Instant xdrip fan!

I whined and moaned and generally been a real baby whenever I’m reminded that you Apple Fanboys have your Dexcom info on your iPhones and Apple Watches. Somehow I’d missed all the progress with the xdrip project.

Well, I’m on the G5, and xdrip supports the transmitter directly now. No need to cobble together a custom hardware bridge. So I installed xdrip+ yesterday, and… WOW!

I’m like a kid that just got that Tonka Truck under the tree for Christmas that I’d been drooling over for the entire year. I’ve ditched my Dexcom receiver. I have this boffo watchface on my Android Wear watch with my BG and a little graph. I can see my BG with a glance.

In short, I’m at parity with you Apple dudes now. I am SO HAPPY!!! Now if they can just figure out how to control the pod from Android (will take a piece of bridge hardware at this point).

And, xdrip+ is a massively more useful, feature-rich application for dealing with CGM data than what is included on the receiver (or the iPhone). Too short a time to evaluate fully, but so far the predictive algorithm telling me if I’m headed for a high or a low has been quite good over the last 24 hours.

Anyway, if you have a Dexcom G5 and an android phone, even better an Android Wear watch too, give xdrip (or better, xdrip+) a try.

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Yes xdrip beta is good for Android. I do find it misses readings if I am actively using my phone. But overall it is good.

How did you get the predictive alerts to work? Doesn’t seem to work for me.

Been using - and shouting the praises of - xDrip and xDrip+ for several months! And I’m on the G4 w/Share (so i still carry the receiver :slight_smile:)!

What took you so long, @Dave26 :wink:

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Sorry for any lack of clarity… I didn’t set up any alerts, just that it shows me in the display what my projected BG is going to be, and if it’s going to be below the lower threshold, it will have text in the display that says something like, "low predicted in 35 minutes) or something like that, with a carb suggestion to avoid it.

Same for projected highs after entering some carbs.

So far, so good. I’m liking it. Another “feature” I like is the adjustment of past readings after a calibration. It just makes sense. After all, if I just calibrated and it was off reading +20 over, then my reading 5 minutes ago was +20 (or thereabouts) too. The algorithm seems to do a linear extrapolation between a new calibration and the last one, adjusting all the readings in between so the endpoints align with the calibration.

This just makes sense. Why the Dexcom receiver doesn’t do this is a mystery.

I’ve been away :wink:

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Ok…I didn’t realize that they released xdrip+ for Android. I was still on the beta version. I just loaded +.

Meanwhile in Canada… we only have the Dexcom G4 without Share. I have been meaning to build the xDrip hardware (and I have reasonable electronics skills) since getting my CGM 3 weeks back but have been less than motivated as I have to carry around another thing in my pocket. Given that @Dave26 and @Thas have spoken so highly of xDrip I think I will take some time tonight to order the hardware and get going on this.

Anyone use the IOB/COB calculator with NightScout? It looks interesting.

[quote=“AE13, post:7, topic:56373, full:true”]
Anyone use the IOB/COB calculator with NightScout? It looks interesting.
[/quote]It’s still early, but I’ve been using xdrip’s bolus suggestions in place of the Omnipod PDM’s calculations, and I’ve seen better results so far.

Granted, it’s only been 30 hours, but the results are encouraging. It’s also really nice to have the extra information of a projection for where my BG is going to land, given carb and insulin input. Even if it isn’t super-precise, I feel less blind with and able to act on this information – something I didn’t have before with the features provided by Dexcom in their receiver.

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Would you know if there is an APS setup available for Android?

What is APS?

Someone correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe it is Artificial Pancreas System.

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Ah… if that’s the case, then my answer is, “I have no idea”.

Well, day 2, not as good as day 1. Had all sorts of trouble keeping the transmitter talking to the phone. Nearly useless today.

I think I may have figured it out – my phone (Galaxy S6) needs to be on the same side of my body as the G5 transmitter (back of arm), or the signal is just too weak/noisy when it has to pass through 2 feet of meat to get to the phone in my pocket.

Moving my phone to the other pocket on the same side seems to have improved the problem (maybe a lot, too early to tell) although I did have one disconnect since I switched sides.

I note that when my phone is on my nightstand with an unobstructed 18-24" from the transmitter I get a reliable connection. Also, the G5 uses BLE – Bluetooth Low Energy – technology, which can be trickier to make work for several reasons.

More after another day…

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Yes, it’s artificial pancreas system. I am running it now together with the G5, RileyLink and MM523, it’s working incredibly well, but would be interested in switching to xdrip if there would be a similar setup for Android.

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Could you post some updates over the next few days? I got a pebble time for cheap getting ready for the switch to the g5. I have had my g4 transmitter for about 8 months now so I will have to get another one soon. I am still not sold on the g5 but I may make the switch and would be interested in the xdrip system

There are a few settings you have to play with to get it to work. I for one had to select the “force G5 to UI Thread” option in settings.

I’ll give that a try today. Bad day again yesterday, must have rebooted my phone a dozen times.

Solid as a rock over night.

Okay, day 3 much better with “Run in UI thread” option checked, and also “Constantly scan for G5” option checked.

I get a solid connection with a continuous stream of samples (every 3 minutes I think), with a disconnect twice today but both times because I walked away from my phone.

I’m finding xdrip tp be pretty inaccurate, having had to calibrate 4 times today. The first two times it was WAAAAAYYYYYY off (like -90 from actual), so I thought I was fine when I was rather high.

It seems to be getting better now, was -3 after going 6 hours from last calibration, much more the kind of performance I would expect. Looking at the calibration history graph, something’s out of whack with calibrations from yesterday and first part of today. I suspect it has something to do with all the crap I was going through yesterday trying to get the thing to work.

Today, SOLID.

Now, of course, the caveat. There’s always a caveat. isn’t there? All that searching on BT for the G5 wreaks havoc with other BT devices connecting to the phone. My Huawei watch seems to be pretty solid, although it did lose its connection once today, but my phone has a devil of a time connecting to my car when xdrip is configured in a way that works.

For now, I’ll live with that problem. It’s so valuable to a) ditch the extra device (receiver), b) have my BG, momentum and change rate, and graph at a glance on my watch, c) a superior more functional and informative phone app than the dexcom receiver (assuming the accuracy problem is a fluke)

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Day 4: Found a spreadsheet on line with settings for xdrip working on various phones. While the S6 isn’t listed (there are only two), I reconfigured my setup using the Note 4 settings (also a Samsung android device), and so far it seems to be working reliably. This allowed me to uncheck the troublesome settings that make the phone not connect to my car.

Also, when calibrating this morning after over 12 hours xdrip+ was again very accurate – only off +3 this time, so I think my wildly inaccurate results were the result of stopping and restarting the sensor, forgetting the device, and a bunch of other stuff I did trying to get it to work. It’s looking a lot more stable now.

Update at the end of the day for how well this worked. If good, we’ll have a complete solution!

You can try emailing the developer, too - they’re pretty responsive.