New BlueJay GTS Watch!

I ended up getting a GTS. It came last week, about 3 weeks after I placed the order. I’m mostly hoping to run readings and alarms through the watch so I can detach from my phone a bit more and not be constantly checking it (which only causes me to waste more time on my phone, vicious cycle). Ideally Dexcom would just run the sensor data through a cellular Apple watch or similar and I could ditch the phone entirely, but for now I’m running both.

My initials thoughts are its… fine? Meets expectations? I’m running the watch stand alone in the pump slot, not connected to a phone. Setup is fine. The Youtube video covers pretty much every function I can find in the watch. I was able to setup a transmitter and sensor through the watch as well as high and low limits. Alarms vibrate noticeably and will wake me up at night. Navigation is not intuitive, though, and takes a few tries to get the hang of basic functionality. The touch screen isn’t responsive and I make mistakes often (though that may be my fat fingers). The watch software crashed when I first entered a TX ID, but it rebooted quickly and has been stable since. Battery life is around 2 days so far, but that includes a couple bike rides that probably wake the screen prematurely. Hardware is pretty nice and we’ll see how durable it is.

My biggest complaint is I can’t figure out how to snooze alarms without turning them off entirely. The GTS vibrates every time it has an out of range reading and, since it takes more than 5 minutes for a correction, my wrist is buzzing every 5 minutes for quite a while. Problematic during the night. I will update if I can figure out how to snooze.

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There is a setting on the native Dexcom receiver called “repeat time”. You set it to 0 for no repeats. (Like once you acknowledge it, it will not repeat.)

Is there nothing similar on the watch? That would kind of be a deal-breaker for me!

If you can find a way to turn it off, please let me know!

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I haven’t found that yet, nor is it something I familiar with from the Dex iOS app. I’ve seen some gitter discussion of a long press to silence feature, but haven’t figured it out yet. Also, trying to stay in range means I’m not testing this feature regularly.

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Yes, I wish the Dex iOS app had that feature, too. This is one of the many features that xDrip+ that makes it so much better than the official Dex app!

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So on the phone it keeps sending alerts no matter if you have acknowledged them?!?!

I don’t use the phone app too much. I am not real familiar with the functionality of it compared to the actual receiver!

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Yes, if you acknowledge them, it spaces them out, but when Cody goes low we usually get two or three alerts before he gets back in range.

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Okay, so I went through the phone app to look at all of that.

  • High alerts - you can set it to never repeat.
  • Low alerts - you can set it to never repeat.
  • Urgent Low Soon - you can only switch between 15 or 30, but you can turn that alert off completely.
  • Urgent Low - this is the only one you don’t have an option to change. It repeats every 30 minutes.

At least that is what I have on the version I am using. Not sure if that has been changed lately.

I don’t use the Low alert, I have that turned off. I only have Urgent Low and High set for alarms.

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We only use the Urgent Low. I wish it would repeat every hour instead of 30 minutes though for the 4 am lows.

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I only use the urgent low, too, and would turn that off if it were permitted! Instead, I plug in earplugs to the phone to redirect the noise through them.

The urgent low seems to repeat more frequently than every 30 minutes! I thought it was every 5 minutes. Is there a setting to set it for 30 minutes??

Just checked the Dex app, and it does use 30 min repeat! I guess it is so annoying to me that it feels like every 5 minutes!

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Maybe it’s because you are urgently low!
:joy:

Actually, it might be this…

The alarm resounds if it goes between the two ranges. Like if it drops below 55, it alerts. Then it goes above 55 and back below, it will sound again!

So it might be that it is hovering at 55, and it will keep alerting every time if crosses back below the number.

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That is a great observation! Yes, I think I experienced this very thing today with a BG hovering around 55 after a late run!

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Well, it is very odd, but I’m sub 55 now, and the Dex app urgent low DOES repeat every 5 minutes for me while sub 55. The Dex app Urgent Low Alarm - Repeat shows Every 30 minutes, and cannot be changed. Do others experience this on iOS for BGs that are sub 55?

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@Trying,
One other thing to mention. On the Dex receiver, it repeats every 5 minutes until you acknowledge it.

Once you acknowledge the alert, it goes to 30 minutes.

Is that the same on the phone?

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So there is a silence alarm feature. Pressing and holding the only physical button as an alarm vibrates silences it for something like two hours. Its not documented and I can’t totally be certain of functionality yet. The other option, of course, is to pair the watch with the phone app, which I’m going to avoid for the time being.

In other news, the black aluminum already has a couple scratches. I’m notoriously hard on electronics, ymmv.

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Thanks! Excellent point! I generally just ignore them. I will acknowledge the next urgent low and see if that switches the repeat to 30 minutes. I’ll let you know, probably tomorrow as I seem to have at least one urgent low a day!:smirk:

UPDATE: Yes, that was my problem!! Thanks, Eric! Once I acknowledged the urgent low in the Dex app, it reverted to a 30 minute repeat. So much better than repeat of 5 minutes! I used to use xDrip+ prior to the Dex app, which handles alerts so much better.

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I ran a trail race this morning and my phone was literally drenched in sweat afterwards when I pulled it out of my pocket. Did I mention I hate running with a phone lol? My sugar also plummeted bad today at the last half mile. Hopefully because I have more room now not carrying a phone, I can bring more snacks in the pocket the phone took up. What I brought with didn’t work to raise my sugar adequately. All this made me finally pull the trigger and order this watch tonight. Can’t wait to try it out!!!

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I just got this watch today and have the Tandem X2 - I’m not able to connect to the watch at all. I don’t know what I’m doing wrong as I am trying to set this up on the watch not via an app. I don’t want any phone connection at all. I’ve watched the videos and followed about the slots. I’ve input the transmitter Id not sure what I’m doing wrong. I’m pretty tech savvy but this has been quite challenging.

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I was able to setup directly as a watch without any problem, but my alt is a phone not a pump. In fact, once I’ve iniated a new tx on my phone and entered the tx id to my watch, it automatically starts sending values as soon as they’re ready.

My guess would be its a slot issue. Have you looked through the Gitter?

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The GTS will always try and connect in the pump slot.
You have to set the watch to use the phone slot. There is one screen that shows the phone slot Menu slot for phone.. It seems a little backwards they way they show it, but choose the option on the right in this menu.
Also, if you had a phone connecting before, you need to turn that part off for collections!
If you have xdrip on the phone, the settings are much easier to setup through xdrip on the phone. Under the bluejay watch settings, the first two options for the watch and run collector need to be selected. Then under advanced settings, turn OFF the ‘run phone collector’, and turn ON the ‘bluejay uses phone slot’.
That is what it takes for it to start collecting off the watch itself.

Even though I never have my phone do any collecting, I still use it for most of my settings changes. It is far easier, and makes much more sense than the basic symbols that the watch uses.

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You are correct, for you it was super easy because the GTS automatically sets itself up to run in the pump slot. This works perfect when you have a phone, but no pump.
It takes a little more effort to get it to change settings and get them ‘correct’, especially on the watch alone, to make it run in the phone slot. AND to make sure your phone is not trying to connect at the same time.

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