Medtronic announced at the ADA convention (?) this AM that they plan to release something called “Minimed Connect” which appears to provide a sharing of pump/CGM data similar to Dexcom’s Share product. The FDA approved Medtronic’s secondary display system back on May 19 of this year.
The picture below is Medtronic’s illustration of how the system works. Note that you purchase a separate uploader device which appears to link your pump to an app on your smart phone. The phone app can then be used to forward the data to Medtronic’s servers where it can be shared via their CareLink app.
(Or at least I think that’s how this works. I have not spent much time looking over the announcement.)
Uploader is supposed to be available “in the Fall” and cost around $200 (USD).
Notes:
Here is what the Medtronic announcement said about which phones its app will work with. “MiniMed Connect smartphone app will initially be available with iOS mobile devices. In addition, Samsung is working with us to develop apps for Android for an optimal experience on Samsung mobile devices.”
The uploader device announced is supposed to work with the MiniMed 530G or Paradigm Revel pumps. I have no idea whether it is also compatible with the 640G which is currently available outside the US. Maybe @swisschocolate could ask her rep about this in her copious spare time?
I hope it doesn’t come to twittering about bg’s. sigh…
I see the usefulness for caregivers, but beyond that, I hope this doesn’t become yet another part of life that people feel they have to share with the world. Look at the ISIS idiots that shared their location and were killed by the US, because they took selfies. LOL!
This was the feature I thought was least significant to me when I was deciding to get a Dexcom this spring but I decided to switch it on a couple of weeks ago and I actually find it really useful. Leaving aside the “Followers” part, you are basically echoing your CGM to your phone. I frequently have the phone out for various things anyway, so the Dexcom receiver can just sit there in my pocket, and as I’ve posted elsewhere it’s nice to be able to monitor my BG’s continuously while bike riding (I have an iPhone holder on my handlebars). So good for Medtronic. I think some people may find it handier they expected. But hopefully not for tweeting their sugars to the world at large, yeah. Then they’d have to call it “Over-Share.”
Honestly I think its great especially for those of use that participate in sports like cycling, I would love to be able to watch my sugar levels as I’m riding. Currently I have to stop to check my Animas Vibe pump to see where I’m at which of course puts a slight damper in my workout. I can see it being extremely worth while for those parents who feel the need to stay on top of their child’s highs and lows etc… The only thing that I find quite disturbing is the fact that its a feature that we need to pay for $200 to say the least. We diabetics just have to keep on shelling it out, money that is, left, right and center you think they (big Pharma) would cut us some slack but no its just another money grab. Yup we just keep on dishing it out like we have a choice in the matter, well we do for certain things but not many and I guess this is one of those things but as mentioned this item sure can come in handy, I’m just going to have to grin and bear it like I always do.
omg, and i already got suspicious yesterday. this seems to be a great thing, however i would not see how i could benefit from this at my point in life. see the advantages for caregivers though.
HOWEVER, i already tweeted this last night, i just dont get the bad taste i got in my mouth away when i first read this. they are starting this thing in the U.S., and i havent heard anything about it here in europe.
my suspicion kinda is, that they want to give the U.S. customers something that they are happy about and got a new toy, while the real new and awesome toy is sold or loaned all over the world except the U.S.
really just a suspicion, but i don’t see why they would make a connect if the 640G were only a few months away since i dont see why you would need a CGM in the cloud if you had such an awesome pump.
does this make somewhat sense? i will ask my rep though on monday on whether this will launch here too and compatibility with the 640G.
I’m not quite feeling it. They seem rather different … maybe even orthogonal ? … to me. As I’ve said before in another context, I think sharing data this way is such a new concept that most of us don’t really have any idea what the point might be.
You have to wait a while to see if/how these new variations morph. At the beginning it can be hard to know whether it will turn out to be like putting a camera in a mobile phone, which I originally thought was the dumbest idea in the world & would never be useful , or whether it will be another WebVan.
The thing about the 640G is that it is difficult (for me) to compare the 640G with the earlier Medtronic pumps due to the hardware differences. (I was also thinking of this when I read @Buckley83’s question/post in the 640G discussion.)
I am reasonably certain that the 640G uses a different part of the radio spectrum to talk with the new CGM Guardian 2 Link transmitter than the previous pumps used to talk with the MiniLink. What I do not know is whether Medtronic also changed the connection between the pump & the BG meter, which is how I am (totally) guessing the upload device pulls the CGM data from the pump.
Oh, well. Early days. The whole scheme is still only just announced, not an actual product so who knows how well it will work.
Another thing I wonder about is if the range on this puppy will suck compared to the Dexcom Share. No way to know until a physical device actually ships, but Medtronic just doesn’t seem to “get” that part of the equation. It’s as though the designers never use this stuff anywhere other than on a lab bench.
while i see that this might make a huge impact on other peoples lives, and maybe one day also mine, my main point was basically that i somewhat fear that medtronic/FDA start this new tool in the U.S. so that the pressure regarding the 640G comes off the FDA and that they can take as much time as they want to approve this new, lifechanging tool and hold it off the U.S. market as long as they want. might sound a bit pessimistic, but if i were living in the U.S. i would be more eager to get the new pump than to get a CGM in the cloud, especially as it basically already exists in the black market…
i do hope i am wrong…
I still miss Webvan! They had the best veggies and fruits we have been able to get in our area to this day. While it was a tad inconvenient to be around when they arrived at our doorstep, the food quality offset that.
I presume the range is a function of the size of the xmitter–a design decision? Look at how much larger the Dexcom xmitter is than the diminutive MM unit. AAMOF, the size is one of the two reasons I went with MM.
I agree that I don’t have that much use for the MM Connect/ Share, etc. Nobody is interested in my BG but me. The phone functionality seems useful but I’m not sure I like the “cost” of having another gizmo to lug around, sort of why I’m not that keen on the Dexcom. Still, one of my things this week is to get a phone mount for my bike so I can fire up Strava during the Tour de Cure this year, so I’ll know where the hell I am. If I had a BG “feed” mounted on my handlebars. it would be a bit more accessible than on my pump so I’d have to think about it…
, or whether it will be another WebVan.