Hello,
Anyone else using the Dexcom G5 via the iPhone mobile app experiencing “signal lost” during the a.m. hours? My phone sits on the nightstand right next to me, almost every night after I fall asleep (usually 1.5 hours after), it loses signal…and stays “lost” until I wake up, this could be hours and hours. Super frustrating, is there a setting I’m missing?
Thank you,
Danny
I occasionally lose the signal if I roll over on my side (or when one of my cats decides he wants to sleep on just that spot) but I haven’t lost the signal for a long period of time. Are you a side or stomach sleeper, by any chance?
Yes! My son uses the G5–and we have had repeated “signal loss” in the am hours. I have been told that if it is in a spot that you might put pressure on, it can distort the signal. Where is the transmitter located?
@CatLady06 & @Bradford1 Thank you both so much for the response. I’ve been using the Dexcom CGM since 2009, never have I encountered so many signal failures in the middle of the night with the good ol’ fashioned receiver. I sleep the same way I slept when using the receiver, 90% of the time on the opposite side as my receiver. Last night I programmed a 30 minute alarm if the signal was lost… funny, I did not lose the signal last night. Probably the first time in a month. Hmmm…
Typical, eh? I have had problems with lost signals overnight. I have avoided them by not sleeping on the side with the sensor; however, I can manage to control how I sleep most of the time. I’m sure not everyone can do that…
Oh yes me too. I lose a signal overnight on random nights although my phone is about 10-15 feet away from my bed. My solution is to use the dex receiver in my bed. So, i don’t really need the phone during the night. The only downside is that Clarity does not get all the values that the phone misses. But this setup works very well for me. And, I can continue to use the “Do Not Disturb” feature on my phone over night and not miss any alarms since my dex receiver is in my bed.
Anthony, if the phone misses some data but the Dex receiver catches the same data, doesn’t Dexcom Clarity draw from both sources and fill in the missing data? I’m using my last G4 transmitter and have been watching this issue. Avoiding carrying a receiver never felt like a big benefit to me.
Terry, yes Clarity will combine the 2. However, with the receiver you have to actually manually connect and upload the data. It’s not worth the hassle for me since 80% of my readings do show up on the iphone.
I don’t have the G5, because I do have the Vibe. I also usually carry the receiver, since its alarms are louder and better than the Vibe’s. It’s nice to have the option of leaving the receiver at home (there are certainly times when that is more convenient), but generally, carrying the receive is not a lot of additional 'baggage" to me.
20% seems like a lot of data lost to me. I may be unusual for CGM wearers but I see current data as only a partial benefit; looking back at data trends provides me tangible benefits and a guide to making dosing changes. I upload and follow my data closely. Now, I know there are inherent inaccuracies in the system but missing 20% of the data would be unacceptable to me. Is it really that high?
Like, @Thas, it could be attractive to me to leave the receiver behind during the day but I want to capture as much of the data as possible.
80% of night time readings. I get pretty much 100% readings on the phone for 18 hours each day,etc. Not a big deal for me.
Since you can calibrate on either the receiver or apple device–and updates on both–does that mean that the receiver is able to communicate with the apple device? And if so, why wouldn’t it also be capable of uploading BGs to Clarity? Just wondering how I can calibrate on my receiver and it shows up on my iPad.
Calibration values are stored in the transmitter. Receiver and Apple devices don’t communicate directly.
I have the exact same issue, latest iPhone 6s Plus so not a hardware issue. Dexcom transmitter is a meter away from my iPhone at most when it’s charging at night and loses single thus making my hba1c average massively higher too! Wish I hadn’t gone for the G5 tbh given its extra cost should have just got a G4 as you need the receiver anyhow due to connectivity issues. It’s almost like the app is closing after X period of the phone not being used.
“It’s almost like the app is closing after X period of the phone not being used.”
BINGO!
This is my update on a different topic: Dexcom G5 Review - Update
UPDATE:
I just spoke with the G5 Mobile App team at Dexcom and I feel we accomplished a lot in terms of information exchange. Here are the topics we discussed.
G5 Mobile App losing a connection to the iPhone
I expressed how I often lose my connection to my iPhone overnight. Even though the distance to my iPhone during sleep is 15’ (within the 20’ limit) I still lose a connection every other night. They feel it may be due to a soft reset of the G5 app on my iPhone during the night due to a memory leak. After this reset I lose the connection for the rest of the night. I’m going to work with them this week to narrow down whether the G5 app is leaking memory or if its another one of my apps.
Anthony
Just curious if anyone got anywhere with this? I pretty much lose the signal every night and I’m starting to get really frustrated because I’m losing a lot of overnight data. I was curious if it possibly had anything to do with the fact that I plug my phone in to charge every night? Sounds far fetched but I just can’t see why this is happening nightly.
I’m losing data all the time on my phone as well. I gave up on the phone and just carry my receiver everywhere now. Waiting till omnipod integrates everything…
I’m afraid not @Melissa_M. I don’t lose the signal every night - but it seems its about every other night. What is happening from speaking to Dexcom is that the phone is reaching some type of memory limit and doing a soft reboot of all the running apps. This basically shuts down the G5 app until you start it up again by tapping on it. I reached out to Dexcom again this week, but have yet to receive a reply. They initially recommended rebooting my phone every night before I sleep, but that is just not a practical solution for me.
Will keep you all updated.
Hmmmm interesting explanation from Dexcom that doesn’t seem to make much sense. My iphone never does a “soft reboot” on running apps (that I know of).