Diane, I know a couple of Dexcom ex-fanboys (and an ex-fangirl) who were AMAZED by how much better Abbott readings were… for them. But Dexcom’s original (STS), and the brand new model (SEVEN+, same as yours) have been really great for me, I’m not tempted to switch after upgrading to the 7+. The model in the middle (the original “SEVEN”) had some really bad habits-- like not respecting calibration readings, and going “out to lunch” for two, even three hours at a time with “???” while you feed it reading, and more readings, all STABLE and correct… and then coming back fine after you do a restart on the Sensor.
The 7+ still goes away with “???” blank screens sometimes, but when you type in a fresh bG reading from your meter, it always starts graphing again immediately. And, when your meter said “78”, the 7+ will respect that reading-- it will NOT show “131” when you just told it that your current reading is “78”. The older 7 often had a habit of doing that, “I don’t believe you, I’m gonna show what I want to show.” Totally infuriating, fixable only by restart. 7+ seems to have more respect for new readings, less of a “memory” for conflicting old ones which occurred with similar “raw” Sensor voltage readings.
I also see that the new Transmitter has a small “enhancement” in the physical shape of it’s plastic case: There’s now indentations where the Sensor contacts are “sprung” up into the Transmitter. It’s only a tiny thing, but the effect is BIG: there’s no longer a tiny gap for sweat to evaporate into and then condense on the Transmitter, between the contacts (ruining the readings). And this also keeps the contacts from sliding around. When I removed my Transmitter for cleaning after day 4, it was TOTALLY clean, and neither the original ‘STS’ or the older ‘SEVEN’ would be sweat-free after that many days.
lawsuit comment:
I wonder about the basis of Abbott’s suit, since Dexcom ‘STS’ came to market years before Abbott Navigator did. But it does worry me-- even if Dexcom is “in the right” and the suit is almost baseless, there have been SO MANY instances of wealthy companies suing less wealthy competitors and winning, without ever proving anything to a jury, simply because the smaller firms doesn’t have enough $millions (or, often, TENS of $millions) lying around to defend themselves before winning their Court Costs back after the verdict. Abbott could probably destroy Dexcom by inflicting excessive discovery costs, long before Dexcom could reach the end of a complex Trial.
I don’t know if Dexcom maybe DID steal some “Abbott proprietary, secret” information which WASN’T already known to many other researchers at various universities, and/or published in various journal papers without restriction, or original work of Dexcom’s. If Abbott’s “proprietary” information leaked out into the public, and Dexcom merely used it, then Abbott has no case against Dexcom-- it’s Abbott’s responsibility to keep their “secret sauce” secret, and their suit must be against the person who made it public. If, OTOH, Dexcom had a direct hand in stealing-- it wasn’t in public hands, Dexcom took part in actual theft of Abbott’s trade secrets-- then Dexcom must be punished, I think, and Abbott must be compensated, even though I like Dexcom’s product. If Abbott tried the “trade secret” route, and Dexcom arrived at nearly identical technology via their own, independent research, then Abbott can’t complain: AFAIK, it HAS TO be either patent-based or stolen “trade secret”. But IANAL, these are totally UNQUALIFIED conjectures. I don’t even know the State or Court in which Abbott filed the lawsuit.
And if it’s based on patents, rather than trade secrets, then God help us all: USPTO seems to stamp “approved” on all kinds of garbage applications, even if they’re obvious or already invented (and often even patented) by someone else.
My alltime favorite is probably this one:
http://www.patentstorm.us/patents/6022219/description.hml
Yep, this is an APPROVED patent for slapping paint on a baby’s butt and “printing” it for posterity. Full of words like, “The steps of dipping and stamping can be repeated as often as desired, with the optional step of cleaning the infant’s posterior when changing paint colors.”
As far as USPTO is concerned, this is an “original and non-obvious” idea. Ms. Cohen can now sue the Kern County Registrar’s office for stealing HER IDEA when they put my footprints on my birth certificate (almost 50 years BEFORE this patent was issued.)
And there’s so many ridiculous patents, it seems almost the rule rather than the exception. The patent issued for “crustless peanut butter and jelly sandwich” is pretty funny, too. USPTO issued a patent, recognizing the idea as “original and non-obvious”, even though there probably isn’t an elementary school lunchroom in the ENTIRE WORLD where this hasn’t been invented over and over (by kids who can’t even read yet.)
God help us all if the lawsuit is based on more patents of the obvious, patents of public information, patents of merely thinking… in USA can you patent practically anything, and then sue somebody for “infringing it”.
