r/VisibleArmband

I'm currently messing about with my smartwatch, with a view to getting it to provide the sort of alerts and insights that I might get from the visible armband if it was available in my country (Australia).

I'm curious about the technology visible uses. Is it based on an optical sensor like many smart watches have, which you'd see as a flashing light on the inside of the armband (photoplesythmography)? Alternatively, I gather it's made by Polar, which makes me wonder if they're reading electrical nerve signals? That would presumably show up as electrical contact areas on the inside of the armband, which probably just look like rubbery areas on either side of the measuring device?

If anyone is interested, I'm working on a Pebble Time 2, which is an open source smart watch with a battery life measured in weeks (depending what you get it to do that might tax the battery). Once I've made a bit more progress, I'm likely to be back with more questions about what people find useful or would find useful in an app for ME/CFS, POTS and related conditions.

I also have a Polar H10, and may make use of this also, or instead, though it's non-rechargeable batteries make it somewhat less appealing for long term use.

Less obvious things I'm interested in doing with this include making use of the roughly 0.1 Hz swings in heart rate with POTS, and investigating possible hardening of arteries over time with long term high salt diets.

Got a new phone and I can’t seem to get the Polar piece to re-pair. As far as I can tell I should just remove it from the app (and anything else it’s connected to) and then put it on. As long as it’s charged it should pop up. I’m not seeing anything after a few minutes of searching in the app. Tips?

Edit to say thank you to every one, I thought the little silver thing was a screw not a button 😂 Thanks again!!

I meant to say resting in the title… I spilled my lunch all over the floor and I’m trying to clean it up my heart rate kept going up - I stopped and rested- started again- heart rate went back up…. etc…. I just threw my phone and cleaned it u. I was crying and was so frustrated and I just didn’t even care anymore!!!! it’s been a month and I know I need to keep going, but I just got a wall! Now whenever my heart rate goes up i feel light headed and my eyes get heavy.

I just gave up on those moments and racked up many many minutes over my threshold. Not sure how long this pen will last now! I think I’ve been in rolling pen for the last 20 years but now that I have finally learned what it is, I am trying to heal. It is hard!!! it is hard to do nothing… it is so hard staying under 94 but I have to. I allow myself to have a minute at a time of going over the threshold, but it is sooo hard and it takes constantly watching the hr and I am not even living. I still want to do it because I think it will help-it just takes time. I used adderall for for about 15 years and finally stopped in July and I now know my true baseline, which is very low!!! I wash my hair only once a week now and I use the shower chair and put my feet up. I no longer wear makeup or fix my hai. I have not been going anywhere and I now have groceries delivered. I am ok and am not lonely but I wish that I could see some improvement. Ive only been doing this for a little over a month, so I know that it is too soon, especially since I’ve had this for 20 years. I would love to hear other‘s journeys - just so that I don’t feel alone in this. I feel so blessed that I don’t have to answer to anyone and am able to be independent- I keep reminding myself of that. Hugs to all!!! 🥰

The new data dashboard is out with the latest update. It looks promising. I can see many places that will likely be improved as we go along. It's a great first start at giving us better access to our symptoms, vitals, and meds logs.

Some notes from my experience so far:

1. I keep having to click load more for symptoms and other factors. It looks like the default is showing 5 symptoms/factors first and adding some more with each click of "show more." I feel like the default symptoms Visible starts with is more than 5 and it would be nice if it showed at least that many symptoms initially, and then showed more with each click of "load more" than it is currently. It took a while to load, and seemed a bit finicky. When it wouldn't load, I would visit another part of the dashboard, go back and then things seemed to load.
2. The graphing feature is neat! However, it only shows those first 5 symptoms to select from and I do not yet see a way to find and show other symptoms. There is no "load more" in this section.
3. The dashboard needs a computer to display everything. Maybe if we set our mobile browser to "desktop view" we can look at the dashboard from our phones? Otherwise I navigated to the dashboard by copying the link, opening my email app and drafting an email to myself. From my laptop, I opened my email and clicked on the link. I had first tried to just type the url into my desktop browser, but there were too many letters, and I made mistakes when I tried, so then email was the way I got it to work.

Bravo, Visible! Thanks for adding this feature!

ETA this screenshot of google play app update screen

https://preview.redd.it/uy5k4dw5cysh1.jpg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=46a567da635469c9536841bb214e6b7c6543d674