IS PRETTY DARN AWESOME!
If you don’t have any idea of what I’m talking about, let me sort of give you a little run-down. There’s this group that I found on Facebook a couple of months ago after seeing a parent’s photo of a Pebble watch with their child’s Dexcom CGM data on it and they linked to the group in their reply. It was all comprised of an Android phone, Dexcom, a few cables, and some web programming. It was pretty awesome and intriguing to see how these parents were able to get this system set up so that they could monitor their kid’s sugars from a far – whether they were at work and the kid was at school, or even while the kid was at summer camp. It’s been an exciting thing to see happen and to also see the parent’s joy when they finally get their own “rig” set up. Of course, I wouldn’t be able to give you a better job than Kerri did of interviewing the creators, so you can hop over here (part 1) and here (part 2) for her posts about these wonderfully awesome guys.
Then I got to thinking. Okay, I really want to do this… but what is my justification other than I’m a glutton for anything diabetes tech related. I was green with envy and wanted it too, but for what reason? I couldn’t justify in my head spending a lot of money on a setup that I don’t need 24/7 like these parents do. I’m the one who takes care of my diabetes, so I really didn’t think it was necesssary, but I reeeeaaally wanted to see if I could get it to work. Then it hit me…. all I needed to buy was the cable to connect my Dexcom to the Nexus tablet I had… if the Nexus tablet would be compatible with the system (it has to be an Android device, and it has to be OTG compatible). After reading into everything, I realized that this would be a bit over my head to learn quickly ( I admit, I’m a slow learner ), and since I’m married to a tech genius (well, he may not technically be a genius, but he is to me) I figured I’d let him tackle it for a project. He had it up and running within a couple of hours.
Now, for the real question… does this really have any value to those of us who are the people with diabetes? The ones who are adults? My answer? YES. And here’s why:
- If you’re someone living alone and having issues with your sugars and want someone – a parent, best friend, etc – to help you keep an eye on your sugars for a while, it helps them be aware a bit more easily than asking you every 5 minutes how you feel or calling every hour or so.
- If you’re married, and just say your spouse (or you) travels a lot, it’s cool to be able to have way they can set up their phone and open the webpage where your CGM Cloud is, set the screen to never go off, and turn the sound on. Then they have a CGM alarm at night as well as you so that way both of you can still keep an eye on your sugars while they (or you) are out of town.
- And (the most valuable one to me) at work, I can keep the setup in a drawer or in my purse and just have a separate window open to my CGM cloud site and if I’m with a client, I can discreetly just click the tab, check to be sure everything’s okay, and click back to what I was working on. No need to fish out the receiver and look as if I’m inappropriately checking a text message or changing a song on my iPod (to which I’m not wearing any earbuds to).
Currently, I only have my setup available to use over WIFI. I really don’t have a need to have it going on a cellular data plan to upload all of the time, so I’m okay to unplug it every now and then. Though, when I do, I have a widget on the sidebar that you’ll be able to see what I see as well.
The CGM in the Cloud is pretty awesome, and I’m so glad these guys have worked so very hard to bring us this wonderful setup. I know it has helped to ease a lot of parents’ minds, as well as my husband’s and my own.
Sugabetic 