At long last my phone upgrade has arrived. Iphone or Android ?. My choice seems to depend on which operating system is going to best incorporate blood sugar monitoring / pump management in the future. The indications so far are that Android might have the better potential from an app development point of view. However Iphone seems to have the best existing apps.
Ultimately I'm looking for phone that will be able to absorb pump / CBM data and act if required. That may not be possible yet but in the future ?
Are you talking about actually managing the pump? If so, then I don’t believe your current phone decision will make any difference as having phone pump controllers will need to be approved by the FDA and AFAIK there is only 1 510K application in the US for such a device (the Jewel one and that is on Android) and it was only recently filed. The FDA has recently increased scrutiny of infusion devices, so in addition to the normal lengthy approval process we’ll have this to deal with as well.
Now, if you’re talking about (not) supporting evil monopolists masquerading as hipsters, then we can have a discussion!
thanks for comments. I’ve been reading through the hacking discussion and I feel it will only be a matter of time before interactions between phones and pumps can be engineered to satisfy the FDA’s requirements. That may be a little optimistic however as I don’t know much about the process of getting clearance. If there remains unsolvable issues on the interaction between the two devices I think that the phone may still act solely as a reporting unit for a pumps data
Yeah, the tech is there today. The issues are the reliability of consumer grade devices vs medical devices. Can you imagine the liability issues if someone hacked you bluetooth connection and bolused all the remaining insulin to you? Or if it got a “Force Close” during the night messing up your basal? Those situations are the kinds of things any manufacturer will have to satisfy the FDA on. I’m with you though - I want to be able to carry 1 device as opposed to the suitcase-full it feels like I do now!
I don’t know that you will be able to avail yourself of a single device to handle everything life- and dLife-related in the next upgrade cycle. The multitasking capabilities of both handhelds are still somewhat rudimentary; those which would be background (but still running) tasks in a desktop environment appear to be suspended in a handheld environment. In addition, movement from one network (3G or now, 4G or LTE where available) to another (WiFi) often closes background and/or suspended tasks (I find it all too often with my browsers and On Track, the Android-based log on which I rely).
The security issues involved with having personal (blood glucose and pump) data on a handheld platform that can be easily lost or stolen may also be an issue. (Remember, cellphones are still highly-desirable and easily-available objects of opportunity for theft; the same cannot be said of traditional attached-to-pump-and-tubing insulin-pump controllers.)
That all said, as someone who sells Verizon Wireless phones for a living, I lean towards Android or Blackberry. In most of the United States, Verizon has the larger 3G network, our voice and data run over separate networks (as opposed to AT&T and Sprint), and our technology (CDMA versus TDMA) means that network congestion is not going to cause chunks of data to not-make-it to your cloud-based application. OTOH, the number of applications currently available for all platforms puts iPhone in the lead, followed by Blackberry, and then by Android. The advantage of Blackberry is, frankly, data security. Device-level encryption has still not made it over to Android (if it has, someone PLEASE let me know ASAP - I’ve been searching for an app of that sort for a client!), so it’s a lot easier for someone who finds (or steals) your Android device to paw through (and alter) your data than it would be if you had a Blackberry or an iPhone.
I think that this issues of hacking will not be to bad to overcome as long as inbuilt safety limits are set up that are not affected by any communications. In fact I’m fairly sure if you integrate the devices with external communications centres I’m sure you could reduce the number of false bolus / basal doses being administered. So where’s your vote going ? I-phone or Android ?
I was mainly using that as an argument of the things that will have to be addressed for the FDA to approve anything (though one would be well advised to remember how many “unbreakable” protocols are easily broken as time marches on). Trust me, I want this as soon as possible, but when the government and lawyers get involved… well, I tend to get pessimistic.
Android for sure. Right now I’m rocking an Evo 4G and wishing I could use it to control my Omnipod.
I hear you there, but I found that the ScottEVests were the solution for me. I have the beige and black ones now. Also has a great pocket for iPod with the ability to “hide” your earbud wires.
I vote for Androids but none will sync with your pump. Hey why don’t some of you real smart geeks design it. I would be more than willing to test it out for the Omnipod.
thanks for vote. preference taken on board. As I understand it the issue is that secure data being transferred between pumps and CBM will not be accessable by your standard iphone/ android unless significant restrictions are put in place to protect the integrity of the data and transfers. These restrictions will be costly for any app developer to apply and difficult to get drug board approval. However what if the app was just designed to receive data from the pump / CBM and provide a reporting platform ?. The management of the insulin could remain with the CBM / pump. Does anyone feel that this could be a simpler option to develop first ?
What if the app on the phone just acted as a reporting unit that could receive data from the pump / CMD but had no ability to adjust the bolus / basel. Would this be an alternative that would have a better chance of clearance from the drugs boards etc…?
Please also see attached link http://www.jewelpump.com. It does appear that this pump is being managed via an HTC Android device. Not sure if this is real life yet but if a monitor was bulit into the device in the same way as the ibgstar iphone (see below) then essentially thats all you need for single device managment ?
