But it should be up to the user to decide what sounds are played and how loud. It is important that these be heard, yes. For the Libre 2, they continued this trend with the low and high glucose alarms, but made it even louder. It is not a critical alarm and should be a regular, more muted notification sound. When a sensor has three days left, and again with one day left, it plays an extremely loud notification that makes no sense. Worse, months after publishing this blog I had the alarm go off and scare a dog next to me who almost attacked me as a result. A user could not keep their phone on during a movie, at church, a conference, school, a play, or even at a restaurant without risk of seriously angering everyone within 100 feet should an alarm go off. In a work environment I would be told to silence my phone making the entire point of some of the alerts moot. Several of them play at twice the volume of any other sound on my phone and are simply piercing. This is really unfortunate as a majority of the sounds it generates are piercing and horrible. The Abbott Libre 2 app however, does not. Some apps let you change the various sounds just as the phone lets you set custom ringtones. With mobile phones, everyone probably has apps that make sounds they aren’t fond of. The app offers four new alarms related to glucose or the sensor: Alarms from Hell This is where the app really comes up short and it is hard for me to believe this was designed for diabetics at large. Functionality around that is therefore important, making this helpful and safer for the diabetic. In this blog I am going to outline some serious deficiencies in the “ FreeStyle Libre 2 – US” mobile app in an attempt to plead with Abbott to make enhancements, again.Īs noted above, the alarm functionality that allows the device to warn the user of high and low glucose events is the big difference in the Libre 2. Or, they are the same type of diabetic as a few of my past endocrinologists that seem to think every case of diabetes is identical to their own, which is just ignorant and dangerous. If they do have diabetics on staff, specifically in the app design that focuses on the user interface (UI) and overall user experience (UX), it doesn’t show. They say otherwise but I simply don’t believe that. One of my consistent messages to them is that they don’t appear to have any diabetics that work on this app. Like most companies they want to move you to DMs as fast as possible which doesn’t necessarily serve their customers. I have communicated with Abbott via Twitter before regarding issues and they have generally been polite, but have not improved the app. While this implementation and technology offer a new level of convenience that can significantly and positively impact a diabetic’s life, the mobile app that interfaces with the Libre 2 is sorely lacking. For diabetics that check every two hours or more this becomes extremely helpful in heading off events that are life threatening or going for long periods with elevated glucose that impact the diabetic both short and long-term. Even better? If it detects an event such as low or high BS it can warn the user. The biggest advantage is that the app can continuously poll your BS without you needing to scan the sensor yourself. It makes checking BS cheaper than test strips and allows for much better control of your BS through those frequent checks.Ībbott created a new device, the Libre FreeStyle 2 that moves from NFC to Bluetooth which greatly expands the range. You can check your blood sugar (aka blood glucose or BS for this article) as often as you want during a 14 day period before replacing the sensor. This allows a diabetic to check their blood sugar without the annoying finger prick blood tests. NFC is convenient but very low range it’s the same thing used for making payments at a gas pump or credit card terminal. It is an extremely popular device that is based on Near-field communication (NFC) where the wearer uses their phone to poll the device attached to their body. For those familiar with continuous glucose monitors (CGM), you may be familiar with the Abbott FreeStyle Libre device.
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