Accuracy of readings?

Received mine 2 days ago, and am super impressed. It seems accurate and depending on my activity and state of relaxation the readings seem appropriate. I am not sure what the gold standard is, certainly not an arterial line which is frequently/usually over or under-damped. Everything we know about blood pressure is with a manometer, cuff on the right arm in a seated position and a stethoscope. So I think with minute to minute variability and the inherent  error in the way it is determined, the Garmin BPM is as good as it gets. Got a new metric!! Living in the "Garminverse", where everything is captured and recorded including just about every activity and physiological metric. 

Maybe I have come to the party late and software updates have fixed earlier issues?

@scarboroughjohn I sent mine back and received a full refund with no hassle. Currently, I'm taking my blood pressure in the morning the old fashioned way and at least Garmin allows me to manually enter in the information. Maybe I'll give the BPM another try in a couple of years. Glad it's working for you.

I am another Garmin enthusiast but after having heart surgery I bought the Index bpm and as stated by many others I find it to be alarmingly higher than folks I work with at Cardiac Rehab. 

Statistically, the numbers speak for themselves. Not to say that it is a bad product but that there is inconsistency. If you are in my position you would have to be able to rely on the data. So, when several cardiac rehab nurses get different measurements I would determine it has to be investigated by a failure analysis engineer / engineering.

My spouse is a MD. She has higher readings than using her regular gear as well. 10-15 digits higher. She is not sure if the Garmin Readings are wrong, as you ned to be very careful in the stethoscope usage and there may be a human fault. Another thing is her regular equipment - the last test approval stamp says good until 2019. Suitability of test equipment seems no high priority here.

Summary: I am not sure. My own readings are clearly not to high as my upper value hardly reaches 100 in the morning - if this would be measured too high I am probably a zombie

It would be nice to see Garmin’s comparing data. I imagine their golden standard would be a stethoscope. The nurses at the Cardiac Rehab can’t all be wrong.  

It is important to realise that blood pressure is dynamic and changing from minute to minute. Stress, exercise and even doing mental arithmetic will increase the reading. Ideally should be relaxed and chilled out for 10 minutes before checking. If my first reading is borderline high like diastolic of 85, I wait a few minutes and repeat,  invariably the diasolic reduces to 78 or so. When manually checking you invariably round of to a suitable number?

The correct way to measure BP is to sit quietly for something like 5-10 minutes. It's also permissible to take several readings and take the lowest systolic and the lowest diastolic reading and that is your BP. I've also heard some say always to discard the first reading.

The Garmin device is too ridged. It doesn’t properly conform to different sized and shaped arms. I brought it with me to my HCPs office. Over the course of 15 minutes multiple BP reading were performed. Three separate means of collection were the Garmin, manual, and medical grade mechanical.

The Garmin was consistently higher than the other two methods. 30-40 mm/Hg higher:

My HCP stated that there should be at the very least a recall into the inaccuracy. He also stated that because of some fine print that the manufacturer has the buyer and user to agree upon, they likely have a loophole in not having to take the product off the market.

no HCP would ever use a Garmin device to dictate their decision for BP medication adjustments. If they ever did, find a new HCP.

Garmin makes an unbelievable fitness wearable in many offerings. They should just stick with what they do best and leave the BP and body mass indexing to the experts.

I had a similar issue.  The Garmin told me I was 138/89 and the next day after walking to the clinic I was measured by a nurse at 116/69.  I'll just be using this tool for tracking from here on.