I’m doing a lot of research on the Tslim to see whether there are any deal breakers.
I saw a post and a video on YouTube to mentioned about alarms briefly and could have implied there were some alarms that could not be silenced - it didn’t elaborate further so I wasn’t sure whether I understood that correctly.
I have my pump always set on vibrate mode because i don’t want it beeping in the middle of a meeting and everyone turns to look at you. Could someone using a Tslim kindly confirm for me please whether on the Tslim overrides the vibrate mode and actually beeps for certain alarms? The one that was mentioned was an occlusion alarm and a low BG alarm, but there may be more. This may be a deal breaker for me so I want to be sure there is no sounding alarms when my pump is set to vibrate mode.
Also it was mentioned, when you set temp basal to 0%, an alarm will also go off to say your basal is less than the min basal set or something like that. This may be annoying, if I set my temp basal to 0% for say an hour, how many times will it keep alarming?
I don’t think you can silence the pump shut off problems prolly, I am not sure. The fill tube beep which I actually don’t mind can’t be. I use temp basal o% a lot, it will do a vibrate alert at a certain time, I can’t remember how long. Most alerts can be set to vibrate. I don’t use it for my dex but in dex you can’t silence bg 55 and below.
You can set most alarms either to vibrate or a low volume. I would check with Tandem. * so I just checked and alerts and alarms can all be set to vibrate. I have alarms set to high. Alarms would be occlusion and insulin shut off I think.
It depends on what software you’re running. Up until Control-IQ, there were some sound settings you couldn’t control. With the introduction if Control-IQ, they updated the interface so you can set absolutely everything (at least that I’ve discovered so far, including occlusions) to vibrate only. However, they do draw a distinction between alerts (minor things) and alarms (major things), if you ignore an alarm for too long, it will eventually beep, as I discovered once while disconnected for an extended amount of time. I came back to the house to find a very noisy pump, but I haven’t a clue when it started beeping. It’s definitely not normal for a silenced pump to beep.
@Robyn_H it would be AT LEAST a year (if not more) that we get the control IQ here. We don’t even have basal IQ. I think we have FDA approval already but the bureaucracy will take time.
I think this is a show stopper for me. To have the alarm go off audibly is going to be a problem if I want to be discreet especially in an office environment. Are you able to confirm for me which alarms are the audible ones - this is really important factor in choosing my pump? I’m not using CGMS right now so the 55 and below alarm isn’t going to be a problem (and by the time i use it it would be with control IQ so according to your post above it can vibrate), but occlusion alarms or low battery/reservoir alarms are (if they are audible).
I’ve checked the alarm section of the documentation posted above and it doesn’t specifically call our which are audible.
I honestly don’t remember what things were involuntary before. I feel like there was an “alarms” section in the settings that only had audible options. That only includes things that require your immediate attention like, yes, occlusions or the auto-off if don’t touch your pump for 12-15 hours (your choice).
It also beeps during the fill tubing process. Something that was often complained about, even by myself. And now that I CAN turn off that noise, I wound up re-enabling it because otherwise I space out and waste insulin.
And trust me, I don’t begrudge you asking questions. I was every bit as diligent when trying to make the best choice for myself. Metronic p!ssed off a lot of people recently. Hence why people are bailing on them en mass. But they might very well still be the best choice for some, depending on your particular needs.
Personally, I would try to hold out as long as possible to replace now. A lot of people here have used pumps out of warranty when they couldn’t decide where to go next. MDI is even a plausible backup with better long-acting insulins and smart pens for tracking. There are just too many exciting things on the horizon, including innovative things from Bigfoot Medical and Beta Bionics, and the US isn’t always the first market pumps are introduced in. I’m pretty sure the Ypso pumo is in Australia, too, isn’t it? I’ve seen it mentioned favorably here.
We are quite slow in Australia, I haven’t seen much advancement in insulin pumps in the last 10 years (besides CGMS interface). Ypso is available but not many people to my knowledge use it, and when you have such a small market of users, support is usually hard to find (from endos/DE/Doctors/users). By the time all the good stuff comes to our shores, its probably time for my next pump upgrade!
If the beeping only happened if you ignore the alarms for a period of time it’s not so bad, I can accept that. But if the beep sound starts as the first warning where you don’t have the opportunity to shut it off before its starts being vocal, thats what I’m nervous about. Thanks for letting me know that it gets remediated with control IQ, at least there is hope - appreciate that.
Is there anyone here who is a TSlim user but does not have the control IQ upgrade able to confirm the behaviour of the alarms?
My 8 yo son is an Australian T-slim user with Dexcom G5 CGM.
The only CGM alarm that can’t be disabled is the “urgent low” which gives three low pitch beeps. I think that is fixed at 2.9mmol and can’t be changed. Hopefully with a CGM integrated pump you would rarely be going that low!
In addition to this, the ‘All deliveries stopped’ audible alert can’t be turned off, but you will only get this if you manually stop insulin for 10 minutes or more. There’s no reason to be doing this at work as you can set a 0% basal rate which effectively does the same thing. I think it may also go off if you haven’t restarted insulin within 10 minutes of an occlusion alarm, but a) we have had maybe 3 of those in 15 months, and b) if your insulin is stopped and you haven’t done anything about it after 10 minutes you probably need to hear the loud beeps for your own safety.
Every other alert or alarm can be set to ‘vibrate only’.
Edit: just remembered, it does make a high pitch beep when you connect it up to recharge.
@Dylan_Sutton Thanks for that, that was really helpful. So with the occlusions it actually doesn’t beep unless you addressed it within 10 mins of the initial warning?
We get occlusion alarms so infrequently I couldn’t say for sure, but I believe that if pump alarms are set to vibrate then it should do that first, and only give an audible alert if it’s stopped for 10 minutes.
As someone with a phobia of lows though, just the thought of disabling the alerts for those makes me uneasy, so you’ll have to rely on someone else for that one!
Just set it to 0% and still got the alert a minute after… I think it worked earlier because I was running tests and already had the alert a few minutes before I tried it with my modified profile.
It’s probably related to your normal basal rate at the moment you go on temporary (which mean it would work only between 23:59-00:00).
this is brilliant!!!
haha
