I was browsing the reddit diabetes subreddit the other day and came across a thread by a type 1 diabetic who is an iOS developer. He loves the G5, but thought that dexcom really dropped the ball by not having a complication on the watch face that shows your blood sugar. I wholeheartedly agree. Anyway, I installed his beta app “watchSugar” on my watch/G5 combo today, there’s a picture link below for those interested. Also, below is a snippet from the his reddit thread:
Fellow Type 1 Diabetic here. I’ve been on various Dexcom CGM systems for years now and I’ve gotta say, the G5 is a world better than anything that came before it. Not having to carry a receiver around anymore is very freeing.
But as an iOS developer it drove me crazy that the Dexcom G5 Mobile app didn’t offer an Apple Watch watch-face complication. Dexcom went 99% of the way to the holy grail of CGM only to drop the ball on the 1 yard line. Imagine being able to see your blood sugar in less than a second by simply raising your wrist.
(It’s infuriating because they already have a third party application on our iPhones that could talk to an Apple Watch AND they already have all of the needed data right there in the same application, ready to go. Implementing a complication is really not that much work once you already have all this plumbing in place.)
Anyway, I couldn’t resist solving this problem. The fact that the Dexcom Share feature sends your blood sugar data to a web server allowed me to write a simple client that downloads this data and keeps your watch in sync. I’ve been using it this past week and it’s definitely a game changer. The watch face really takes a lot of friction out of diabetes management. As I imagine it will be useful to more people that just me, I’ve decided to release it to the public. Current plan is to release it a free app on the App Store and open source the code.
Can’t get an Apple Watch unless I also get an iPhone. While the incremental cost is not prohibitive, the overall cost goes well beyond the devices themselves. I frequently make knee-jerk decisions, but this one takes some thought. Planning even. Admittedly, this watchface does cut down one of my hesitations – until now, I liked the way my AndroidWear (they delberately names it ‘Apple Watch’ so that ‘AW’ would be confusing, didn’t they??) watch works re:xDrip data feed.
While I certainly don’t want to turn this into an apple vs android discussion, I’ll give my two cents. FIrst of all, my background, I’ve worked in software development and database architecture for 16 years, so I’m not green to software or it’s development lifecycle. I once owned an android tablet, it was sold within 2 months. I think that android does some things well, but there are a couple of things they do very poorly. The worst being, app store regulations. They pretty much allow anything into the google app store, and this doesn’t work for me. I had to sift through so many garbage applications when I owned an android tablet, very frustrating. Also, there are waaay too many different devices running android. With apple the devs are able to consistently write code for the same iphones, ipads, apple watches, etc, and have consistent operating system updates for the devices running the apps, with android, it’s not quite that way. I’m buried deep into the apple infrastructure, I’ve got apple car play in my car, an apple watch, an iphone, ipad, macbook pro, and apple tv, and I couldn’t be happier, because everything works seamlessly together, emphasis on works.
I want want WANT this feature, but on my iPhone! I’m not likely to get an Apple watch any time soon, but one of the biggest barriers to Dexcom receiver-independence is the fact that I have to log into my phone and navigate to the Dex app to see my current #s, versus just hitting the button on my receiver. Echoing the data to the Notifications screen would be a huge improvement.
Been thinking that in the gasp Android world too – Alerts go to notifications, but I’d like to just see BG in the notification bar.
@TylerDrew - My background is in software development, too – I understand the simplicity of a well-integrated, cohesive platform – I’m just too much of an open source/open platform junkie…
Tyler, I’d love to beta the complication. T1 here for 45 years. Love my Apple Watch but have always wished Dex would have done the complication for the G5. TIA
