I think my girl has already been through looking for ideas, but I’m posting to see what comes back. There are two main issues:
Dexcom iPhone app volume is not adjustable and is very loud. My friend says it’s causing difficulty with sleep. The only solution she’s found so far is to keep it under her pillow, which Apple has said is not recommended.
The X2 highest volume is not loud enough and, in her experience, is intermittent, causing her to miss alarms at night. This has resulted in some lousy numbers.
That’s a tough combo… one is too high and the other not high enough, and I don’t think you guys will know of any other ways to handle it, but I thought I’d ask. I’ve just turned all of my own alerts and alarms off the other day, so I’ve got absolutely nothing to offer.
You can be sure I had absolutely no idea, but I’m going to read that now for myself. My Dexcom app volume is insanely loud for me, too, but I’ve learned to ignore it. And sleep through it at night. So not good.
Thank you very, very much. She didn’t say anything about this so maybe she didn’t know.
My first reaction is always to question why alarms are going off for which no action is taken nor expected. However without the specifics of which alarm (type and setting) it makes it difficult to discuss.
First of all this problem is in regards to during the night. I can turn phone and X2 to vibrate it during the day if I need to. I only turn one device alerts on during the night not to get double alerts.
The alarms I’m referring to are the High and Low BG. The iPhone choice I use is the Beep since it’s the least obtrusive to me. I tried to adjust it by using the volume buttons on the side but nothing changes. Apple told me not to put it under my pillow during the night🤷🏼♀️??
Then I tried my X2. I set it using cgm alerts in My cgm And then turn on high and low alert. Then in cgm settings>cgm volume the highest is Normal. I tried that during the night. But because it is under the covers I don’t always hear it. Also I noticed that sometimes it would only vibrate and no sound. Tandem said it vibrates first then 5 min later sounds and vibrates and gets progressively louder. I tested this and it didn’t happen that way for me
While there are a variety of alerts, there’s just one alarm: the Urgent Low Alarm (alarm) at 55 mg/dL. The alarm can’t be changed or turned off with one exception. If you have an Android phone, and you turned on Total Silence or No Exceptions, you won’t get any alerts, including your Urgent Low.
Assuming it is not the “Urgent Low Alarm” which is being discussed then there are a number of options.
Take the high alarm as it was referenced and it falls into the category of choices. Why have a high alarm enabled if the intention is to ignore it?
IMHO the Dexcom high alarm should be set such that you will actively make a decision point when the High alert goes off which may or may not include action but at the minimum, active consideration of the situation.
If the intention is to not consider but rather to ignore then why bother having the alarm go off at that particular BG value?
(Not rhetorical - real question)
Also, I am actually very confused as to where you say that the X2 is too quiet at night but the Apple is too loud at night. I wonder if I am perhaps missing the gist of the OP and am simply very far off base here.
Humm. Now I’m confused. Lol. I never intend to ignore them. I need both the high and low to alarm. I have gastroparesis so I need to know if I have delayed digestion during the night and need a correction. That’s why I’m trying to make sure I hear my alarms.
I always used my iPhone but it was so loud I had trouble going back to sleep so I tried using the X2 but couldn’t hear it.
So the only question is how do I turn down the iPhone alert volume. Which has now been solved !!
In the article it said that if I use the side buttons while alerts sample is playing it will adjust the volume of alert. So I can do this prior to going to bed. I had the side volume buttons toggled on the adjust media volume. Sadly Dexcom customer service confirmed that is was not possible to change alert volume on iPhone so I stopped trying.
I wish I could get phone calls through SugarMate for Highs like I do for lows. Some nights I just don’t hear the weak high text message alerts and app alerts, and wake up 3 or 4 hours after Liam has been into the high 200’s or 300’s. Unfortunately, for us, the highs are a lot more of an issue than lows because I now have the tools I need to wake up to address the lows, but not so much the highs.
My answer for now is to set an alarm every 2 hours and wake up, look at the TV, correct if necessary, then go back to sleep.
could this be why my Dexcom and Sugarmate apps NEVER alarms despite constantly revisiting the “sounds” and “settings” menus in the app and the phone ad nauseum???
how do I make sure my mute button isn’t active? I mean I’m getting the SugarMate calls and hear those fine, so it’s not completely muted…it’s just the beeps and alerts I’m not hearing. And also if I open the NightScout app I hear the alarm; but as soon as it gets put down for a time it stops making noise.
Above the volume buttons is that little flap that opens and there is a little switch inside there that moves up and down to mute and unmute the phone. If you are hearing some things though you’re not on mute.
I wrote to them, and this was his response. Good news!
So, the two recommendations I made were 1) add a “high BG” phone call option like the low BG so that I can receive calls for highs as I do with lows. I just don’t hear alerts that come and go…they have to be persistant and I wake up and address them. And, 2) Add ‘alerts’ to the Web app so that I can turn up the volume on my TV at nights to add another layer of alerts. Here was Josh’s response:
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Hey Harold,
Thanks for reaching out, great to hear that the app has been able to help.
Really appreciate the recommendations! In terms of the high alert- we hope to add the call functionality at some point, but it may be a ways off. In the meantime, we are adding an Urgent High alert in the next update with two new features that could help: (1) Critical Alerts: notifications can be set to be at maximum volume and bypass Do Not Disturb and silent mode (2) Repeating Alerts: alerts will sound every minute until they are dismissed
Web app alerts will hopefully be added within the next 1-2 months. It’s definitely high on our list.
Anyway, don’t hesitate to reach out if you have any other suggestions.
