The author of this article clearly has not actually spoken to a diabetic. All current meters are almost as small and mobile and are all perfectly safe and accurate. The only benefit of this is the added visualisation aspect from having the readings on a larger high resolution screen. I've read about the iBGStar a few times, but I really can't understand why they use the 30 pin connector instead of bluetooth. It seems unnecessarily limiting
- The current level of accuracy glucose meters are required to provide is quite poor. The current standard is +-20% of a lab standard 95% of the time in concentrations above 75 mg/dL. The strip technology used by the iBGStar a pretty big improvement. Not sure if Sanofi has any whitepapers on their site, But worth a look.
- I'm one of the designers of the iBGStar and we considered Bluetooth. We actually have another FDA cleared product that uses Bluetooth, but cost, battery life, and a bunch of technical issues led us to favor the 30 pin.
Feel free to email me if you have any other questions, or ideas!
Please don't forget the Android users. With Bluetooth or micro-usb (with an iPhone adapter), it would then be a software issue to support both rather than a hardware issue. While I don't have empirical evidence to back this up, my feeling is that Android devices may be slightly more popular for Diabetics because they are generally more budget friendly than an iPhone and diabetics have enough costs in their life already (my wife is Type 1.)
Regardless, please consider support both eco-systems.
Just a quick comment: I work in healthcare market access, and insurance companies won't give a crap about accuracy, which means you won't sell many units. They care about tangible benefits to them that reduce costs: better patient outcomes, lower costs.
Disclaimer: I wrote the Android app that would speak to that meter last year. It did blood glucose AND blood pressure and would transmit the data (via a companion app) to Google Health (until they killed Google Health. Sigh.)
That is a fine device, but not really portable. The challenge we had designing the iBGStar was making a credible glucose meter that was affordable and also tiny. It was a real team effort between our ID, UI, and HW engineering teams to make a fully functional, medical grade tool that also fit nicely with the portable phone form.
> I've read about the iBGStar a few times, but I really can't understand why they use the 30 pin connector instead of bluetooth. It seems unnecessarily limiting
Not to mention the fact that many diabetics need to check their blood sugar several times a day, which could introduce a lot of wear and tear on both the glucometer and the iPhone.
I remember when these machines cost several hundred dollars, were difficult to calibrate, and about the size of a netbook, but most glucometers these days are small and can be purchased for as little as $10.
The ability to record and track blood glucose levers over time is a "nice to have" feature, but this data could also easily be stored on the device and transferred to a computer later via a bluetooth or mini-USB connection.
We've found the real time nature of transfer is very helpful. For instance, now doctors don't need to waste time downloading a meter, they just look at their patient's phone. A small technical difference, but makes a huge difference in the way the tool is used.
I'm not so sure about this one. Doctors generally need the BG records to be appended to the patient's ongoing records, so they can spot both macro- and micro-trends.
I doubt many endocrinologists would decide to forego capturing the data because, "Oh, hey look, you've got a cool iPhone app."
There are bigger issues to consider when crossing platforms than wireless vs. 30 pin. One huge drawback for Android is device/os fragmentation which makes proper, medical grade, testing very difficult, time consuming, and expensive.
Just to clarify, does the iBGStar device perform the actual test and then the result is transferred to the iPhone, or is the iPhone actually part of the result computation process?
If the former, I can't see how transferring the results to an Android phone via bluetooth or USB would cause any problems and it would be extremely simple to end up with the data in an SQLite database for analysis using a very simple front-end app.
Having just an iPhone-specific product seems to limit your potential market considerably.
As a developer myself, I disagree. Assuming your device is what actually performs the test, the statement made here is just BS spouted by those that don't want to support Android.
