@jbowler I got an equivalent em while on vacation stating Sugarmate would stop working on 4 Nov. So far (knocking on wood), it’s still working for me. I switched to Sugarmate a few months ago for the additional data, logging of meals, etc. and don’t relish returning solely to a grossly rudimentary Dexcom app. Have read the comments below and have concerns as to how fast Tandem is working the issue and the potential, despite Tandem’s/Dexcom’s mutual reliance on many levels, for the two corporations to act as competitors ala Microsoft and Apple. I also despise the Dexcom treatment of MY data as THEIR data, where is the legal safeguard that needs to be there? Also, I don’t mind sharing MY data, but what’s Dexcom’s or FDA’s reasoning for a 3-hour data delay? Who made the decision and why? Perhaps one of you can explain? I seem to find myself once again as finding an app/service/food that I like only to have it taken away from availability…just a bit distressing once again…
It’s still working for me too, as of a few minutes ago. There’s a pinned(sp?) comment from SugarMate about the US service on their facebook page, unfortunately FaceBook block links to their pages (I really wish manufacturers would not make announcements on services you have to sign up for!) It just repeats parts of the email, “Sugarmate™ app users in the U.S. will experience a disruption in their data connection beginning as early as 1:00 PM PT on November 4.” So it’s not really communication at all.
The implication of some of the comments in the FB group is that it has gone AWOL in the UK, but I didn’t track back enough to find any descriptions of the event.
The data ownership thing seems to be a significant part of the motivation for NightScout and is one of the reasons I’ve started considering NightScout again. NightScout is the data aggregator; the data does not have to be anywhere else because NightScout allows access, under your or my control, to wherever it is needed.
Using NightScout to get round the Dexcom app inadequacy is a bit of a hack, but it is the same as SugarMate - I should be able to have an app on my phone that actually works in a way I can stand. That app needs to not depend on the internet.
At present I’m still concerned about data security, but then Dexcom’s own data security is minimal so far as I can see. Having spent my life programing computers I don’t feel particularly motivated to spend a whole lot of time on NightScout so I’m tending towards paying the $11.99/month and using T1Pal. My alternative is to try to find a way to run MongoDB and NightScout on jbowler.com but that’s a whole lot of work too (but easier to maintain for me.)
Okay…
After a day of cutting down trees and installing NightScout I’ve finally got it done (NightScout, still a few trees to go).
I used T1Pal. I basically followed there instructions but they aren’t really adequate. The owner supplied this link on the NightScout facebook group (CGM in the Cloud) a few hours ago:
Those instructions are better. Signing up for T1Pal means having a Google account, it is possible to create a scratch one and disconnect it after signing up and supplying payment information but it needs a secret (semi secret I think) link to log in after that. This is what I did.
Setup of NightScout itself is fairly straightforward, like it just happens and the stuff I had to enter was related to diabetes not obtaining an HNC in computer hacking. The T1Pal UI was sort of ok, sort of, “Opportunity for Improvement.”
Integration with SugarMate, still the only solution I can find that allows me to laboriously enter carbs and Omnipod bolus information, was difficult. I am not alone; others on “CGM in the Cloud” hit the same issues concerned with working out what URLs to enter where; the reason I posted that link above.
NightScout still isn’t getting my carbs and boluses. This is a work in progress; part of my motivation for paying $12/month since that might actually persuade me to fix it or at least find out that it can’t be fixed.
I think SugarMate gave up the ghost tonight between 6pm and 7pm Eastern on receiving Dexcom data. That’s when I lost my data line, just FYI.
We just lost Liam’s Sugarmate data access. 
Now all I see is “invalid data source” messages. It just stopped working tonight around 8pm.
Update: This morning I realized that the loss of SugarMate also means the Watch readings I’ve grown so used to seeing are no longer available either via the calendar. Very sad evening and morning.
But it sounds like they are working on trying to get the service working again…at least that’s how I read their latest FB posting: Redirecting...
Also here: FAQs: Sugarmate and Dexcom Connection | Sugarmate Help Center
Similar to others, I lost Sugarmate feed last night (11/09/21) at 6:20pm EDT. Guess I’ll have to resolve to use Dexcom’s app (very poor replacement for data made available and capabilities) or sort thru implementing NightScout or xDrip4ios. Anybody with experience and recommendation or guidance that’s willing to advise on what and how would be appreciated. I’m an iPhone/Mac user that’s used to tinkering with programming, but not familiar with finer points of hacking together my own solution. Thanks in advance for any info!
@jbowler and others: Thanks for your references above, will re-read and see what I can figure out from those.
@ClaudnDaye, don’t you use Nightscout? If so, you can enter your Nightscout URL into “Add Datasource” in Sugarmate - Settings. This will get your BGs directly from your Nightscout instance.
I mentioned earlier that I use Loop on iPhone which supports uploading BGs to my Nightscout instance. This allows me to view BGs (and pump data as well which also gets uploaded) in Nightscout, Sugarmate (by using my Nightscout instance URL as the Sugarmate datasource), and Tidepool (using Tidepool Mobile iOS which uploads Apple Health data).
If you don’t use Loop, which I assume you do not, then you can use xDrip+ to upload BGs to Nightscount. I used to use xDrip+ on Android for this prior to using Loop on iOS. I still use xDrip on Android for its great UI on my phone with History, Statistics, all on the phone. I’ve not used xDrip4ios but I assume it has that same functionality???
Here is another link that may be helpful for those interested in using Nightscout for their datasource to Sugarmate…
“Realised this was the case and managed to take the plunge and figure out how to set up nightscout. Not that terrible if you follow the DIY guides to the letter. Sugarmate allows you to set up the data source as nightscout instead of Dexcom directly. So my sugarmate is basically CGM > iPhone > Dexcom API > Nightscout > sugarmate.”
So maybe ^^^ commenter is using Dexcom CGM Settings - Share enabled. I believe Nightscout can be configured to read BGs from Dexcom Share servers, so xDrip+/xDrip4ios would not be needed, only an instance of your own Nightscout:
https://nightscout.github.io/nightscout/setup_variables/#features
Include the word bridge here if you are receiving data from the Dexcom Share service.
careportal basal dbsize bridge
Oh wow! Thanks @Trying ! All this time I didn’t know that. I didn’t need it before so I guess it never registered. I entered our NS site and vwhala! Awesome sauce!
Thanks so much!
I followed the iOS (page)/SugarMate link in that section but it’s pretty bad as documentation goes.
There seem to be two ways to do it depending on which NightScout URL you use:
- Create an “uploader” in NightScout; if you set NightScout up with Dexcom Share you won’t necessarily have an uploader. You then have to enter both the URL NightScout gives you and the API secret in to the SugarMate “data source” URL.
With T1Pal: “Configure my NightScout/Step 2… configure uploader[button]” and then it displays buttons to copy the URL and the API secret. So on a 'phone use the phone browser to log in to t1pal.com then you can copy’n’paste the information into SugarMate.
- Create a “guest” URL in NightScout. This has no “API secret” so it should be enough just to enter the guest URL that nightscout displays. I haven’t tried this so I don’t know if it works.
Both my and my wife’s APIs are configured as uploaders; I did that in the hope that carb, excercise etc data could be entered into sugarmate and uploaded to NightScout from either 'phone. Despite that I don’t seem to be getting any uploads from SugarMate. SugarMate is still sharing the data via the Tandem servers.
Yes. That is the route that is being widely recommended. The standard setup on T1Pal creates a NightScout with the dexcom “bridge”; i.e. this happens during the setup process. There is no uploader so the arrangement is very different from what you have @Trying.
xDrip4iOS and Spike (both are xDrip+ forks[a fork is a modified version of a piece of software as opposed to clones which are look-alike rewrites]). As such they are apple-developer-only - you have to become an apple developer to install them and neither app is in the “App Store”.
Oh, do you need Nightscout then if Sugarmate is sharing data via Tandem servers? Do you see your data in the SugarMate app? I’m not familiar with Tandem servers. Do they have a webapp which allow users to view their data?
As for Nightscout, really all you need to enter is the URL of your Nightscout website into the Sugarmate’s Datasource field. It works for me. I share my Apple Health with Sugarmate so carbs, insulin, exercise all get posted to it. Although, I don’t really use Sugarmate for anything other than BG deltas on my Mac (status bar), and the BG delta on my iPhone. I don’t think Sugarmate calculates insulin properly for Loop, certainly not Basal, nor the tiny autoboluses by Loop. Nightscout does sync everything properly with Loop, so for analysis, I mainly use Nightscout (and https://nightscout-reporter.zreptil.de/ for great PDF reports).
SugarMate is owned by Tandem, so I’m hoping to find some way of getting the data out of Tandem to somewhere I control it. Mainly what concerns me is the carb data I enter; that’s stuff I only have in SugarMate. Exercise data is in Apple Health and insulin data held by Insulet.
I have to double-enter the insulin data into SugarMate, so it’s not really worth having (I make mistakes and the Insulet system has the authoriative answer).
Health data isn’t pushed by the SugarMate app - it appears in my copy of SugarMate but not my wife’s. I’m guessing that SugarMate would violate the agreement with Apple if they did uploiad it, I think SugarMate re-downloads it each time. SugarMate does upload my hand-entered bolus data to Apple Health, so maybe there is some way of downloading Apple Health to my NightScout database, though Apple probably ban that too.
IRC there is some way of uploading the Omnipod PDM to NightScout using the data-cable download, but maybe that is TidePool.
On the use of NightScout as a data source, people who use T1Pal don’t have a web site unique to their instance of the Heroku database. The internet access is via a sub-domain of t1pal.com of the form something.t1pal.com. There does not seem to be a way of controlling the something. It’s possible to get several of these URIs, but apparently only one has an API secret (necessary for good security) yet they all have obfuscated names (a form of security, just not very good since the names are logged by your router, your ISP etc…) So my uploader, with the obfuscation modified, is:
Which would be secure enough on its own if it wasn’t transmitted in clear - the obfuscation seems to be a random value of 35 bits (or less). The download URLs that T1Pal generates have no API secret and I’m not sure they are reliable - I swapped my NightScout follower to use one yesterday and it is not getting any readings today, SugarMate (using the uploader/API secret) is fine.
The API secret is optional. That’s what opens up the administrative functions but isn’t necessary for connecting and displaying the NS bgs.
You are correct. Ugh, horrible. Security, you want security? I’m actually paying for T1Pal so this is a bit much.
I didn’t know that about T1pal re: URL.
Well, perhaps you could use an iPhone shortcut to enter your carbs, bolus, exercise, etc., into Nightscout. I recall @ClaudnDaye created or organized some shortcuts to do this for Loop users?? You can use the Nightscout API to upload these to Nightscout. I don’t use a shortcut, but a swift app, to upload my exercise to Nightscout. It observes Apple Workouts and will push the Workout to Nightscout upon completion. You can do this with a Shortcut, too.
Yes, Tidepool offers upload sw for many devices. Tandem may be supported. It definitely supports Omnipod because I used to use it prior to switching to Loop a few years ago. I know having all of the data in one view is really ideal. Loop made that possible for me. I’m not familiar with the Tandem pump but perhaps it has an API which would allow you to automate the upload data to Nightscout? Are you using Tandem pump or Omnipod? Again, you could perhaps create an Apple Shortcut to observe insulin data in Apple Health and push it to Nightscout? Nightscout does have an open API. Here’s an example of how to use it … https://github.com/nightscout/cgm-remote-monitor/blob/master/tests/api.treatments.test.js
SugarMate have this on their FB page:
UPDATE [11/19/2021, 1:18PM PT] Development is near completion on the Sugarmate app to allow it to connect to Dexcom CGM data utilizing the Dexcom Partner Web API. We are beginning a testing phase to ensure accuracy and reliability before finalizing this update for our customers in the U.S. It is unknown exactly how long testing will take and how long to make final updates to the app, but we assure you that both companies continue to work diligently together to restore connection.
For our customers outside of the U.S., we are working country by country to get the necessary regulatory and technical aspects in place to reinstate service, we anticipate the disruption in data to continue through the end of the year.
Sorry, I can’t work out how to post the link but the above is thumb-tacked to their FB door so it should stay there for a while.
@jbowler Thanks for the update! I don’t visit Facebook too often. I temporarily signed up for T1Pal account and, while useful, look forward to return of standard Sugarmate connectivity.
@TomH Are you paying T1Pal month to month, or did you go for the yearly subscription?
How long did it take them to have Dexcom readings appearing on your Sugarmate app?