I always keep a change-out of AAA batteries in one of the film cannisers inside our kit, so they’re always readily available…we just thought we had longer. Lesson learned. From now on, it’ll be done much sooner and, if possible, during changeouts when the old pod has been deactivated but before the new one is activated.
After a “reset”, the bolus calculations aren’t possible for X number of hours afterward…that sucks the most about the reset. lol. I’ve had to bolus him twice now but IOB is –
I had my PDM ask for a battery change when I was sitting down w my family at qdoba. So I changed the batteries. Then we suddenly had to get our food to-go bc my PDM died and my Pod flipped out. Got a new PDM from Insulet.
When I was using the Animas Vibe, my battery died overnight and the pump overheated. I had to get a replacement pump from Animas. Ever since then I am very careful about never letting my batteries die on my devices. I change my batteries on my PDM as soon as the battery indicator is low (before it starts to flash) and I have never had a problem. I don’t feel the need to suck every last bit of juice from my batteries. I have greater peace of mind when I have fresh batteries rather then waiting for an indicator to start blinking.
Poking a little fun at you, but if you frequently change how you Batter your PDM, I suspect you will find many failure points. 
Look how responsible I’m being by searching for a topic before I post! I’m learning! Slowly.
My Omnipod PDM battery icon started flashing me today about 30 minutes before I was leaving the office for the day. I had a thought flash through my head that maybe I shouldn’t change the batteries right now. But then I ignored my thought and changed them. And then my PDM asked for date and time and wanted me to deactivate my pod.
So I took the new AAA’s out of it and just left my basal running in my pod until I got home an hour later. I went ahead and programmed my back up PDM that I bought out of pocket a few months ago and then I started a new pod. It was just as well bc my Day 2 numbers on this pod were totally different than my Day 1 numbers, and there was blood in the cannula when I removed the pod. Maybe something else was causing the resistance today, but my numbers are behaving better on this fresh pod already.
I’m going to call Insulet tomorrow and see whether I’m still in warranty to get a replacement or if I’m out of warranty and insurance will assist with getting another one. I know I can still use this PDM, but I like to replenish supplies as often as feasible.
Question: Will pods continue to run your complete basal program? Or will they stay on whatever hourly rate you were on when the PDM died? I had just ended a +5% temp basal, and the PDM died before my afternoon basal stairstep up from 0.3 to 0.4. Just curious if anyone knows. My inkling was that it would run your basal program but I wasn’t sure enough to stick it out with the pod for more than an hour or two.
A few things.
As you probably know, the internal battery on the PDM which keeps date and time when you swap batteries is dead. If your PDM is under warranty, you can get a new PDM. And you can also get that pod replaced. You know this, just posting it for people who read this thread and may not know.
You can keep using your PDM. Mine does this too. I just swap batteries when I do a pod change and it’s no big deal, I just have to put in the date when I do that, and it;s only once a month or so. So I live with it (because I don’t feel like reprogramming everything and losing my PDM history).
Your pod will absolutely run whatever basal program was currently set when the PDM died. Same for extended boluses and temp basals and whatever was running at the time. It will be the exact same. The pod doesn’t know the PDM is dead. It only communicates when you turn the PDM on and are in range.
You can activate a pod, throw your PDM in the river, and that pod will run your basal program for 3 days the same as if you had the PDM in your pocket. It makes no difference.
Do you know if they changed the tech on the second generation (? black, current version) PDMs? This is a known issue for Insulet and customer service will ask for the PDM serial number. When it happened to me I assumed that they had changed from using a battery to using a capacitor, but thinking about it I suspect that would make them liable for FDA re-certification so the CSR was probably just checking how old my PDM was. (I was way out of warranty of course, heh, I’m a T1D!)
If they replace the PDM though they ask for the old PDM back. At least that was our experience.
Assuming you are in the US:
Edgepark will participate in this (they make money). The assumption is that you will be OOPMax, so the cost is a non-issue.
Yes, this makes sense. When a company has a device failure getting it back to do destructive testing and determine why is part of their quality plan.
The most annoying part of this for me was the fact that without a functioning PDM, I was without a bg meter until I got home later. I don’t carry a spare meter in my purse.
Granted, I had my Dexcom, and I had recently tested and knew the validity of my Dexcom numbers, but still. Just something for me to think about for future contingency planning.
ETA: Turns out that I’ve only been using this PDM since last January and it was warrantied until 2022. Interesting that the internal battery already went wonky.
If you can hold the PDM far enough away from your pod so it can’t communicate, or hold it on the opposite side of your body, you can set the PDM clock and still use it for BG tests without actually deactivating the pod.
It will tell you that you must deactivate the pod, but you hold it far enough away so it can’t communicate (or better yet, have someone else hold it and press the button). You press the deactivate button. It tries to deactivate but since it can’t communicate with the pod it will tell you (or tell the person pressing the buttons for you) it can’t communicate and then you just choose “discard”.
That pod will still be pushing out basal for you. You can’t bolus off it, but everything else with the pod will still be functional. Including extended bolus or temp basals.
Try it at home when you have a pod about to expire. Take the pod off, put it in another room, and then remove the PDM batteries and go through the steps.
After you are done, go over to the pod and listen to it. You can still hear it clicking, delivering basal.
So in that scenario, your pod would still be good for basal, and you’d have your BG meter back. 
See this link for details about the deactivating without actually deactivating steps:
Hummmm. We kept ours. And got a new one via warranty when our old one flipped out a while back (of course at 3am when we were visiting family out of town). I can see why they’d want it back, but we didn’t send ours in.
They’re sending me a box to send mine back to them. Was yours out of warranty? Nm. You already answered that part.
Heck, maybe they wanted it back and EH didn’t ship it. He’s trying to actually sleep. So I can’t ask. 
I’m glad you’re getting a new one. It’s a bummer when that stuff malfunctions.
This was a great thread about how the basal will keep running when the PDM isn’t. Thanks to you for a good question @T1Allison and to @Eric for the detailed info.
That reminds me: does everyone know you can mail back your expired pods? They’ll send a bag to ship them.
Still? I thought they cancelled that program in the States. Over on TUD people complain about that now and again. Canadians can still return theirs.
Dude, maybe they DID cancel it. But I’ve got a bunch of the mailers when they fill up I send them off. Awkward!
You’re right according to this! Man. That’s a bummer.
Clearly a trip to Canada with a suitcase full of used pods is in order. And a frustrated phone call to Insulet is also in order.
When my teen is changing the battery in his pod it is asking him to reset the date and then he has to change his pod again. Not only are we wasting pods but he has to wait 3 hours to take any insulin. Thank God it’s not asking us to put in insulin information again… But I understand the pods are under warranty but wouldn’t this be a manufacturer defect? I have twin boys and only one of them is having this issue so I was hoping somebody could tell me if I could get another meter insulet Corp.? We don’t use that company for our supplies anymore because they don’t accept the new insurance so I don’t know if the pod would still be under a warranty with them. I know they told me before you could get a new meter once a year. The only reason I’m asking on here is because I was on hold for about 2 hours and I really don’t want to wait on hold if there’s nothing I can do. So if somebody hasn’t answered to this question I would really appreciate it!
This happened to me when the PDM internal battery was failing. One clue is that the clock no longer keeps the correct time. Insulet overnighted me a new PDM—no problem since then.
I had remembered this from the past and although we don’t use the PDM anymore, I did a bit of searching and found a couple posts where it was briefly discussed.
Hope some of this helps in perhaps preventing it in the future. As far as the replacement, I wouldn’t think so if you’re not one of their customers but I could be wrong.