The ReliOn Premier Blu: a new Walmart Bluetooth meter with cheap strips

Welcome! I am sure your experience will be appreciated. You may want to introduce yourself in this thread. We are a pretty lively bunch and glad you joined the fun.

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I was recently diagnosed with Type 2. I am 51 years old living in Austin with my wife and 2 sons ages 18 and 14. I have been surprised at how little good information is available about Diabetes. For a disease that has impacted millions for 1000ā€™s of years it seems very strange that medicines are so costly and insurance companies handle the equipment and medicines so differently. Being on a high deductible plan I am learning all the ways to work the system. I love my Relion Premier Blue with its cheaper strips and small volume needed for each tests. I was using a freestyle as it was on the insurance plan and it was erring out 30% of my strips and was really hard to get the strips to work. I Agree with others on the board that the app can use some work. Not being able to see a graph across days is a real problem. My has been very easy to sync with my iPhone and easy to use. I am currently using Lantus but will have to change as my new insurance provider no longer has it on their formulary. Any suggestions for good alternatives?

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Welcome @Mattmandeluxe!

Make sure you search our forums for posts relating to purchasing diabetic supplies through Canada. This may be of some assistance to you as well.

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Also know that a short ā€œishā€ drive to the Mexican border and you can purchase your insulin for the same price or less than the over the counter price in Canada if you want to stay on Lantus.

See this thread for more info, including current prices:

You say that Lantus isnā€™t on the formulary, what is on the formulary? Is just NPH? Do you have a copy. There are currently a pretty good list of possible basal insulins out there.

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Welcome, @Mattmandeluxe!

Insurance companies switch brands periodically. More than likely, the new ,ā€œpreferredā€ basal insulin for your insurance company is Basaglar, which is biosimilar to Lantus. So more than likely there will be no difference to you.

If not, another possible alternative your insurance might have is Levemir. In that case, there are likely to be changes because they can behave differently.

Why donā€™t you call them up and ask? Once you know whatā€™s available we can discuss it here. My money is on Basaglar though :slight_smile:

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It is basaglar. Looks like it wonā€™t be a problem then.

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@ReliOnAM What ever happened to the app updates?

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Iā€™ve been biting my tongue for months. It is now official, we have launched the updated/new app on both Android and Apple app stores. We brought in more staff to address the issues and Iā€™ve been told that so much has been updated, they consider it almost a new version(realistically it looks the same, but, so much work went on behind the scenes).
If ANYONE notices issues going forward, please feel free to reach out to me.
-Scott

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Thanks for coming back and keeping us updated.

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The app syncs much faster. Any update on being able to export the data or print?

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Simply go to Ark Care Advanceā€¦
https://arkcareadvance.com/
Click ā€˜Log Inā€™ and use the same credentials.

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NO, IT DOES NOT SYNC WITH ā€œMYSUGRā€ OR ā€œAPPLE HEALTHā€ OR ā€œCARB MANAGERā€ OR ā€œGLUCOSE BUDDY+ā€ OR ā€œKETODIETā€ OR ANY OTHER HEALTH APP TO MATCH CARBS & EXERCISE TO SUGAR NUMBERS. IT IS NOW 5/2019

Itā€™s now May 2019 and I just purchased the entire line of ReliOn products after my recent diagnosis. I am super frustrated that you all still have not worked out how to share with Apple Health or anyone else.

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Welcome @mortensign, glad you have joined our community. I am sorry the integrations you are interested in donā€™t work, diabetes is quite frustrating on its own, but add in hardware frustration and things can take an ugly turn.

Relion isnā€™t the only brand that has issues sending their data to other health apps, in fact I think due to security concerns the only way most of these work well with other apps is to connect and use a sign on to the companies online data repositories using your login information. Perhaps you could get your data up to ArkCare and see if anything can scrape the data from there.

As patients we all know what we want, but it isnā€™t always easy for the companies to stay on the good side of the FDA and allow your data to flow easily.

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We have read multiple reviews of people requesting both Apple and Google health compatibility. We are working with Apple currently, but keep in mind, nothing happens quickly when it comes to Apple.

Roche owns MySugr and since they are a competitor, itā€™s safe to say that we are not gong to be compatible.

Iā€™ve been type 1 for 36 years. Every time my phone software updates my CGM is no longer compatible. FDA has to test these connections and approve them. I wish I had pictures of the syringes I used in 1982. Planning 30 minutes ahead of a meal was also challenging since insulin couldnā€™t react quickly. Iā€™m pretty grateful that there are now low costs options so people can take control of their blood sugars.

As updates occur I will be posting on this site.

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Thanks for keeping us updated on Relionā€™s progress. @ReliOnAM

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Thanks for keeping us abreast.
Not sure if itā€™s only me or others are facing the same glitch.
I always have a meal market set on my machine but this never gets brought into Relion life app in Android.

BTW, if anyone is interested I have been for past 2 months doing a tandem test with Relion Blu and Contour Next One. Both results are either exactly the same or off by no more than 5 points. Using same poke / sample of blood for both devices.

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Hi @ReliOnAM, itā€™s nice to see contacts at companies interacting with end users. I am pre-diabetic and purchased a ReliOn Premier BLU monitor. I like the fact that it can automatically track my results in your app and Iā€™m excited for Apple Health integration that you mentioned will be coming. Once that integration is complete many other health apps can view and use the Apple Health data, and I believe at that point your device at its pricepoint will be a huge boon to diabetic patients.

As others have mentioned I too had trouble with initial pairing of my device to my apple phone. In the initial pairing a user is required to enter the serial number from the glucose monitor to start the pairing. Iā€™m wondering why your app couldnā€™t open the camera & scan the barcode on the back of the monitor, thus eliminating the need for end users to manually enter that data. At least give this as an option. I initially mis-entered the serial number by a single digit, and now my app shows 2 monitors, and there is no way to remove the incorrect one. I would mention this as a bug to your app developers.

Iā€™m overall excited by your product, and the potential it has to help in diabetic management.

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Hi! My wife is legally blind and would be interested in trying the voice model. Sent PM. Let me know.

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