I’ve now tried the G7 for 20 days and can provide some comments on it. My point of comparison will be the G6.
Insertion and Activation: This was worlds away an improvement. I always bleed with the G6 applicator; the two G7s I tried went in without a hitch. It’s a different design, so positioning your finger on the trigger takes some getting used to, and it still has the usual ear-rattling “BLAM!” The sensor wire goes in straight, not at an angle, and it’s shorter than the G6 wire. You definitely need to use the included sensor overpatch with this one; it’s quite small and there isn’t much adhesive surface around the sensor itself, so without the patch it’ll likely come off. The activation time works as advertised, always under 30 minutes, which is just incredible.
App: There’s a new app that rolls together the glucose readings and the old Clarity app. No major changes to the readings display itself but there’s no separate “Calibrate” function. If you need to do it you enter it as an Event. But I found much less need to calibrate the G7. The first sensor didn’t need it at all, the second one only once.
Functionality: For me this was substantially more accurate than the G6. The first sensor came in under 10 points off the meter almost all of the time. The second one was wonky for the first two days (probably the wire getting settled) and then was comparable. Surprisingly, it was also fairly accurate during and after exercise, which the G6 never is for me. The time lag was also sharply reduced. I found the G7 to be much closer to “real-time.” Given the biophysics I assume this is due to the algorithm it’s using, but either way it seemed more responsive.
Connectivity: Here I’ll lodge a complaint. The G7 was somewhat more prone to dropping the bluetooth connection to my phone. Possibly it’s got a shorter range than the G6. I assume that miniaturization means giving up power that could otherwise boost it. Annoying, but not a dealbreaker for me given that the G6 will also drop out if I wear bluetooth headphones on the phone that’s receiving from it. I don’t connect to a receiver or watch, so I can’t address how well it talks to those.
Lifespan: Both sensors made it the full 10 days, and I let the second one ride out its whole grace period (around 10 extra hours after the official expiry time). This turned out to be a huge blessing because the G6 I applied was barely working for most of the day and I ended up leaning on the still-running G7 for readings. Because this is an integrated sensor/transmitter I assume it can’t be extended, which is something I don’t do with the G6 anyway.
Verdict: For me, the G7 was terrific. I understand the wariness about adopting 1.0 versions of tech, and I generally share it. But if damned CVS Caremark would get around to covering this for me I would switch immediately given that in its main functionality it isn’t (so far) any worse than the G6, and in most respects struck me as much better. No doubt with more use I’ll discover things that irritate me about it, but those are my first impressions.