Sam, if you have an Android phone, I’d say go for it.
The G4 Share sends an RF signal to the G4 receiver. From there it is relayed to an iPhone resident app called Share2 via bluetooth low energy signal. You may not operate the iPhone app without the receiver. The iPhone app can also relay a bluetooth signal to a smartwatch. I use the Apple Watch but I also have a Pebble smartwatch to see a BG display. The G4 transmitter is warrantied for 6 months and some people report more than 1 year’s service life. The two I’ve drained have last 9-10 months for me. The G4 receiver display as white pixels on black background.
The G5 system sends a signal from the transmitter to a receiver and/or an iPhone. In essence you have two separate receivers. The G5 transmitter is hard-wired to expire in 90 + 22 days maximum. In the US, Dexcom sold 2 G5 transmitter for the same price as 1 G4 transmitter. The G5 receiver displays mostly white background contrasted with turned off (black) pixels. Many users report reduced range with the G5 vs. G4. Some people report more missed data points with the G5 vs. G4. Some users report little to no data loss with their G5 systems.
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With the new update, we have been able to turn off the audible alarms for everything except for the urgent low. Are you finding something different? It sounds like you are not able to turn off the audible for any of the alerts. Am I misunderstanding?
You can’t easily mute all of the alarms, which is actually a significant problem for usability. I have to go in manually and turn each low/high alert to vibrate and then back to the low/high alert when I want to silence my phone, which is pretty often for short periods of time (meetings etc). Not being able to use the silence switch or DND function is disruptive and increases the odds I’ll forget to turn the Dex alerts back on and then miss them (which has already happened to me).
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Hi @Lorraine. On Sunday early morning the sensor about to expire alarm came on and that is LOUD, both vibrating and fire alarm bells. This bypasses the Do Not Disturb.
The other night at 3am my phone vibrated and beeped b/c it need a calibration, again bypassing the Do Not Disturb of my iPhone.
Also, even when you have the HIGH and LOW alarms set to vibrate, the phone still vibrates when you have the watch on. Why did they change this? Vibrate is just as loud when the phone sits on your desk.
At least you guys have a phone app. 
As a droid user, I’m still waiting for anything at all.
Oh. We haven’t experienced this yet. I’m glad to be on the alert. This sounds like no fun at all. 
Personally to avoid this update I shut off my automatic updates when I started hearing about it. Luckily it hadn’t updated it yet. So I just go in and update other ones and leave that one be.
I personally haven’t had an issue with the new update yet. I do wish they would allow customizable sound alerts(like ringtones). I actually like the fact the ‘do not disturb’ switch will be overruled if there is an alarm being ‘ignored’ overnight. I am a very light sleeper, and don’t want to hear text message alerts or any other unimportant things overnight. I HAVE missed low alarms because of this (one time drifting in the 40’s for several hours). So to me, I feel much more safe going to sleep at night knowing no matter what I will get the important audible while still ignoring the random group text messages family and friends decide to do at 11 pm (I get up at 3:45 AM every morning…so, I don’t want that LOL)
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There is a fairly easy solution. Go to Settings > Alarms, and for each alarm set it to Vibrate Only. Now the only alarm that makes noise is the Urgent Low.
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Still not great if you want to be able to quickly shut them on and off often—as someone who has to go in and out of meetings and such, but otherwise wants them on, that’s kind of key.
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Apparently, after speaking with a Dexcom Tech, all this has come about because of the FDA! They have decided that there should only be ONE device that you are allowed to control at a time. I found this out because I was complaining that since the update, I couldn’t acknowledge the alerts on my watch, but had to always unlock my iPhone, and acknowledge them there–which was a real pain if my phone was in my purse or on the charger. This kind of defeats my having bought the Apple Watch–and since I’m on Medicare, I am paying out of pocket. Before the update, I could acknowledge the alert on my watch easily.
So… basically the FDA is saying if you want a device to work the way the user wants, in a way that is tailored to the user’s requirements for the medial device, you need to use open source software like xDrip+. I can’t see how this is making people any safer.
I use a pebble watch and find that the vibrate on the watch is pretty awesome as far as alerts go. Much better than noise or a vibrating phone in my pocket and it actually wakes me up at night. Plus I can dismiss the alarm from the watch.
Yes, that’s nice, AE13, but I use an iPhone and an Apple Watch, so I think I’m out of luck…
Very interesting… I just read on the Dexcom Forum on Facebook, that indeed Dexcom is telling patients (as they told me), that it was the FDA who mandated the unfortunate changes to their software, however that is NOT true!!! Everyone on that forum was complaining about the software update too, and somebody actually called the FDA, and was told that Dexcom had total control of the software!
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Anyone else get a user satisfaction survey from Dexcom about the update? I’m guessing they are sending it out in response to the complaints…
My favorite is the calibration alarm. Because whether or not I enter my first two values is life and death… and I honestly don’t even want the urgent alarm going off during the day. Night maybe, day no thanks.
Always great when a diabetes device interrupts meetings and interviews. That’s one of the reasons I no longer want a cgm integrated into my pump because it would not shut up.
Stop waiting today and use xdrip.
I didn’t update after reading about the alarm issue. I just got a very detailed survey from Dexcom about the G5 so It seems they are rethinking the alarm situation.
If you have your phone backed up to a computer, it is possible to delete the current 1.5.1 app and load the older version back on your phone. I did this with a back-up in iTunes.
This allow for the alarm option again.
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