The International Society of Hypertension published new global guidelines on October 26. They lower the treatment target for more people and make standardized home monitoring the main way to diagnose and manage high blood pressure. That's this week's deep dive.

Also this week: Huawei brought its wrist-cuff Watch D3 to the ISH meeting in Dubai and set up a research fund with the society, Google started sending blood pressure and insulin resistance trends to Fitbit Air and Edge subscribers, a Swiss study tested whether a cuffless arm sensor drifts over six weeks, and CMS still hasn't released its final 2027 rule on remote monitoring.

Signal Ring, a $399 finger ring that reports blood pressure without a cuff, is now payable with FSA and HSA funds and starts shipping in the coming weeks. Its own press release says it "has not yet been reviewed or cleared by the FDA" and "is not a medical device." That's this week's deep dive.

Also this week: Congress keeps pushing CMS on its remote monitoring rule ahead of a final rule due by November 1, a kidney society commentary says everyone with high blood pressure should get a urine albumin test, a Quest study argues current screening misses half of primary aldosteronism, and a Maryland study links chronic care management to fewer hospital stays.

Healthstats International, the Singapore company behind the BPro wrist blood pressure monitor, has shut down. BPro was on the market for almost two decades and held regulatory approvals in the US, Europe, the UK and Australia. Its approvals are now cancelled or being cancelled, and product support ended on December 31, 2025. That's this week's deep dive.

Also this week: a Wall Street Journal test of five blood pressure wearables, a new Sky Labs outcomes study, Whoop's entry into Medicare's ACCESS Model, FDA's guidance plans for 2027, and three AHA Hypertension 2026 abstracts worth knowing about.

On October 5, Happy Health announced that FDA cleared its ring to measure blood pressure with no cuff and no calibration. It's a wearable that people put on and leave on, and it needs no cuff to set it up. That's this week's deep dive.

Also this week: Sky Labs started a UK study to get its cuffless ring listed for 24-hour monitoring, Oura said it finished a large blood pressure study, Teladoc added camera-based vital signs to virtual visits, and a meta-analysis of 27 trials backed intensive blood pressure targets with or without kidney disease.

On October 1, Pixel Watch owners got their first monthly blood pressure trend reports from Google. Some of them got a "High," and some of those people had normal readings on a home cuff. That's this week's deep dive.

Also this week: a large insurer said it plans to copy Medicare's ACCESS Model for commercial plans, Oura shelved its IPO, Sky Labs heads to the AHA Hypertension meeting, and a new study shows home blood pressure runs higher in winter.

A smart ring started reporting blood pressure this week. In the same week, a primary care physician reminded clinicians that current guidelines say cuffless readings shouldn't drive diagnosis or treatment, and a law firm laid out how FDA went from a warning letter to a closeout on consumer blood pressure features. That's this week's deep dive.

Also this week: more than 44,000 comments on Medicare's proposed remote monitoring rules, new ACCESS Model tracks for 2027, and a large English study showing how many adults with high blood pressure are still undiagnosed.

Medicare just put a price on technology-supported chronic care, and it did not wait for the wearable industry to sort out what "cuffless blood pressure" actually means. Both stories matter to anyone building remote patient monitoring for hypertension, and they are more connected than they look.

This week's roundup pulls from six Google Alert categories (blood pressure, wearable health technology, heart rate variability, chronic care management, telemedicine, and digital health) plus Blythe Karow's "The Device Files" newsletter. It was a busy week for Medicare policy and consumer wearables, and a quiet one for heart rate variability and chronic care management outside of the Medicare news itself, both of which produced mostly noise once you strip out consumer fitness roundups and unrelated disease-management coverage.

On September 15, 2026, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) held the formal launch of the ACCESS Model and opened a public directory where people with Medicare, and their doctors, can find participating programs [1].

Cardiowell 360 is in that directory. We serve Original Medicare patients in Colorado who have high blood pressure, high cholesterol, obesity or prediabetes, at $0 a month to the patient [2].

This week I compared the list of companies CMS accepted into ACCESS with the list of programs that were live in the directory. The gap between the two lists says a lot about how hard it is to launch a program under this model.

The Week in Blood Pressure & Wearables — September 4-10, 2026

The Week in Blood Pressure and Wearables — August 28–Sept. 3, 2026 — Cardiowell

The Week in Blood Pressure and Wearables — August 22–28, 2026 — Cardiowell

The Week in Blood Pressure & Wearables — August 14–21, 2026

Blood pressure has long been a snapshot metric, but a new era is emerging where it can become continuous, passive, and personalized. Wearable tech from wrist devices to smart rings is pushing boundaries, while accuracy, regulatory clarity, and real world validation remain critical. If we get this right, it could fundamentally change hypertension care and preventive health.

Read more on how leading tech giants are competing to lead this shift and what it means for the future of health monitoring.

Discover the promises and challenges of continuous blood pressure monitoring in Apple and Samsung smartwatches, including accuracy, FDA approval, and innovations.

Medications play a pivotal role in bringing blood pressure down quickly, and the Peterson Health Technology Institute (PHTI) report highlights how effective they can be as a first line of defense.

Learn why Remote Patient Monitoring (RPM) and CCM programs fail—and how planning, training, and engagement can ensure success.

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These devices aren’t just tools. They are windows into our cardiovascular well-being, revealing what often remains unseen to the naked eye.