Visible Plus Armband Review & Experience! | Chronic illness | ME, POTS, EDS, CFS, etc

[@katie.sleeps]

I'm not even halfway and you've made so many really good points that I realised I have experienced too. The point about being able to set the HRV to measure at a set time everyday day is such a good idea. I wonder if that is something they will be able to update via software update in the future. Obviously some of these issues are to do with the band itself so that's harder to address. Yes, totally agree that only pacing heart rate is very weird because emotional exertion drains me so much but my HR can stay under the overexertion limit. Thank you for doing a balanced review. All the influencer ads were what encouraged me to buy it and I probably still would knowing what I know now but I wish I was aware in the first place!

[@bazia7927]

Thanks for sharing as a severe ME person. Appreciate the effort. You confirmed my suspicions. Hope you have an easeful & peaceful day.

[@GeorginasJourney]

Thanks so much!

[@Lestrangeseaborn314]

Wow ty so very much for your detailed explanation and breakdown, this is so incredibly helpful to me.❤

[@GeorginasJourney]

You’re welcome! 🫶🏽❤️‍🩹

[@judithlashbrook4684]

Thanks for the video. Love, light and spoons to you and all those who need them ❤

[@GeorginasJourney]

Same to you! 💕

[@GeorginasJourney]

Ps, my carer did my hair (& I put the headband on top), how do you think she did? ☺️

[@kasiachm]

A really good job, you look great :)

[@MilliPidi]

Wonderful!! ❤

[@clw7739]

Really lovely job - I was admiring your hair and headband whilst watching.

[@kasiachm]

Thank you for your review! Very useful. I'm going back and forth on trying Visible. On the one hand, having external thing tell me to stop would be useful and probably save me from many crashes, but for the most part I'm like you - I have a pretty good sense of my heartrate at all times. I think the symptom tracking can be useful to some people, especially those seeing health professionals, to show them the prevalence and severity of their symptoms (I think someone in the community made a printable document that can work with the Visible data), but that's not something I would personally benefit from. I read so many reviews and opinions and you are the first one who mentioned the possible issues when wearing it and compatibility with clothes, as well as lack of sleep readings. Again, that can still be useful to some, but probably not for me. Another thing is that I'm worried to have a tool taking my readings at all times, because of possibility of getting heart-rate anxiety - I'm afraid I would obsess over my readings, so I avoid smart watches etc. I also have both POTS and ME and I would be more interested in something helping me pace for ME (because it's much more complex, as you mentioned), rather than for POTS, which is more straightforward.

[@sophiehobley828]

I hope my review comment that I posted above gives you more insight. But I'll tell you that after my review my friend did decide that the main thing she wanted was the alerts and she's finding that really helpful and is struggling to keep in her pace points so maybe if your energetic from adhd but also chronically ill with uneducated pots it'd be perfecto

[@bohumphreys5547]

This was so helpful thank you! I have severe ME and have had similar issues with the app.

[@GeorginasJourney]

Thanks so much! Ah, I’m sorry it wasn’t better for you, too

[@clw7739]

This is an excellent and really helpful review. I've been using the app for quite some time now - maybe over a year? I've toyed with getting the armband but wasn't sure if it would be comfortable for me and you've also answered all my other questions here that were making me hesitant so thank you. I use a normal smartwatch (a Garmin but nothing fancy) alongside the Visible app. This works pretty well for me and I can now be clear in my mind that the armband would not work for me. Thank you again.

[@GeorginasJourney]

Thank you! I agree, it sounds like there are more pros to your current system!

[@ruby3200]

Thanks for sharing! I’ve never heard of this product before. I wish there were more products to help ME/CFS. My doctors are at a loss at what to do for me, they talked about immunoglobulin therapy but it would cost around $120,000 dollars, and it’s not even guaranteed to help. I don’t like grading scales because it can be hard to decide where you are on a scale from 1-10. I also think it leads to comparison to others and your past self, which can become obsessive and can make mental health worse. Your hair looks great, your caretaker did a fantastic job!❤

[@jan9319]

I've had mine a month and it's not as good as its made out to be. I went swimming with my kids Saturday morning and it stopped working 😕 hasn't worked since . I contacted them and they just keep going on about the charging connector 🤦🏻‍♀️ I find it wierd having to keep putting in details each evening, each persons scoring is different. Using it while sleeping would be good but it needs to be charged. I wake up feeling horrid so none of that data is recorded. It should do BP to but get a better outlook but it doesn't at all. My hrv at it's best has been 3, but I can be really bad and it shows I doing well.

[@georginareads3969]

Ah gosh, so sorry that happened! I’m really shocked by how different our experiences are to what I’ve seen shared on their page by other chronically ill people

[@sophiakhas9802]

I use the polar verity band and have been for a few years pre-visable taking it on. I use mine for swimming and as a sports tracker which is what it was actually created for. Mine has also started the random turning off mid swim and if I plug it into my laptop to charge & sync it with polar flow it seems to stop this happening for a while and then will start again. I personal find an app called athlytic more useful than visable - its similar to whoop, but much cheaper and uses the data from my apple watch that I am already wearing to work out sleep quality, recovery etc. I contemplated the premium visible membership, but already struggle to remember to do a daily HR check in and rarely remember the evening one as it is so didn't thing it was worth it!

[@sarahstuart3245]

Did they get this sorted for you?

[@Alex-ck3ix]

thank you for this video. i appreciate you talking about both sides of the experience, youve validated a lot of my concerns

[@GeorginasJourney]

@@Alex-ck3ix no worries, glad it helped!

[@KrauseHayden]

I'm similar in that the heart rate pacing doesn't really apply to my body!! I also remember downloading the free app and found that the daily HRV didn't correlate with my symptoms at all.

[@GeorginasJourney]

So sorry to hear that 😞 But thank you so much for sharing this, a lot of people are coming to these comments for help/more personal experiences so this is really valuable to know, thank you 💕

[@filizmely]

I've had the same experience with the hrv

[@AshleyHolder-u3d]

This might be interesting to combine with something like the Bearable App that tracks stress, pain, emotions, and habits. Their score could be one of the custom factors you enter which would give another way to filter and analyze a more holistic view.

[@GeorginasJourney]

@@AshleyHolder-u3d that’s a great idea!

[@gemmalightfoot2669]

Thank you 💖 I've got centralised sensitisation (like fibro but just the pain factor, no auto immune issue) and migraines. But I'm also skint so if I pay out it HAS to be worth it 💖

[@GeorginasJourney]

@@gemmalightfoot2669 I completely understand that! Mine has currently been unused for weeks as the daily charging situation & getting it on & off makes it unusable for me :/

[@sfc-17]

Thank you for the considered review. This seems like a first gen type item that needs more data points to get a better picture. All the best to you.

[@GeorginasJourney]

Agreed, it honestly is a great tool for pots and heart rate pacing despite it being first gen, but it didn’t live up to much else for me

[@EmsJ1976]

Thank you for this - you’ve helped me make the decision that it’s not for me. xXx

[@GeorginasJourney]

🫶🏽❤️‍🩹

[@MilliPidi]

I’m curious about the oura ring for chronic illness too

[@GeorginasJourney]

Ooh, I wonder if you could search that on KZbin, Instagram or TikTok & see if any chronically ill people have made any videos on it!!

[@JH-lz4dh]

I’ve started wearing mine on my lower leg above my ankle since it’s sweater season right now

[@GeorginasJourney]

Oh that’s an idea! Does it seem accurate that way?

[@JH-lz4dh]

@@GeorginasJourney I’ve only done it for a few days, seems good so far, but not long enough to be sure.

[@sherrihaight2724]

That's convenient option.

[@HannahFrostFreespiritedwarrior]

This! My Fitbit can give me a high readiness score because like visible it only uses heart rate and hrv

[@GeorginasJourney]

Oh yeah that does sound pretty similar to the morning stability reading that Visible has!

[@KittenCasserole]

Thanks for sharing your experience, I’ve been wondering about this issue

[@GeorginasJourney]

Seems like it has benefits but many find other devices more helpful for a more holistic approach to the whole body!

[@filizmely]

I don't have the band bc it's not available where I live but used the free app for a while and have to agree. The constant hr monitoring isn't available on the free app so I didn't even have this beneficial feature but the hrv was alsomst completely usesless so much that I deleted the app in the end. My daily hrv did not represent my eds status at all bc my eds joint symptoms are not related to my hrv at all. My hrv in the morning often times was 3-4 but Id already woken up with massive joint pain from sleeping which dictated my whole day. But as that has no correlation the the hrv and theres no morning symptom tracking the whole statistics and tracking were absolutely pointless. I always scored an okay hrv but had horrible symptoms nontheless. One missing feature that really infuriated me and made me delete it in the end was that you track your symptoms at night and it's kind of like "did your morning hrv effected your symptoms throughout the day?" But most of the time I wake up with symptoms and need/want from the app to take into account those symptoms to begin with for the day. I wish I could track my symptoms in the morning and then when tracking again at night how theyve changed. But like this how the app is designed it feels like that they only focus on hrv as a deciding factor on symptoms throughout the day which may be true for pots but with eds and only mild pots that does not play such a big role for my overall symptoms the app feels almost useless. Also it does not have a heart rate reading option when needed eg when feeling a spike or drop in hr or when doing something and you wanna check did this effect my hr? Like a pulseoxy. I even reported these points back to the producers and they said they wanted to keep the tracking as easy as possible for chronically ill people so they did not want to add more mandatory features throughout the day to not be overexcerting. I said that I thought of it as an optional feature that does not go into the ongoing tracking but just for oneself to see if your feeling aligns with the actual reading to maybe help sharpening those selfsenses overtime/learning to trust in your feelings etc plus not having to carry a pulseoxy when you already have your phone with an app that has the feature to read hr on hand with you. But it was sort of brushed of by the producer person which disappointed me a lot. Also for the symptom tracking in the morning they said they wanted to make people think about and overthink their symptoms as little as possible. But in the end I found the constant tracking in the evening and the hrv so useless for my symptoms that I deleted the app bc I felt like it was making me more obsessive with thinking about my symptoms than necessary and helpful. I really don't get why they market it for illnesses like eds which in themselves don't have a direct correlation with hr. It should be marketed clearly mainly for hr issues which may stem from any of the listed illnesses but marketing it eg for eds itself feels very missleading Hope any of this makes sense ❤

[@sarahstuart3245]

Regarding not being able to auto set the HRV at the same time, I can understand why. I don't have a daily schedule. If I set it to a certain time that might not be when I'm in bed still. With POTs I've seen a few people use the support team to help set up the app to their own needs a bit better. Is it worth doing this for yourself to see if it can be tailored to you a bit more and be more useful? This was really helpful in thinking about weather I'm gonna get one. Thank you

[@GeorginasJourney]

@@sarahstuart3245 I understand that too, I was just saying I’d like an automatic option for those who would benefit from it 😊 not to enforce it on everyone! Thank you, I’ve actually had to stop wearing it atm due to the clothing/dressing & daily charging issues, I’m just not well enough for that atm sadly

[@beknight9399]

What about medication? My cardiac medication for POTS leads to normal pulse rates. Nevertheless, I have symptoms and have to pace strictly. At the beginning of medication, I had to relearn pacing, because my pulsrate and palpitations were no longer sufficient indicators. I don't like monitoring gadgets or symptom list anymore. They stress me out and it's easy to get compulsive. In the beginning of learning pacing those strategies were helpful. I'm now five years in (POTS, ME/CFS).

[@filizmely]

Absolutely agree on tracking getting compulsive!

[@GeorginasJourney]

All good points! I share a lot of these beliefs also and spoke about some of it in the video, latter half of the video I believe!

[@beknight9399]

​@@GeorginasJourneyYes, I saw it 😊. I wanted to validate your thoughts 🤗

[@Daisyy.mayyyx]

I quite like the app to track my activity and how long I’m doing something my main issues are the fact it only really tracks physical over doing it and not mental because it’s only tracks heart rate and the morning heart rate variability always tells me I’m a three slightly out of balance even when I’m feeling Awful. I thought that with the pace point it would change the amount you got each day depend on the Hrv score but it doesn’t so I don’t understand quite how the pacing works if on days I feel awful I still have the same pace points as a day where I’m feeling well

[@Daisyy.mayyyx]

Also think they could improve it if we could set notifications to go off to say how long we’ve been in activity heart rate instead of only getting notifications for over exertion as then that’ll help pacing activities that may not raise the heart rate enough for the over exertion notification

[@GeorginasJourney]

Really good points and I completely agree!

[@Daisyy.mayyyx]

@@GeorginasJourney just thought I’d say that I have found a easier way to get the device out of the armband if you push on the part that says polar through the armband with ur nail it will pop out easier than trying to pull it at the sides I have hyper mobile fingers and this is so much easier for me

[@GeorginasJourney]

@@Daisyy.mayyyx omg that’s way better, thank you!! My nerve pain was getting so bad with all the other ways I was trying and it snapped my nail off in a painful way too 🥲😂

[@sherrihaight2724]

It's the monthly rate that keeps me from just trying. What is included and is even usable without a sub?

[@GeorginasJourney]

@@sherrihaight2724 manual daily hrv reading if you remember and are well enough to take it & the score it gives, that’s about it.

[@sherrihaight2724]

​@GeorginasJourney They haven't returned my queries about what functions are basically included, and what functions require subscription for use. Because I've git no idea the monthly sub has really prevented me from purchasing as I'm not confident of what my purchase will get me.

[@sophiehobley828]

So. Your first issue I might be able to solve but is another poor accessibility feature. I'm too fat for the band to go on my upper arm and after thorough research found it coukd be placed at a very specific point on your forearm. So I hope that helps you. But ive been comparing the WHOOP band and the visible and my visible can't be returned but I woukd, I've decided not to return the WHOOP band despite the cost because it's changing the game. It chargers your recovery the day before and predicted strain for the day and honestly if you remember to track your HRV you can look at a full night's HRV on the app anyway and I wish I had coz I'd have predicted a huge crash. So if I'd even have been well enough to use visible (I'm not sure how I woukd) I'd have know earlier I was having a big crash and maybe in the days leading up to it. But charging it nightly I often forget to put it on or use it whereas WHOOP I can ignore for days I'm doing nothing anyway and just try to check in on things when I can. It tracks sleep and I'm USUALLY wrong about how my quality of sleep was so just check WHOOP first and input that data but it feels like cheating but makes my scores more accurate lol. I miss the alertd when I don't have them but checking WHOOP whilst it does have a minimum daily exertion it also has a maximum that can be made fairly sensible and adjusts to your recovery scores and stuff so makes some sense. My main problem with visible is now my heart rate is more controlled by medication it doesn't always catch me doing too much like it catches a lot but still not enough, or maybe it's the problem you have Georgia where I do so little to manage other symptoms it doesn't count like if I'm in a lot of pain coz my meds mean that rarely makes my pulse go up and if it does I'm in hospital or should be and know it so the alerts are pointless than. It's validating sometimes and super invalidating other times. Like you some of my best days scores have been my worst actual dsys. It's a funny one really. Coz I thought you'd be the perfect candidate based on what I knew of your symptoms and you thought roughly my description would be the perfect candidate so now I'm confused lol maybe new pots patients?

[@rhetoricalrune]

The info about the WHOOP band is really helpful! I'd love an alternative to my current set up of wellue heart monitor and fitbit which, while really great for 'just working' and instant notifications of hr overexertion (heart monitor vibrates) and numerical data (Fitbit graph) its a bit fiddly and doesn't give as much of a picture as I'd like. I had hoped the visible band could fill that gap but it truly just doesn't. I now have a new product to look into that might solve some of my issues so I thank you.

[@sophiehobley828]

@royal.bumble I'm glad it was helpful - the main disadvantages are that after the free year there is an expensive membership fee for the next full year. And that additional items like a band to go round your bicep etc is highly expensive

[@jacoblandis6953]

If I send you a Fitbit would you be willing to do a review video?

[@GeorginasJourney]

@@jacoblandis6953 I don’t have a PO Box I’m afraid!

[@GeorginasJourney]

@@jacoblandis6953 I’m also not a very techy person!

[@jacoblandis6953]

@@GeorginasJourney Maybe I can send you the money to buy one

[@GeorginasJourney]

@@jacoblandis6953 there must be hundreds if not thousands of Fitbit reviews online already 😊

[@angelaandreuzzi2275]

I was disappointed with Visible and canceled my subscription. In theory it's good but not for me. Having to charge it every night is such a crappy feature!! When my fatigue and brain fog is bad, remembering to charge it is another thing added to my plate that i dont need 🤷‍♀️ I wear my Garmin Vivoactive paired with Cardiogram (premium subscription) and feel I have a better overview of my health and symptoms...Way better than what Visible can offer. I got my Garmin specifically bc it has a fall detection/emergency contact notification. On top of that, it has constant heart rate monitoring (HR accuracy is +/-2), HR variability, pulse ox, sleep monitoring, etc.

[@GeorginasJourney]

I’m experiencing the exact same problems but don’t have the energy to learn how to use an alternative one atm, so at my worst, my visible bad will be unused for weeks at a time, but I still have to pay the monthly subscription 😅