Dexcom to Apple Watch

Tips, Tech & Gear
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Just in–Dexcom to Apple Watch is NOT vaporware. Found this post moments ago on Gitter:

Elye Mittelman @ElyeM 07:37
About the new G6 transmitters:

There’s a new Dexcom transmitter being shipped in US (and South Africa and ???). First USA reports of them have been coming in today…but they’ve apparently been in circulation for a few weeks. They are identifiable by the big font on the underside, transmitter ID starting with 8G (so far), and a little ugly ridge on the top side. Photos below.

:grin:Good news? These new transmitters will have the ability to do direct to Apple Watch CGM data (when dexcom releases updated dexcom G6 app to enable that feature). No word on when that will be, but dexcom needs to bleed in the new supplies so that the market is switched over smoother…don’t want everyone demanding new transmitters just to get the feature at once. Makes sense…good planning by Dexcom.

:hot_face:Bad news? These new transmitters have a new protocol that will not let them work (yet) with Loop offline. Meaning your Loop will only work by pulling BGs from your Share account. Some hacking will be needed to get offline use going again for these new transmitters.

What this means for you in the meantime is that if you are using the new transmitter and Loop …you will have to (1) have internet connection, (2) have Share turned on in your Dexcom app, and (3) have Loop’s CGM signed into that same Share account. Airplanes and cell phone dead spots will not work for Looping with the new transmitters until Loop gets updated.

:raised_hand_with_fingers_splayed: Check our the Zulipchat Loop channel if you have hacking skills to dig into Bluetooth XPC messages and submit a PR to CGMBLEKit. (If none of that last message makes sense, don’t ask…wouldn’t have been for you anyways then​:rofl:)

From looped group in Facebook

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Wow! @docslotnick thanks for sharing! Very exciting news. :grin:

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I wonder if I can opt-out of these new transmitters. I finally have loop working great and don’t need a crappy roadblock messing things up. :angry:

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Huge roadblock requiring network and the data being pushed through Share. Wouldn’t this also mean the data that’s being provided to Loop would be considered “old” data since it doesn’t propogate immediately into Share?

Glad we’re on G5!!!

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I mean that’s good but… you still need the G6 Dexcom app to work on Apple watch, right @docslotnick?
If this is for real I could totally see giving Samson an Apple Watch and having that be his data collector. But as with many Dexcom promises, I’ll believe it when I see it. Their software and programming seems to be a real weak spot, so I’m not super optimistic. But we shall see.

I’m less concerned with offline Looping as there are all sorts of other reasons Samson goes offline during the day. Also, I’m pretty sure that by the time ours ships, some genius in the open source community will have figured it out.

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Share is within a minute for us, so I’m not sure it’s going to change Loop’s algorithms, which seem to run every 5 minutes. But it’s still annoying.

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@TiaG The way I read this, it is a direct connection from the transmitter to the watch, taking the phone out as an intermediary.

Like xDrip+ requires a phone for the heavy lifting, I would assume a phone to be available for maintenance. However, that is not at all addressed in the quoted post.

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Update: G6 update has been included in the DIY Loop master and all main DIY Loop branches. Pete’s comment on FB is I think worth repeating here:
Capture
Additionally, the omnipod-testing branch has now been merged to the Loop dev branch, which means that omnipod (Eros not Dash) support will become standard in DIY Loop master in the no-so-distant future.

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