I spent months tracking my blood pressure with the Hilo wearable – here’s what I learned

The Hilo blood pressure monitor is a compact device that claims to offer clinical-grade accuracy without the bulk of a traditional cuff. It’s worn on the wrist like a fitness tracker and links to an app via Bluetooth, taking readings up to 50 times per day.

It calculates your blood pressure using pulse wave analysis (PWA), following a calibration with Hilo Cuff. After that, it takes into account your behaviours, medications and readings to provide daily reports.

Hilo’s design is one of the first things that works in its favour. Lightweight and unobtrusive, it’s the kind of gadget you forget you’re wearing until you need it. The screen is clear enough to glance at mid-commute or while wandering around the kitchen, and the interface is refreshingly uncomplicated.

Setup takes minutes, and the companion app follows the same ethos as the wearable itself – it’s pared back. The user experience is simple and designed to deliver data without any unnecessary detours. The Hilo app doesn’t pretend to be a lifestyle platform or a digital health coach. In a market where every gadget is vying to expand its remit, this simplicity is quite satisfying.

The app logs data automatically, charts your numbers over time and offers jargon-free explanations about what you’re seeing. It is, by design, more of a storage system than an interpretive tool. There are no tailored insights, no behavioural nudges and no integrations with broader health ecosystems.

Hilo isn’t really about full-spectrum wellness analysis – it knows its audience and seeks to do one thing well, rather than falling into the trap of overpromising. However, if you want to wear it with another wrist-based fitness tracker, you’ll have to put one on each arm.

Accuracy is where wrist-based monitors typically lose their shine, so I tested Hilo against a GP-recommended upper-arm cuff across multiple readings. While there was a slight variation in the numbers , this highlights why it's important to take several readings to get an accurate picture when testing your blood pressure.

However, home testing is never going to be a perfect science and Hilo seems to offer reliable trend data that can be easily understood and shared with a medical professional if needed, rather than single-point perfection. For most people monitoring their blood pressure at home, you need a certain level of reliability as a basic entry point.

My doctor told me while taking a reading with a cuff that if you have diagnosed hypertension or rely on highly accurate readings for medication decisions, an upper-arm monitor remains the gold standard. So, although Hilo has been validated as a medical device, it’s best viewed as a daily tracker for patterns rather than a clinical replacement for readings.

It’s not suitable for everyone to use – Hilo isn’t recommended for people over 85 or under 18, those who are pregnant, or who have certain health conditions.

The current cost is also attractive with a year’s membership to the app included. However, be aware that outside of the offer that’s currently running, an annual membership will cost you £69.99 on top of the band itself. This is a similar model to the likes of Whoop and Oura ring so not surprising, but worth noting.