As luck would have it, I knocked my existing old pod off this morning on a doorway. This almost never happens, but it gave me the chance to put on a fresh, new-style pod. The process is basically the same, but there are some extra warning screens you have to check off, in addition to a home screen that asks you to confirm that you are you every time you turn the PDM on. The needle on the fill syringe is very short, and I noticed a few drops of insulin at the fill point and in the cannula area after the pod primed. I rarely saw that with the old pods. The click sound is also a little different. A little sharper sound, about as quiet as the old pods. The insertion felt a little different, too. Not painful, but a little different. Might have just been the location. It's strange to see an IOB reading on the home screen now. I guess I'll need to figure out how to use that to my advantage. The biggest disappointment so far, and maybe it's just this pod, is that I have already gotten a couple of communication errors, and I thought with the increased communication range, these wouldn't happen any more. I will say that moving the PDM closer to the pod immediately clears these up (sometimes it took a long time for older pods to re-establish communication), but that's kind of annoying for something that I thought was a thing of the past.
Jim, great post! It's a bummer to hear about the comm errors. Hopefully it will be an anomaly and you don't see more. I have comm errors with the older pod almost daily. Basically because I get in too much of a hurry most of the time, and walk away from the PDM before it's happy with the pod. Also, I almost always see a bit of insulin at the fill point on the old pods from the syringe dripping. The syringe provided to me seems to be a bare minimum, low cost version. That doesn't bug me, but wondered if that was your situation or if it was something different.
Keep the info coming. New pods mean new experiences and learning. It helps to hear the details, and thanks for giving them.
It is interesting to hear this comparison as I've only had experience with the new pods. Good to hear (again) that that bit of insulin in the cannula area is normal. I wasted a pod yesterday thinking that's what was meant by "wetness on the pod."
And I have to say that the IOB feature has been a great tool for me. I previously had issues with stacking too much and it's already prevented me from correcting too soon or too much.
Also, have you noticed any difference in the BG reading calibration? I had read on here that the PDM gives lower readings, but after trying a multiple meter test, that didn't seem to be the case for me. I wasn't sure if this was another improvement with the new PDMs from the old ones.