The Fitbit Sense may be able monitor blood pressure soon ^↺

Fitbit released the Sense last year, a smartwatch that can take EVGs as well as measure stress, blood oxygen and heart rate levels. Now, Fitbit Labs has announced that the Sense is the focus of a new study about enabling blood pressure monitoring via Pulse Arrival Time (PAT). Currently, Fitbit plans to invite US citizens over the age of 20 who own a Sense. According to the company's blog post, it will do so via an in-app notification.

Fitbit Sense lacks a dedicated sensor for measuring blood pressure, but the device can use PAT to measure how long it takes for a pulse of blood to travel from the heart to the wrist. Fitbit hopes to calculate blood pressure levels from the information that PAT provides, which would be practical for a smartwatch that currently retails for US$299.95 on Amazon (affiliate link).

If PAT works reliably, then we would not be surprised to see Fitbit roll it out to its other fitness trackers and smartwatches. Fitbit has not commented on when it plans to introduce PAT to all Sense smartwatches if the study goes well, though. Nonetheless, Fitbit regularly adds features to its smartwatches and fitness trackers, such as blood oxygen monitoring on the Charge 4.