I have read the several threads on the forum about the Apple Watch. I am thinking of giving one to my 12-year-old so that he can look at his Dexcom output more often: he does not look at his phone that often during class (his Dexcom monitor is an Apple SE).
A few months ago there seemed to be some problems with the G5 and the Apple Watch working together. Are you or have you been using the two together (along with an iOS device of course)? Does it work for you? Do you experience problems or limitations? What do you like/not like?
Based on your experience, do you think that an Apple Watch would be a good monitoring tool for a 12-year-old?
Anything that gives you more information and knowledge can only be a positive. If your son doesn’t like it he can always stop. As he continues to grow the Info gained will only help him tighten his control.
I have had to restart the app a couple of times when it seemingly wouldn’t talk to my phone, but for the most part I don’t have any issues. It’s very helpful, especially when I am exercising. I use the watch to monitor my exercise goals as well as monitoring for lows or highs. Seems I can have either when I exercise. I am using a clock face where the little Dexcom icon is up in the left corner. I love my watch, and I used to hate wearing a watch. I find it most helpful when I am at home, because my phone can sit on the charger but I can go about my business in the house and have my watch handy. It is also good for alarms. I went low the other night, my actual smart phone (Iphone6S) receiver was charging in the kitchen, but the vibration on my watch woke me up. However, you have to want to look at your numbers. This just made it more convenient for me, plus handy for the calibration reminders that Dexcom gives you.
Is it possible to have the BG numbers permanently displayed on the watch face, so that you just need to look at the watch to know where you are? Or do you always need to press on the dexcom icon to get the info and update?
I would love it if they designed it so that the number would just display itself in one of corners of the many clock face options. However, it does not. The best I have found is to configure it one tiny touch away. If you don’t care about the clock face, you can open the app and just leave it open and it will display it again when you trigger the watch from sleep mode with just a a motion of wrist. Either way, I find it easy to get to and I don’t have to pull my phone out of my pocket. I dose with it, using test strips merely to calibrate my CGM and double check a very low or very high.
I hate the apple watchface. Android’s Nightwatch is superior in that it is always on. All day. Plus you get delta values. Not to mention interface with other apps (messaging or in this case, my HowStuffWorks podcast).
@Bradford1, I am interested in your setup, possibly for myself to be able to easily monitor my son’s BG. When he got his Dexcom, I got him an iPhone SE to function as a Bluetooth receiver - quite a change for us because almost all of us in the family are Android users.
What is the data use chain for your use case? In understand you use Android Nightwatch, but I am not sure about the rest of the process and system.
My son is 4 now and we use an iPad as the uploader, but as he is getting older and more mobile–I think we too will get an iPhone SE. In my case it goes from transmitter ==> iPad==> Dexcom Cloud ==> My Nightwatch App on andoid ==> Android wear watch.
Super clear - just what I needed! Thanks very much.
Re. iPhone SE - it’s kind of small, and easy to lose track of. My recommendation: use a bright red case, and make sure you know how to use find my iPhone It has not always been easy to find my 12-year-old’s iPhone…
My 13 year old loves his Dexcom/Iphone/Iwatch combination. We also use WatchSugar which allows you to add the current glucose reading on the watch face. It has a few idiosyncrasies, but is a nice add on. You will however, have to hit the button shown in the pictures above to access the full trend unlike the Android/Nightwatch solution.
There are some times where the WatchSugar complication has a sugar reading that is older than you would like. Normally it gets the dexcom number every 17 minutes, so I think what is happening, is when your phone loses the Dexcom connection and the app is trying to update its value, it can result in a number that is a bit stale. If you choose a watch face where the WatchSugar complication is in a larger central space, then you also get the time stamp from the last measurement which is nice. All in all, we are very happy with this solution and are thankful that someone took the time to code it.
I just got an Apple Watch today. I chose the Utility face, which has room for up to four “complications” – what Apple calls the info that can display on the face. The Dexcom app shows my current reading and a direction arrow at the bottom of the screen. Very handy.
Brilliant. I had a similar but different watch face. However, the one you chose does not require an extra step. You can see the number right on the clock face. Thank you!
Sorry for what may be a naïve question, but can you use an iWatch with the G5 transmitter independently (don’t need a iPhone)? I could see you needing an iPhone to transmit data over the internet for sharing but I was hoping the iWatch could still get glucose readings directly from the transmitter (iWatch does have Bluetooth, so it would seem possible)?
It has not always been easy to find my 12-year-old’s iPhone…
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