I didn't reverse-engineer the protocol for my blood pressure monitor in 24 hours Tue Nov 11 2025
Yesterday after receiving my yearly flu vaccine at the pharmacy I was offered a blood pressure test, which reported a reading that made the young pharmacist who had just given me my vaccine a bit worried.
Off the back of this she offered me a 24 hour study, and then strapped a cuff to my arm plumbed into a little device which I had to wear in a little caddy - the cuff would inflate every 30 minutes during the day and every 60 minutes during the night, and then tomorrow I would bring it back for analysis.
"Can I read the measurements?" I asked, as it was being strapped to me.
"Oh, no, that will just stress you out. We turn that off". Fair enough.
Thing is, this device had a little micro-USB port on the side.
A blood pressure monitor with a flap being held back, revealing a micro-USB port
Doing things the proper way
I had started researching the device - a Microlife WatchBP O3 - before I got out of the chemist, and once I'd got back to the office I downloaded the software that's freely available to interact with it, setting up a Bottles instance to run the software since I don't (knowingly) have a Windows machine within 100 metres of me.
Installing WatchBP Analyzer in Bottles
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