little gadget on your wrist. It takes frequent measurements throughout the day and night when it senses you aren't moving. It then syncs with your phone to store the results. Its a little pricey, but seems to work well[1]. And it avoids the faff of a pressure cuff[2] and…

how accurate is this?

> The Hilo Band uses photoplethysmography (PPG)—an optical sensor technology that collects data from your wrist. This data is sent securely through the Hilo App to Hilo’s cloud server, where advanced algorithms estimate your blood pressure using Pulse Wave Analysis (PWA), which looks beyond just the rate of your pulse, and examines the unique form of each heartbeat’s pressure through your blood vessels.

I doubt that it’s comparable to real blood pressure monitor.

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