My 9yo son is moving from the Libre Freestyle to the Dexcom G6 next weekend.
So I’m trying to source a phone to act as a monitoring point.
The phone is going to spend almost of it’s time in my son’s diabetes kit, or plugged in near his bed - so all we need is a phone that can connect to the G6 & send data to the cloud.
I’ve just been through a bunch of old Android phones I had lying around & none of them are compatible with the app.
Which is mostly the Samsung S series, the LG G series or the Google Pixel.
These are all nice phones, but expensive overkill for something that’s basically a Bluetooth to Wifi/4G relay. Schools have “no phones” policies over here & my son is 9yo, so he’s not going to be using a smartphone like a smartphone for a few years.
Ideally I just want a basic modern Android phone, which doesn’t cost the earth.
I’m trying to work out if the compatibility criteria is:
Based on a combination of the Android version & Bluetooth version/chipset
or
A tightly locked down list of phones that have been approved by the FDA.
Does anyone know what the story is with Dexcom G6 to Android phone compatibility?
I think the best fallback will be to buy an older Samsung S series - as compatibility goes all the way back to the S5.
I am guessing that a used Apple SE might be one of the cheaper options, but if you’re dead set on Android, I think a lot of the phones listed *say they don’t work but actually do. I’m not sure how to figure that out.
Yeah, I’m sticking with Android for the time being. I didn’t enjoy my Apple user experience - it was like being in an abusive relationship with someone who is always right & was only interested in my money.
A bit of digging shows I can can get some slightly older refurbished phones (like the Google Pixel 3) for a few hundred dollars, which isn’t too bad.
For anyone who stumbles across this while searching for the answer:
I’ve done quite a bit of testing with various phones/ friends phones etc.
As far as I can tell the Dexcom G6 app will only work on the phones listed in compatibility section of their website.
A good example of the restrictions is you can’t install the app on a Samsung Galaxy S5 Active - even though the Samsung Galaxy S5 is listed. Considering the S5 Active is a just a rugged version of the S5 that’s very locked down.
In the end a friend donated a LG G7 they had spare. It’s a USD$300/NZD$450 phone - so very lucky to have supportive/ generous friends.
While I’m not adverse to spending good money on good technology I can’t help feeling like Dexcom’s testing regimen is missing the part of the market that just want a simple Bluetooth to Wifi/4G relay.
@Tama There are several threads on Reddit that cater to this need and remove the Play store restrictions from the official Dexcom app. Below is a link to an International version.