I was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes this month :( It's been quite challenging adjusting to this new life. As a young adult, who heavily relies on technology, I was really disappointed with the lack of quality applications to make our lives easier. I decided to make my own iPhone and Android application to to help manage diabetes.
I would love to get your feedback on features that you would like to see in this app that would increase your (our) quality of life.
An app to be the ultimate Log book/ Carb counter /Bolus wizard would be great. The perfect app for me would let me search for foods and enter the carbs into a log then calculate a bolus from the carbs just entered and the BG read I have just downloaded from my meter. It would allow me to accept or override the bolus and then enter it all into the log book.
If you could do this for both the IPhone and Android that would be great. That's not asking to much is it? ☺
Well, an app that brings up foods I can have when I'm on the road. Such as starbucks, my friends practically worship there but I never can tell what would be best, usually I get a black coffee or mocha those I've asked about.
Interfacing with other applications would be very useful, like the ability to interface the data file from my Pump/CGM and perhaps a Food App (I like Lose It! b/c the interface is snazzier than MyFitnessPal although I like the more detailed data in MFP too...) and my Garmin 405 would almagamate the three tools together to provide better overall data to interpret.
Well in a dream world I would like an app that allowed the addition of hardware to enable blood testing capability , as well as being a remote for my pump and a CGM reciever with in built food database and syncing with edmono sports tracker and my garmin ha :)
Hi, sorry to hear about your diagnosis - yet I cannot help but feel that with your proactive attitude you will be great!
Where are you located? Do you have any specific constraints? I am a design grad student (previously a data/info/research person) and looking to collaborate. Would be happy to work with you on defining user requirements etc. or just have a chat!
In any case, I would say what most of the apps do not do is a. avoid duplicating entry and b. be fast enough to be practical. I would also need this to scrape the csv files of my pump if possible. Sent you a PM. Love your style!
Thanks everyone for the suggestions. Most of the things mentioned are already in the plans :) I hope that once this app is out, some of you will find it useful!
I think it is great that you want to make an app that would help us. I also think it would be a good idea to go over the various apps for diabetes that are already out there. Then you could make an app that also incorporates the things that are missing that we would like to see.
I am a 69 YO t1d (50 years) engineer and have developed just such an app for my iPhone. I’ve used versions of it for 10+ years with good success (HA1c< 7). It is an open source (free) app on github called Diabetes_Compass. It is not, however, Android (although you could certainly make an Android clone). It estimates the time course of blood glucose (BG) as a function of food and insulin based on the data you provide and plots it. It includes Internet search of foods, creation or your own, and saving favorites for repeat usage. It also estimates HA1c and trends it. The downside is that you have to be somewhat fluent in iOS (iPhone coding), so it’s not for everyone. As you might expect, there are so many variables that effect BG that it’s not always right in its predictions, so you still have to carefully watch yourself and check BG. I am happy to help if you’re interested in a try. Also, since it’s open source, we welcome inputs and improvements.
For women, I would like to be able to mark day 1 of menstrual cycle and for the app to keep track and analyse how the cycle could be impacting on insulin requirements, changes in diet etc. As far as I know the cgms don’t even do this and I don’t know why given that it would be helpful to so many women who have to adjust insulin at various points in cycle, yet another moving variable to try to keep track of, oh the joys!
I would love an app where more than one diabetics info could be used. Having 4 in my house (2 children and 2 adults) would be great. Most are geared for only one persons info.
