Two days ago, the pump battery indicator reads full. The next day (yesterday) it shows 2/3. Then around 11PM last night I get a low battery warning (although the battery display still shows 2/3 of a battery). Since I had 2/3 battery power left, I figured I would change the battery the next evening when it was time to change to a new infusion site. At 7AM this morning, I get a warning that the pump battery is critically low. It won’t let me do anything and the display says I need to remove the battery to turn off the alarm. Personally, I think it is a poor design when the time from a low battery warning to failure is less than 12 hours. And to make things even worse, the pump goes into a “battery self destruct mode” where it keeps the display on and sounds audible and vibration alarms every 5 mins that quickly sucks away any battery life that could be used for maintaining a basal rate. This seems like a serious safety issue. What if I was doing something like work or travel and it was going to be a while before I could change the battery? This is not the first time something like this has happened. Last year I was doing a 100 mile bike ride and at the beginning of the ride I got a low battery warning. I thought surely I would have enough time to do the ride and change it when I got home. 25 miles from the finish the pump goes into the battery self destruct mode and dies 10 miles from the finish. I thought maybe I had a defective pump and had it replaced but here it is happening again. Has anyone experienced this?
Kevin:
my pump, once it gets to the 2/3 battery life display, will usually fluctuate between full and 2/3 for several days. I have not experienced the rapid change from 2/3 life to “low battery” stage. Are you using the lithium ion batteries and do you have the correct battery type selected on the pump?
Yes, I have. A month or so ago, my pump was tellling me I had a low battery every couple of days although I was changing the battery! Animas did replace it. But I have the same battery issue as you do with the new pump- I have to change the battery quickly after the first warning, I think they have battery issues at this company. Not much advice for you, sorry. But, I do agree with you!
i never had such a rapid change to the warning stage as you describe. i can usually go 4-6 weeks before i get to 2/3; i usually put the pump on lock and use the remote exclusively, except for basal chages. i can get a week or 2 more when it is at 2/3, always with lithium ion batteries
usually from low battery warning to replacement i have 3-5 days, but i am using lithium batteries. i don’t know what you use. i only had a low battery warning go so quickly one time and i suspect it was the battery’s fault. i test them when i remove them from the pump because i find that a ‘dead’ battery to the pump will still run my tv remote control for 6 months. that one problem battery was the only one that showed completely dead on my tester.
I am using lithium batteries and get about 4-6 weeks use from them. In fact this last one went 6 weeks. The short time from the first battery warning to failure seems like an issue. What really concerns me is this “battery self destruct mode” it goes into. A very poor engineering design with an emphasis on telling you the battery is low at the expense of quickly draining the battery (display stays on and alarms every 5 min), rather than conserve what little power is left in the battery to continue the basal dose.
Jill - I did have the issue you described with my last pump before I returned it. The lifetime of the batteries would get shorter and shorter until it was down to a few days. Also when I would change the battery, it would lose the date and time.
I’ve been using Alkaline and Lith. batteries with no problems.
I do however, change it out early if it’s been low a day or so and I know I am doing a new cartridge fill.
I used Animas pumps, first a 2020 and now a Ping, for 4 years and never had that kind of a problem. It sounds like either stale batteries or a pump problem.
Was it hot outside when you went for your 100 mile bike ride? If so, that could definitely have been a cause of the rapid depletion of your batteries. I work in the computer/electronics field and heat will kill a battery faster than anything.
I haven’t had such a rapid decline to go from 2/3 to 1/3. Usually it hovers between 2/3 and 3/3 for a few days, then sticks on 2/3 for a few days to a week or so, then by the time it gets to 1/3, it still gives me 1-2 days (for when I can change the cartridge) to swap out the battery.
I decided on the PING because of the remote feature. To be honest, I never use it, and I find the vibrations before bolusing annoying, nevermind walking more than 4 feet from the remote during a bolus and have it abort on me (say, in the kitchen while I’m cooking dinner: go from the table to the stove, forget about it.).
That being said, and trying not to jinx myself here with the current lithium battery, I’m well over a month with this battery, with the remote disconnected, and I’m still at 3/3 (now I know its going to go to 2/3 sometime tonight because I brought it up). I feel like the “talking” and searching, when not in range, between the pump and meter drain the battery as bad as the vibrating or musical alerts.
Very interesting, I would think it would have something to do with heat, or perhaps you have a cracked case and moisture is getting to it, very scary if you ask me… FWIW I use Lith and have all my settings on Vibrate as I am hard of hearing, and I can safely get 5 weeks out of a battery.
Not much help for the needing to stay within 4 feet when bolusing but you can turn off the vibrating feature when you use the meter remote: go in to MENU -->SETUP -->SOUND–>Change the R-Bolus from Vib to OFF. Once I turned the Vibrating feature off completely (NO function on the pump vibrates) I started to get the month to six weeks others talk about.
At 10:57 today I got the LOW BATTERY alert, two days ago I noticed I lost one bar of battery when glancing at the pump so I knew to have a battery around to switch out when the pump alerted. So at 4:00 today 6 +/- hours and I changed the battery and then it told me it HAD NO INSULIN but there was 18 units in the cartridge! I don’t like it when the battery goes low and you change it before the battery dies and it loses count of the cartridge! I have had it when the unit went dead because the battery had no juice but now that I changed while the pump was still running, and still lose track of amount of insulin is ALARMING
That’s another thing I don’t like about this pump. You have to go through the process of taking out the insulin reservoir, then reprime it. When I used to own a MiniMed, all I did was remove the old batteries and put new ones in. It would remember how much insulin was in the reservoir and continue as usual. As long as Animas has been making insulin pumps, you think they would have done a better job with things like this. And since I’m on my soapbox, I’d trash that display screen and replace it with an LCD one that I can read outdoors and uses less power. Sometimes I feel like I’m using a pump with technology that’s 20 years old.