Does anyone wish the Dexcom receiver were smaller? Like a small little thing you'd wear/clip to your wristwatch or phone or wallet or something?
I know it sounds like a crazy idea, but the receiver feels really big and bulky in my pocket. I asked a Dexcom customer service person whether they ever had plans to make it smaller, and she said no, because they wanted visually impaired people to be able to see it. But I would love it if they could make a smaller version for those of us who are not visually impaired!
Anyway, I was just wondering if anyone else had thought the same thing.
I agree 100%!! The receiver is too big. I want something smaller that fits easily into a shirt or cycling jersey pocket. Dexcom should just make two versions of the receiver - a big one for vision impaired and a smaller one for people who want something more discreet. I also hate the scale on the current receiver - why isn’t it scaled to the data rather than fixed at 40-400 mg/dL. It makes it hard to see changes in the blood sugar when you’re in the “normal” range.
I like the size of the dexcom. I can find it if I walk away from it by mistake. I prefer it to be the size it is. I can see the screen and not have to try hard to see it. It cost money to make a smaller unit. Plus they will not know how many people will use the smaller one vs the bigger one. It will be a waste if not many are using the snaller one. Plus cost could go up as well. I rather keep the cost down
As someone who has been testing blood sugars since the early 80’s, I am confident that future Dexcom (or other) receivers will soon be much smaller (and smarter). I still have my original One Touch meter (in a drawer) and it is enormous. Even the strips were giant. Think early cell phone versus anything from today.
I think the obvious answer here is not something that you clip to your phone but rather your phone itself. I foresee Dexcom switching to low energy bluetooth for the transmitter. This was specifically targeted to the healthcare industry.
Dexcom could still make a proprietary receiver but bluetooth would open up the ability to run the receiver software on an iPhone, iPod touch, or Android phone. It would also be possible to have a bluetooth wristwatch version. As a software developer this excites me because it would enable me to address what I see are many shortcomings in the current receiver. All of these would be very easy to implement in software:
Predictive alerts (warn if you will soon be high or low)
More alarm flexibility (like phone profiles - only beep between certain hours, etc.)
More alert options. What if I want 75 to 115 during the day and 70 to 130 at night?
The ability to always see my current BG when an alarm goes off. Don’t make me snooze it for 30 minutes just to see the actual number.
Configurable graph - likes others have mentioned I don’t need it to go to 400.
Ability to view more than 24 hours of history and see the actual data, not just a graph.
I’d also like to see a countdown to the sensor expiration. Some weeks I forget what day/time I inserted the sensor, and knowing how much time I have before the 7 day period expires (beyond the current 5-hour or whatever warning you get) would be great.
I’d like to see a countdown to the next sensor value. I don’t like looking at the receiver and wondering how old the value is. It’s sometime within the last 5 minutes and the graph actually does scroll to the left as time increases but it still takes a little bit of guessing.
I cannot read the computer screen unless I set the magnification at 150%, so I need the receiver to be its present size. If it were made smaller then I would have to stop using it. Maybe there could be two sizes available, but I think the smaller size would be more expensive because it would be gained only by special request.
That would be GREAT if they could integrate it with a phone! Seems like you’d have to re-charge it frequently but I don’t know much about it, so maybe not.
You should work on that, as a software developer with first-hand expertise.
on the present receiver, I would love to be able to see the last time I calibrated it. I have a terrible time remembering that, for some reason! Or maybe that information is already available on it somewhere. I am a pretty new Dexcom user, so I don’t know.
Yes, you’d have to re-charge frequently but I already do that with my phone so it would be one fewer device to charge - and one fewer to carry. I’ve already created my own software to use to analyze my downloads but currently we’re stuck with the receiver software.
No, there’s a lot of information missing that should be there like when it was last calibrated. I try to just calibrate before bed so that it never needs calibration in the middle of the night.
I would LOVE to have a smaller reciever Sort of like the size of the one touch ultra mini. I don’t think the FDA would say a word as long as the two recievers do the same thing. Look at all the one touch BG meters that use the same strip?
I mentioned this elsewhere, Omnipod group I think, but I really don’t want my phone, PDM, and CGM all integrated into one unit. Having my phone be my diabetes managment device is too problematic in situations where I need to absolutely use my diabetes management devices, but where using my phone would be a problem.
Plus, I may get a new phone every two years so I’d need whatever diabetes management device to be felixible enough to be used accross a lot of phone platforms. That just seems like a lot to ask from a medical device company and I’d want them to focus on making the most effective medical device possible, even if that means sacrificing some convenience.
I also like the size of the current Dex receever. It would be nice to see more information available to view, but a smaller screen would mean more pages to flip through and I don’t want my Dex receiver to be another PDM type device. Just keep track of my BGs and associated parameters, and put more effort into improving the accuracy of the device.
Sorry, I meant the ability to review past data instead of just the last 24 hours. I prefer the 3 and 6 hour views but would like to be able to scroll back in time.
I would dig a smaller device. I don’t think you would even have to make the screen smaller, there is a lot of extra housing that could go away. Think cell phone - they use to be huge with tiny screens, now they are smaller with big screens.
Look at the new iPod mini it is pretty much just screen. Come on Steve J throw some of that technology to the diabetes device manufacturers!
Between my OmniPod PDM and Dex receiver my friends are always cracking jokes about my “old giant phone”.
I completely agree with you! Even if it were a rectangle /square it would be less bulky than the oval shape ! It’s hard to hide or carry around. The entire device could be the size of the screen and buttons.
Once the new sensor is approved it will be coming with a smaller receiver. I saw a picture of it and it looks like the screen is about the same size but the receiver is about half the size of the current one. I can't remember where I saw the picture. The reason why the receiver is so big now is because they had to "wrap" around the antenna so many times to get good enough reception. Animas gave Dexcom millions of dollars to fix this problem as obviously they did not want to make their pump any larger. I have also heard rumors that Dexcom will have a watch that the signal will be able to be sent to so users can be more discreet.
