Balance Wrist Blood Pressure Cuff Monitor Review

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The Balance Wrist Blood Pressure Monitor is produced by Greater Goods, and supplied with a cuff that fits wrists from 5.3″ to 8.5″ in circumference.

Features include a Position Assistant guide, irregular heart beat detection, a 120-reading memory, and clear systolic and diastolic readings via the large LCD screen.

But how does it compare to the bestselling devices from Omron, such as the 7 Series or 10 Series?

In our review, we’ll take a close look at the design features, ease of use, accuracy, and customer feedback. This is to decide whether the Balance device is the best home BPM for you.

Design Features

Every home blood pressure monitor we’ve reviewed detects your blood pressure using the oscillometric method. Omron, Vive Precision, and Greater Goods all subscribe to using this method in their devices.

Oscillometric is considered excellent for accuracy, and easier to use than a stethoscope and sphygmomanometer. It’s also more user friendly, with automatic cuff inflation and deflation.

The backlit LCD display shows your systolic and diastolic blood pressure, pulse, current user ID, and current date/time. All blood pressure readings are displayed in mmHg (millimeters of mercury).

Another useful feature is the Irregular Heartbeat Detector (IHB). This is something we first saw on the upper arm version, and uses the same formula as the blood pressure monitors from Vive Health.

That is, the device records heartbeat intervals and calculates the standard deviation. If the calculated value is 15 or more, the IHB symbol illuminates on the screen.

You can also use the built-in position assistant (enabled by default) to guide your wrist to the position where you’ll get the most accurate reading. This should be level with your heart.

How is it Powered?

Greater Goods is one of the only companies that backlight the display on their blood pressure monitors. It’s one of the few features that Omron devices don’t have.

But how does this impact the battery life?

One of the downsides with wrist BPMs is that they rely entirely on batteries. If you need a monitor that can be powered using an AC adapter and electrical outlet, you’ll need the upper arm version.

Fortunately, wrist monitors tend to use smaller and fewer batteries. The Balance Wrist BPM requires just 2 ‘AAA’ batteries, which is the same as the Omron devices.

How Good is the Built-In Memory?

So, what about deleting blood pressure readings?

Almost every BPM we’ve reviewed automatically deletes the oldest reading once you fill the memory. This is also true of the Balance 0606 Wrist BPM.

But what’s frustrated us in the past is the inability to select and delete specific records. Omron, Vive Health, and Panasonic only allow you to completely clear the memory for the current user profile.

Being able to scroll through and delete a single measurement is one of the features that makes the Balance 0606 stand out.

When the monitor is off, you can press the ‘MEMORY’ button, select the user profile, then use the ‘ARROW’ buttons to find the measurement and delete it. You also have the option to delete all measurements for a specific user.

Accuracy and Ease of Use

10 Tips For Accurate Readings

1. Keep your body as still as possible while the monitor is taking a reading
2. No exercise, smoking, or caffeine within 30 minutes of measuring your blood pressure
3. Have at least 15 minutes of rest before measurements
4. Sit in a solid chair (not sofa or soft cushions), with your back straight and supported
5. Keep your legs uncrossed and feet flat on the floor
6. Rest your arm on a flat horizontal surface, with your upper arm at heart level
7. All clothing covering the cuff location should be removed
8. Ensure the room is a comfortable temperature
9. Measure at the same time every day
10. Take three readings, each one minute apart. With the Balance Wrist BPM, press the ‘MEMORY’ button when the power is off, use the arrow buttons to select your user number, then press the down arrow to show an average of the last 3 readings (signified by 3A on the display).

Videos of the Balance Wrist BPM (Model No. 0606)

Warranty

Who Are Greater Goods?

Based in St. Louis, MO, Greater Goods is a company that’s passionate about the journey of how their products are made, in addition to their high quality.

This is achieved through responsible sourcing of materials and production in factories that treat their workers well.

As a company, Greater Goods encompasses several major brands, including:

What Do Other Reviews Say?

An important part of any BPM review is to consider the feedback from other people who have bought and used the device in their own home.

How easy was it to take a reading? Did they have a good experience with customer service? Was the reading accurate, and how comfortable was the cuff?

But reading through hundreds or even thousands of reviews can be time consuming.

That’s why we did the leg work for you.

Listed below you’ll find a summary of the pros and cons for the Balance Wrist BPM, based on direct customer feedback.

Pros:

Cons:

Some customers found the readings to be inaccurate when they first turned it on. However, the accuracy improved dramatically after taking the batteries out and putting them back in again or replacing with others.