Can't get G6 to work with xDrip+

[Tigs1962]

Yesterday i started using a Dexcom G6 CGM on my right arm.
I still have my Libre/MiaoMiao on my left arm!

The reason i bought the Dexcom G6 Starter Kit is because just over a week ago i was given a Tandem t:slim X2 pump and i want to use Basal IQ to stop my numerous Hypos.

I spent a lot of hours yesterday trying to start the G6 using xDrip+.
I have used xDrip+ with my Libre/MiaoMiao for a few years and i really like it.

Unfortunately i could not make xDrip+ work with the G6.

So, i installed the Dexcom G6 App on my phone ( Huawei P20 running Android 9 ) and managed to get that working. After getting the Dexcom app to work, i was able to setup the G6 with my pump.
I was also able to start the Basal IQ feature which now works wonderfully.

However, i just don’t like the Dexcom G6 App. It is nowhere near as good as xDrip+.

Can anyone help me get the G6 running on xDrip.
I have turned on the Source Wizrd and selected the G6.

At the moment it says “G6 State isn’t currently known. Next connection will update this.”
But clearly nothing is happening.

I have uninstalled the G6 app completely and restarted my phone.
In Bluetooth it says that the G6 sensor is paired.

[docslotnick]

@Tigs1962 Welcome to FUD!

It would help to know what brand and model phone you are using, and what Android version it runs. There are a lot of connection problems with some specific phones.

[Tigs1962]

Thank you for the welcome Doc,

My phone is a “Huawei P20, running Android 9”.
Hope you can help.

[docslotnick]

@Tigs1962 OK.

First, run “native mode”. ( in G5/G6 Debug Settings).

Next, further down on the same settings page, check " Allow OB1to Initiate Bonding", “Scan for G5 constantly”, Authenticate G5 Before Each Reading", and “unbond G5 Before Each Reading”.

I know that you’re using a G6, but these settings effect the way that xDrip+ implements BLE bonding with the transmitter, even with a G6.

Let us know how it goes.

[emp00]

Hi Tigs1962; regarding xDrip+ with Dexcom G6 I heartily recommend this setup guide:

https://androidaps.readthedocs.io/en/latest/EN/Configuration/xdrip.html#xdrip-dexcom-g6

Check it out, follow the instructions and let us know if it helped.
emp00

[docslotnick]

@emp00 Thanks for that link! Very good info not readily available elsewhere.

[EdD]

@Tigs1962

However, i just don’t like the Dexcom G6 App. It is nowhere near as good as xDrip+.

You could try “sugarmate”. I think it is much better than the dexcom app. I use a combination of both. Very simple to setup. Good luck getting xDrip+ working.

[Tigs1962]

These didn’t seem to do anything at all.
My phones Bluetooth settings say that it is paired.
I have attached some screen shots.

[Tigs1962]

Hi emp00,
It still doesn’t work.
My transmitter DOES start with 8H.

The instructions say:
If your Dexcom G6 transmitter’s serial no. is starting with 8G or 8H try [nightly build 2019/07/28 or later]
My Version is: 6d4d283-2019.10.27

The instructions say:
Do not start new sensor before the following information is shown in
Classic Status Page -> G5/G6 status -> PhoneServiceState:
“Got glucose hh:mm” or “Got no raw hh:mm”

But my System Status page just says “Scanning”

Any other advice?

[docslotnick]

@Tigs1962 Do you happen to have a Dexcom G6 receiver?

If you do you can start the sensor on the receiver, xDrip+ in native mode will pick it up in a few readings. When I tried out the G6 that’s what I had to do.

[Tigs1962]

Hi Doc,

I think that we are talking at cross-purposes.
This is part of my initial post:

“So, i installed the Dexcom G6 App on my phone ( Huawei P20 running Android 9 ) and managed to get that working. After getting the Dexcom app to work, i was able to setup the G6 with my pump.
I was also able to start the Basal IQ feature which now works wonderfully”

So, the transmitter IS working, and so is the sensor. It is already communicating with my pump.

What it is not doing is talking to xDrip+

Before you ask, as I also said in my first post:
“I have uninstalled the G6 app completely and restarted my phone.”

I am beginning to think that I will have to try sugarmate. Some people seem to think it is not as good as xDrip+ for functionality, but apparently it is easier to get up and running.

A few questions:

Do I have to have a G6 receiver to use Sugarmate?
If not, do I have to have the G6 app running in the background to use Sugarmate?

If I am contemplating extending the life of my Dexcom G6 sensors, do I have to have xDrip installed?
Thanks

[docslotnick]

@Tigs1962 I was just suggesting the Dexcom receiver to ultimately get xDrip+ started, not to use the receiver continuously. I’m not sure the Dexcom app would give the same result.

[emp00]

Strange… From your screenshots looks like you have several queue items pending. Have you tried the following, this helps for me if xDrip resp the Transmitter gets confusied:

1. Stop sensor
2. WAIT for ~15 minutes and do not play around with xDrip
3. Start sensor again, you will then go thru the 2 h warmup again

If then it’s still not communicating correctly I suspect your phone has special energy saving measures interfering with the Bluetooth connections. Seach in your mobile phone’s options and disable step by step all “battery” or “energy” optimizations you can find. In worst-case your phone is not compatible.

By the way you could also check out and post your xDrip logfile (button right top corner, Event Log) - here you can find more detailed error messages possibly giving concrete hints what you need to do.

That’s all I have to contribute at this time … Keeping my fingers crossed you can achieve your goal.

[churcr]

I’ve only been trying this on a Galaxy S8+ for 2 days. The only way I could get the xDrip+ app to work was by uninstalling the Dexcom G6 app. Uninstall the G6 app and xDrip should connect right away. Still have a lot to learn right now.

[jbowler]

@churcr

The only way I could get the xDrip+ app to work was by uninstalling the Dexcom G6 app.

Yes, I believe that is absolutely essential; I believe that the phone cannot establish simultaneous connections between a device and two different apps each with a direct bluetooth connection (as opposed to an indirect one, like the audio or phone device which is handled internally.)

So far as G6 on the 8G or 8H transmitters is concerned using the 1027 release of xDrip+ is probably advisable but not essential. I only have experience so far with 8G. With the 0518 release there is a glitch in the display (all readings are reported as missed readings) and the software will allow you to do a pre-emptive restart of the sensor, which won’t work. The 1027 release fixes the mis-reporting of readings and simply disables the restart, as shown by @Tigs1962’s system status; “Preemptive restarts: Not capable”.

All the bluetooth connection issues are still there.

It appears that it is necessary to do a complete restart of the phone after changing the options to get them to be noticed (based on minimize scanning option behavior). I found that with 0518 “minimize scanning” was the only option that actually gave more reliable connections, or I should say re-connections because that’s when xDrip+ shows issues for me. The 1027 release seems to have disabled “minimize scanning” so I’m tempted to go back to 0518 with the 8G sensor despite the UI problems.

@Tigs1962

I have uninstalled the G6 app completely and restarted my phone.
In Bluetooth it says that the G6 sensor is paired.

Yes, amusing eh? Because you have the “Unbond G5 before each read” option checked, and the text says “This will remove the G5 from you device’s paired device list,”. Maybe, but it would probably have been a better idea to remove it after each read, then we could tell if it was actually working.

I did try removing it myself by doing “forget” in the Android bluetooth settings, but that did not seem to help anything. The only way I have of fixing the connection problem is to turn bluetooth off (I do have the “turn it on again” option checked), but with 1027 that works no more reliably than it did before I discovered the “minimize scanning” option.

[jbowler]

@EdD

You could try “sugarmate”.

It requires the Dexcom app to be running and that’s possible for @Tigs1962 because the P20 is supported by Dexcom, however for me the approach lacks merit both because my BlackView phone is not supported (so I can’t get the app to work) and relying on the Dexcom app effectively locks you out of OS upgrades. I’d never do the latter because security is very important to me; I’d rather go back to the clunky Dexcom receiver than compromise the security of my wireless.

Indeed, that’s what I’ve had to do; I’m carrying around three cellphones, the Dexcom receiver, the Omnipod dash receiver (dual SIM, memory card, camera, can’t use any of them) and my BV9500, which at least I can use to recharge the batteries of the other two

Not sure what people think when I’m doing the complex transfer of data by manual typing between the three.

[EdD]

@jbowler

It requires the Dexcom app to be running

For me sugarmate on Android accesses the dexcom cloud and I access Sugarmate through Chrome Browser.
I just have a shortcut on my home screen to the “Web Application”. its just like a web page. It works very well for me.

I dont know anything about BV but having a quick look this should work even on older versions of android.

Ed

[jbowler]

@EdD

I dont know anything about BV but having a quick look this should work even on older versions of android.

It’s Android 8,1.0. It’s possible to install the Dexcom app on it but then as soon as it’s run it says “Incompatible smart device” and it is completely locked at that screen.

So far as I can see it wouldn’t help anyway; my understanding is that the data has to be uploaded to “Dexcom share”. So far as I can make out the Dexcom receiver can’t do this because it doesn’t have any wireless connectivity, at least it doesn’t have an FCC ID on the case, but even if it could it still ties me to having three devices. I looked at the Dexcom compatibly phones, Dexcom say that the Galazy S7 Edge is supported; my wife has one of these, but when I install the app it displays a similar “unsuppoprted” warning but now with a “Continue to App” button.

Well, I’m going to try that, since her xDrip+ is a follower it doesn’t bluetooth the sensor so everything should be ok.

[Tigs1962]

Hi Everyone,
I have been following this thread, because I started it. I thought you might like to know my final experience and where I ended up.

I did get xDrip to communicate with my Huawei P20 phone for a few days, but it dropped its connection to my 8H transmitter so often that I wasn’t getting any sleep.

So, my second method was to install the Dexcom G6 app again, and set up the Dexcom Share system. Then I went back to xDrip+, and set the data source as Dexcom Share.
This actually worked quite reliably.

I found that the link between the Dexcom G6 app on my phone and the G6 transmitter rarely dropped off. However, I realised that now the G6 app was sending data via the Internet connection on my phone into the Cloud and xDrip+ was pulling it back from the Cloud into my phone to process it.

This introduces a number of issues, some good, some bad:

1. You must have a really stable Internet connection on your phone, especially when you are “out” using 3G or 4G.
2. Your data usage will go up. Although I could not quantify by how much.
3. You can connect more people via the Dexcom Share.
4. I managed to get my Nightscout page working again using Dexcom Share as the source.

I would probably have accepted this situation. However I had a second issue to deal with. I needed to extend the life of the sensors to be able to afford to keep using them. So I set about working out how to do this.
Like I said, I have an 8H transmitter, which varies from the earlier models, but it is similar to the 8G model.
The way to restart a sensor with an 8G/8H transmitter is this:

1. Stop the sensor
   I did this using the G6 app.
2. Remove the transmitter from the sensor using blood testing strips
3. Keep the transmitter out for 20 minutes
4. Put the transmitter back into the sensor
5. Start the sensor on the app using “Start New Sensor”. Enter its correct serial number. (do NOT use 0000)
6. Wait 2 hours
   BINGO it works again.

So, again, success.

This is where Last Fate kicked my in the crotch!

After about 15 days of wear, my arm began to ache around the sensor site.
By day 18 it really hurt and my sensor was giving erratic readings and would stop for 30 minutes at a time.
Day 19 I took it off and saw my arm was a mess and the hole was… “unpleasant” shall we say.

So, it is clear that the G6 and me are not meant to be.

I have gone back to the Libre /MiaoMiao combo and am quite happy now.

IF Dexcom release the G7, and IF the NHS pick it up, I may have another try.

But right now I have an 8H transmitter and a single G6 sensor sat on my shelf and honestly, I don’t think I want to go back through all that again.

I hope you guys have more luck
Best wishes and Merry Christmas
Tigs62

[churcr]

Thank you for this last post Tigs62. I have the same setup as you with the Tslim replacing the Dexcom receiver and the Dexcom app on my phone. The only difference is that my sensor is a G6 81 series. I uninstalled the Dexcom app from my phone (Galaxy S8+) and installed Xdrip. I did manage to have it working for several days but turned it off today.

When I first got it working, it asked me for 2 calibrations even though I had entered the sensor code. The main reason I went with the G6 was so I didn’t have to calibrate. After 30 years of finger poking, I’d had enough.

Last night I got another request for calibration and turned off the warning but did not calibrate. All through the night, my readings stayed flatline around 110-120. (unusual for me) This morning xdrip was giving me a insufficient calibration warning with no reding and my tslim was giving me a reading of 115. I calibrated with my pump which gave me a reading of 179. (way off from the sensor).

After entering a calibration in xdrip, it started giving me readings again that match the tslim. But they stayed flatline around 110-120 instead of adjusting to the calibration. An hour later I checked with my meter again and got a reading of 154. This time I entered the calibration inside of the tslim instead of xdrip. Both continued to stay between 110-120 and once again did not adjust for the calibration.

I had to meet family for dinner so I finally uninstalled xdrip from my phone but the readings on tslim continued to be flatline before, during, and for an hour after eating. Finally they started to go up. So I don’t know what my next step is. I want to extend the life of my sensors and heard that xdrip was the easiest way of doing this. All the other methods suggest locking the Dexcom receiver in a faraday bag for the 2 hour warm up period. I don’t want to be disconnected from my pump for 2 hours.

And I do like the options that xdrip gives me. Much better then the G6 app. I guess I will have to spend some more time researching and thinking about this. Any input would be appreciated except for telling me to go back to the Dexcom receiver. Tandem is rolling out an update soon that will correct for both lows and highs instead of just the lows. I want to utilize this so the Dexcom receiver is not an option.