I just got “your transmitter battery is critically low”. It’s day 91 of the transmitter and support says they won’t replace the transmitter because the warranty is 90 days. OK, whatever. But how much longer will the transmitter actually last? The sensor only has five days on it, so every additional day it lasts is a free day. Dexcom is sending a replacement sensor but of course will only tell me that I should replace it immediately, not how much longer it will last. (I do have a new transmitter on hand.)
Does anyone have experience running the transmitter past this error?
There are ways to extend transmitter days, but dexcom is making it more difficult. If you have Android phone, search for xDrip transmitter reset. Sometimes you can get anothe 10-30 days or more, until the battery actually wears down.
I have been getting that message for 4 days and the transmitter is still working fine. I usually get two alerts in a row and then maybe one other time during the day. I am past 90 days on this transmitter and on the last sensor with this transmitter. Not sure if it will make it until the end of the sensor. Not a big deal because it is a sensor that I restarted so I won’t need or get a replacement.
I have a G6 and never gotten a “critically low”. I do get the “Low” before the 90 days then I am told after a couple sensor changes while Low, that this will be the last sensor for this transmitter. I have managed to get 110+ days (eleven ten-day sensors) on each of my first two transmitters.
Yes makes sense to get the extra transmitter as soon as your pharmacy/insurance company will let you.
I read somewhere that pairing two receivers with a transmitter causes it to use its battery more but don’t know if that’s true or not.
i didnt need all the bells and whistles on the dexcom so i switched to the libre for this exact reason. too many things to worry about. sensor life, transmitter life, and matching all that up with a dme that can’t ship on time made it very difficult. oh and 30 day orders. what a pain.
Exactly - I went through all that nonsense with the early medtronic garbage for my wife - got the libre and now just stay up half the night rather then put up with all that. It’s much easier.
It shouldn’t matter how man receivers. The dex sends out a signal every 5 min. So it it’s read or if it’s ignored the dex still sends out the same signal.
You switched to the libre because you don’t need bells and whistles, but you don’t get continuous readings on the libre.
Is that still true? Because I really need to constant flow of results to keep myself in range esp at night.
I always assumed this was true, too. Seems like the simple, obvious way Bluetooth communication works. You send data out into the world, and any paired device can receive it… Until my last transmitter, that is. I’m starting to believe that it actually is sending separate signals to different devices. Maybe as part of the ever-increasing security mechanisms?
I noticed my phone is always lagging on the readings. My pump gets them about a minute sooner. I suppose this could easily be explained by a slow phone, if it was the only indicator. My last transmitter died prematurely under warranty still. I could see the terrible battery output in Xdrip and knew it was dying. For about two weeks before the failure, it just absolutely refused to communicate with my phone, but still sent readings to my pump. I could query the transmitter stats, but not receive any new data. None of the troubleshooting worked. I even uninstalled Xdrip and tried to start over fresh, with nothing to show for it. As soon as I plugged in the new transmitter, though, my phone was back in business as my second collector. I swear, the transmitter was selectively and specifically sending data to the medical device and not the extraneous one, to conserve battery.
There is a recent (2020?) development known as “BLE” that allows any nearby device to read broadcast data, but I don’t think the G6 uses it, because BLE doesn’t require pairing.
AFAIK any receiving device for G6 has to be paired, and there’s a limit of exactly 2 paired devices per G6 transmitter. One can be a Dexcom-brand receiver, and one can be a cellphone or tablet or smart-bluetooth-pump any other non-Dexcom-manufactured device.
I think you can pair another device after the first two, but it’ll take the place of one of the previous pairings.
