I want to see if ANYONE from DEXCOM can straighten out my thought process. The G6 communicates with our receivers and cell phones using Blootooth.
The G6 can only transmit to two devices at once.other devices , watches, insulin pumps get their from our cell phones via Bluetooth. Or just Pump and receiver of some sort. NOT pump, phone and receivers at one time.
All of the above makes senses to me.
Now The G7. How does it transmit. I understand it will only community with its receiver and nothing else. But I have heard of people using phones, maybe watches, but no pumps as of yet. Right or wrong.
And lastly I challenge the good engineers at DEXCOM to come up with a non-smart watch for the G6 and G7 that will just display time and Glucose reading only
100% agree. I really hope the Dexcom software engineers are listening. Or reading these discussions. Whatever.
Why oh why cannot the Dexcom transmitter send an update (like every 5 minutes) to my smartwatch (Garmin). It (the watch) will communicate with ALL KINDS of different signal generators, heart rate monitors, bicycle wattmeters, cadence transmitters, but needs a phone and full time internet connectivity to be able to show me my sugar.
I’m often adventuring where cellphones don’t have internet.
Dexcom is limited because the FDA requires that, and the other regulatory agencies in other countries. Actually dexcom can connect to one medical device and unlimited other non medical devices like phones.
I know dexcom is working on a direct to watch solution, but remember it’s not as simple as it seems, this needs to go through extensive testing and FDA approval. There is a significant issue with regard to privacy.and someone walking by you cold read your data if it’s not protected. pumps can be hacked and cause you to get more insulin form another device on purpose or accidentally. So yea we need care and testing before having that in the hands of patients
It’s my understanding that the g7 Will work the same way as G6 to start out and the other functionalities will be added.
I’m not sure about the accuracy of your G6 communications understanding:
I believe that the G6 is allowed to connect to ONE “receiver” and ONE phone. The “receiver” may be either an actual Dexcom receiver or it may be a pump ,. but not both. I use a Tandem X2 pump and am pretty certain that the connection from the G6 transmitter to the pump is a direct bluetooth connection and counts as the one allowed receiver connection.
Then I also have one bluetooth connection to my phone which, in my case is an iPhone. I think that I have three different apps on my phone that “look at” the Dexcom data that the phone receives: the Dexcom app, the Tandem t:Connect app, and the Sugarmate app.
As you suggest , the Apple watch data comes from the Dexcom app from my phone and is not directly connected to the transmitter.
To the best of my knowledge, the G7 does not change the policy of allowing one “receiver” (that is, pump or receiver) connection and one phone connection.
Note: I have no REAL experience with a G7 yet, so this is just based on examining the online G7 User Guide:
I agree that a “direct to phone” connection would be nice … but I have know knowledge of what the future of that may hold.
You were so close, except this little bit. Yes, G6 is permitted 2 Bluetooth connections. One medical device (pump or receiver, but not both) and one personal device (mobile phone, tablet, WearOS watches that are capable of being standalone collectors, etc…). The only thing off is that it’s not a wide open connection to the phone that any app can access. It’s a connection to one specific app, usually the official Dexcom G6 app, but could be another replacement like the build-your-own Dexcom variant, Xdrip or Spike. The T: connect app actually receives it’s CGM data from the pump, not the transmitter. You might have current data in the G6 app but NOT in t:connect if the pump missed the signal. Similarly, SugarMate gets it’s data elsewhere, too, either by using Dexcom’s “follow” feature or it can retrieve it from your Nightscout website, if you’ve set one up.
As to @John70 's original question, my understanding is that the G7 can connect to 3 devices, instead of 2, and that it no longer discriminates between personal or medical use. So you can connect to pump+receiver+watch, pump+receiver+phone, receiver+watch+phone, or pump+watch+phone. The only reason there’s no pump connections yet is because now that the G7 is approved for use, the pump people need to write new software and training materials, train their staff on the new device, establish and organize the system for rolling out the new software update and distributing it to the patients, verify that we patients are trained and worthy to receive the update, they may need to process prescriptions for the new software, etc … It’s a massive pain in the butt that will take some time to put into action. Tandem says 3-6 months, but I don’t know Insulet’s timeline for it. There will indeed be more connectivity options in the very near future, though.
The problem with connecting watches lies in the watches themselves, not Dexcom. In general, people want too much from watches and they struggle to fit it all under the hood. There’s just not practical room for a big enough battery to keep a full operating system running for at least a day but hopefully longer, plus all the watch/display components, the charging port, the gyroscope and accelerometer that help the watch respond intuitively, the environmental sensors, and all the fitness sensors… You have to sacrifice some stuff to have a watch capable of running the full Dexcom app, usually battery life, which makes the watches much less appealing. It’s so much easier and less resource-intensive to just repeat info from the phone. And then there’s the other problem of most watches running a proprietary operating system, rather than something standardized like IOS, Android, or Linux. It comes down to if your want Dexcom on a watch, you either need to purchase a watch capable of running the full app or you need to be linked to your phone. I don’t think there’s much Dexcom can offer other than those 2 options.
Not exactly what you’re looking for, but when I was trying to find some alternative to the Apple Watch—way too expensive with way too many functions when all I wanted was time and BG reading—I discovered there’s a watch-face widget for Fitbit called Glance that comes pretty close. You have to have an app-capable Fitbit, so I got a Versa 2, which qualifies. It uses Dexcom Share for the data—you just set up a Share account for it and then configure the app accordingly. Kinda like the Sugarmate widget if you’re familiar with that. Neither of them is Bt dependent; they get the data over WiFi or cellular from the Share server.
Works great. Only downside is people asking you for the time when you’ve just been checking your BG. My wife does this all the time. “Oh, let me look again.”
