So to summarize, sugarmate is dead? I don’t want to sign up and pay for some service just so I can ask Alexa what my sugar is… and as an XDrip+ user, it doesn’t seem like the Dexcom follow option is compatible anymore.
I’m not a programmer of any kind, but it seems like it wouldn’t be too complex of a web hook to write “query xdrip latest” at trigger?
If anybody knows something I don’t, clue me in!
SugarMate doesn’t cost anything…I’ve been using it for years free of charge. SugarMate was down for a bit but it’s back up again (for the US anyway). I’m able to connect to it and display it np.
Right, I’ve used sugarmate, but the legacy setup that allowed dexcom follow is dead… so unless you’re still actually using dexcom’s software via their receiver or their app, it won’t connect that way
No, that setup was turned back on. I don’t use Dexcom Follow or receiver. You can also use NS as a way to get the data, if you use NS. I was an XDrip+ user for a while until I gave it up…just too much work involved in it with the constant errors and issues I ran into with it, practically daily.
I could be wrong here, @Trying or anyone else, feel free to jump in here and correct me if I am.
Not dead, pining maybe.
“Dexcom Share/follow” still works; NightScout can be set up to use it and it still works (for me, as of this instant…)
SugarMate will not use “Dexcom Share”. SugarMate, so far as I know, only supports NightScout or Dexcom and NightScout is not supported if the data source for NightScout is, itself, from Dexcom Share.
It doesn’t matter much - it’s the same data however SugarMate gets it. Indeed, it’s probably more reliable for SugarMate to get the data directly.
The whole signing-up thing is just about NightScout and it’s now completely separate. You can do NightScout yourself using unpaid services from various suppliers (one for the NightScout code, one for the database it uses) or you can build your own system (which is very much more difficult and probably requires special purpose hardware).
xDrip+ is a completely independent alternative to SugarMate+Dexcom app. I.e. it replaces both. It doesn’t need the Dexcom servers and, in fact, has its own approach to sharing data with other users; one that doesn’t involve putting the data on someone’s server.
You just install xDrip+ on a different 'phone and allow it to connect to the 'phone which is controlling the Dexcom transmitter. DuckDuckGo “xDrip+ follower”. I think there is support for uploading to the share/follow servers, but it doesn’t (apparently) then download to clarity. It’s a while since I used xDrip+ and I gave up on getting the commercial stuff, like clarity and myglooko, to work; it was just way too much effort.
Okay, all of this sounds right. To clarify, I love XDrip+… I’ve written a few guides to get Samsung devices to be happy with the Dexcom hardware, and was only using Sugarmate as a bypass to get Alexa to convey my sugar. Back in the day, you could use xdrip to upload to a phantom dexcom share that could be accessed by sugarmate, thus allowing alexa-integration… but that is 100% not possible anymore.
If you’re native to dexcom and use clarity (which is different than share), then sugarmate is still an option… but only if you use the stock dexcom app. Personally I’ve found their app to be like riding a tricycle, and ditched it years ago, but that’s just me.
So again, the “problem” I was facing was finding a free way to get XDrip to connect to Alexa. Dexcom and sugarmate were just means to that end, but now it seems like those routes are more restricted.
Yes, I believe both @ClaudnDaye and @jbowler are correct.
Unfortunately, my Sugarmate stopped working on all of my devices. I use the Dex Share w/ Nightscout, which Sugarmate no longer supports for Nightscout. I mostly used Sugarmate on my Mac, and on my iPhone to easily see the BG Deltas, so it isn’t a big deal for me not to use Sugarmate. I do miss it though! I could use my Dexcom account as the Datasource to Sugarmate, but don’t really want to share more data! I’ll continue with Nightscout!
Indeed; SugarMate puts that data on the Tandem servers, so anyone who uses SugarMate ends up with a third or fourth copy of their data on the web - Dexcom Share, the copy in Clarity (optional?), the copy in where ever you put the NightScount mongodb (which, true, need not be on the web) and the copy on the SugarMate/Tandem servers. However nothing has changed there.
xDrip+ allows you to get round this, at the cost of having to build an app for the Apple version or deal with the warnings about not using the Google store for the Android version. So far as I know unless you permit it xDrip+ doesn’t put the data anywhere; it’s accessible via the web if your device is accessible, but that is it. That’s a really big plus.
One thing I said was misleading: SugarMate is dead outside the US. It’s no longer available because Dexcom has not enabled the new API outside the US.
You can use both; it’s not necessary to even look at the Dexcom app, you can do everything from xDrip+, the Dexcom stuff just runs in the background to update the Dexcom Share servers, but that isn’t really necessary because, apart from the bug in Clarity, xDrip+ can do the same thing (unless something has changed in the last couple of years.)
So I’m going to assume you are outside the US and therefore SugarMate is not even available any longer.
You could push for Alexa support from JamOrHam 
That’s the best solution - then it isn’t necessary to put your BG data anywhere. Having said that the Amazon page for SugarMate lists a whole load of competitors; see the “Customers also Enabled” list at the bottom.
Some of those should still work because they pull data from the Dexcom Share servers, like NightScout which does still work everywhere (so far as I know), however it looks like some of them have broken recently too. I think that probably depends on which regulatory authority Dexcom’s copy of your data is under and which APIs they are trying to use.
Totally agree with you. I love xDrip+ and have used it for several years. I still use it but not as a collector since I use Loop for OmniPod on iPhone.
How is it accessible via the web though? I only use it on my Android.
I’ve also only used it in the Android version, indeed I don’t know if Spike or xDrip4iOS (two iOS versions) has the same communication capabilities. So far as I was able to determine when I used it, it isn’t on the web at all. It’s accessible over IP (I assume) and followers sync directly to the master (the data collector), like SugarMate it’s two way - data can be entered on a follower as well as the collector.
This stuff was very fluid. I seem to remember reading that the implementation only worked on the local network but I’m pretty sure it worked to communicate from my (master) phone in the US to my wife’s phone in Taiwan (I can’t be 100% because that might have been after we swapped over to SugarMate). That implies a internet name known to the two handsets. It seems possible that xDrip+ was using Firebase (owned by Google) to do this in 2018 (from discussions about the “Desert Sync” feature). It’s tricky to do correctly - connecting the follower directly to the collector - because both may be behind different firewalls, indeed that might make it impossible. Nevertheless it’s clearly possible to do with a communication channel at a known location and that is what Firebase provides.
That’s incorrect; I was thinking of when I used xDrip+ and the Dexcom receiver both connected to the same transmitter. It’s not possible to connect both Dexcom and xDrip+ if they are on the same device. There seems to be a modified version of the Dexcom app which will transmit data directly to xDrip+ on the same phone. It is also possible to monitor the transmitter data as it is fed to the app; this is apparently how the loop apps work on iOS.
Yes, it does. That is how the xDrip+ watch works. So if you have your WearOS watch (eg. Sony SW3) connected to WiFi, data will be uploaded to the Cloud and be received by your paired watch, wherever it happens to be, and displayed in the xDrip+ app on your Android phone. xDrip+ Follower works similarly.
So far as I can see the data is not uploaded to the cloud. I took a look at the code; what I understand (bear in mind I don’t have any understanding of the Firebase or Google Play APIs) is that it is registering with the Firebase message service and/or Google Play. This seems to be sufficient to enable the follower to connect to the controller/master/collector and receive updates. It doesn’t look like any data gets put in the cloud and, indeed, doing that with Firebase would pretty much require each user to open an account with Firebase; the Firebase cloud service has a “free” limit of 1GiB, which is enough for one xDrip+ user but not all of them.
There are at least two ways of doing this. The trick is to allow two remote processes, both behind gateways (therefore not on the internet) to connect via the internet. I suspect Firebase/Google Play is allowing xDrip+ to implement a server in the collector and providing information for the follower to connect; this would allow them to provide the service for free because Google wouldn’t have to handle any significant amount of data (it would go directly from the collector to the follower.)