Blucon Nightrider + Smartwatch Wifi Connection For A 5 Year Old

Hi, @Ozu , I've been using blucon for about a year now, but have no need to share data remotely, so am not up to speed on that.

I'll tag in @justadad who I recall set up blucon to remote view his son's levels, so he'll hopefully give you a steer on it.

There are ways of doing it. Ambrosia has an inhouse app Caregiver which transmits to other phones.

But many of us find that, although the transmitter itself is quite good, their apps are a bit basic, so we use a much more advanced android app xDrip+.

There's an option to set up the user's phone as "master" and have it send data to other phones as "followers". The path is Settings/xDrip+ Sync settings. To be honest, I've never actually used it, so I'm not sure whether it requires both phones to be connected to wi-fi or whether it just chews up data every 5 mins.

There's other ways of doing it over the internet. Google xdrip+ and Nightscout, an American charity which has been instrumental in setting up data sharing for parents.

I'd forget about having the smartwatch send directly to followers. The blucon transmitter will send to a phone and then to the watch. There are ways of making the watch collect directly from the transmitter but it's very hit and miss - the bluetooth configuration of smartwatches varies so much that specific watches need some major software patching to act as collector. It's a complexity which you don't want to get involved with if you're just starting out with this. And even if you get the watch collecting from blucon, I doubt it will send to followers. So, the lad will likely love having a James Bond type smartwatch to show to his mates, but he'll pretty much need a phone handy if you want to data share.

xDrip+ will send quite happily to a smartwatch from the phone but there needs to be a phone to send to followers.

My set up is a cheap £95 LG K8 phone and a Fossil Q Explorist - it works well but probably isn't a suitable watch for a 5 yr old. Any Android Wear watch should work ok with xdrip+. Pebbles work too, they're quite cheap on ebay, I think the makers have stopped making them.

Avoid Samsung phones - they've got crazy bluetooth weirdness going on and don't work at all well with xdrip+.

Here's where you can get xdrip+:

https://jamorham.github.io

It's open source "use at own risk" software, but many of us use it and consider it reliable and trustworthy.

Here's some guidance on setting up remote viewing from it:

http://www.nightscout.info/wiki/welcome

And a guide to setting up an android smartwatch:

https://github.com/NightscoutFoundation/xDrip/blob/master/Documentation/WatchGuide.md

It's a fascinating area of technology - have fun!

Ozu said:

Hi @Scott-C ,

Thank you very much for the swift and extensive reply, I really really appreciate it! If he needs to have a phone anyway, then we will skip the smartwatch and get him a phone instead. Do you know if the phone needs to have NFC feature or would bluetooth do?

Many thanks!

Click to expand...

Bluetooth will do. The blucon transmitter reads the libre sensor with NFC, and then bluetooths it to the phone.The phone doesn't need NFC because the blucon takes care of that bit.

I started a thread a while back about blucon/xdrip+ which gives some tips on setting it up with xdrip+, so here's a link to it:

https://www.diabetes.co.uk/forum/threads/getting-hypo-alerts-with-libre-blucon-and-xdrip.127195/

Libre is great on it's own, and blucon/xDrip+ takes it to a whole new level, calibration, hypo and hyper alerts being the main ones.

But it's also important to understand that there are times when any sort of cgm will throw a wobbly. One of the skill sets which you, the wee lad and the parents will need to acquire is understanding when you can trust cgm output and when you can't.

Calibrating it properly against a blood test is the main thing to be aware of. Calibration means inputting a bg reading to tell the program that the number it's reading from the libre sensor means 5.7 or whatever. If you calibrate when bg is shooting around all over the place, say, like after a meal, when the glucose has gotten into blood but not yet into the interstitial fluid which the libre sensor is measuring, it's going to throw it well out. So, we tend to try to calibrate in the morning when there's a fair chance of glucose in blood being similar to glucose in interstitial fluid.

There's a couple of books on kindle which help a lot with that stuff:

Sugar Surfing, Stephen Ponder.

Beyond Fingersticks, William Lee Dubois.

There's another transmitter come on the scene recently, MiaoMiao. Haven't used it myself, but it's been getting good reports.

It's waterproof, which blucon isn't (although they've recently launched a waterproof version but the jury is still out on how waterproof it is).

https://www.miaomiao.cool

Hi @Ozu,

I am not sure that I have the right answers for you. I haven't bothered with blucon/xdrip since we first installed it back in February. It has been working perfectly since then.

My wife and myself are followers, using our phones, Samsung S7, Samsung A5. My son's phone is obviously the Master, he is using an older, Samsung S5, and no smartwatch. But, my understanding is that a smartwatch would have to be registered as a follower, in order to receive data from the Master phone, just like the follower smartphones. If you wish to monitor your nephew's readings, then you need to download the xdrip+ application and enter your phone as a follower.
What I am trying to say is that the smartwatch is optional here. The Master phone is the key device. The smartwatch helps visualization and it benefits the user, nothing to do with the followers.

I just realized, there is a Facebook group called xDrip, and their posts may be of assistance.

And a short video explaining how to set up an xdrip follower

Cheers

It might be worth a smartwatch when his wrist gets a little bit bigger. Phones, they have to be confiscated. I am confused,

Scott-C said:

Bluetooth will do. The blucon transmitter reads the libre sensor with NFC, and then bluetooths it to the phone.The phone doesn't need NFC because the blucon takes care of that bit.

I started a thread a while back about blucon/xdrip+ which gives some tips on setting it up with xdrip+, so here's a link to it:

https://www.diabetes.co.uk/forum/threads/getting-hypo-alerts-with-libre-blucon-and-xdrip.127195/

Libre is great on it's own, and blucon/xDrip+ takes it to a whole new level, calibration, hypo and hyper alerts being the main ones.

But it's also important to understand that there are times when any sort of cgm will throw a wobbly. One of the skill sets which you, the wee lad and the parents will need to acquire is understanding when you can trust cgm output and when you can't.

Calibrating it properly against a blood test is the main thing to be aware of. Calibration means inputting a bg reading to tell the program that the number it's reading from the libre sensor means 5.7 or whatever. If you calibrate when bg is shooting around all over the place, say, like after a meal, when the glucose has gotten into blood but not yet into the interstitial fluid which the libre sensor is measuring, it's going to throw it well out. So, we tend to try to calibrate in the morning when there's a fair chance of glucose in blood being similar to glucose in interstitial fluid.

There's a couple of books on kindle which help a lot with that stuff:

Sugar Surfing, Stephen Ponder.

Beyond Fingersticks, William Lee Dubois.

There's another transmitter come on the scene recently, MiaoMiao. Haven't used it myself, but it's been getting good reports.

It's waterproof, which blucon isn't (although they've recently launched a waterproof version but the jury is still out on how waterproof it is).

https://www.miaomiao.cool

Click to expand...

The person is also after a smartwatch if possible as well.

So, @Ozu,

As I wasn't quite convinced my answer was correct, I asked the xDrip facebook group. Here is what I got form there:

"You have to use a full Android watch like the Finow Q1 Pro. We have a M9, which has a slightly better battery, but handling is better with the Q1 Pro. You don't need a phone at all then, the watch IS the phone.
The watch works perfectly as a master for followers."

Hope this works for you

Cheers

How long would a smart watch last going all the places that a five year old's hand goes? I am thinking of sand pits, water play areas etc.....

@Ozu - The type of smartwatch required to capture data without a phone for a follower to see is something like this. I know of people running xDrip on similar.

https://www.aliexpress.com/store/pr...095.html?spm=2114.12010608.0.0.6ab333863WjtrX

Cheers, @justadad - I'd read a bit about the Finow a while back but had completely forgotten about it!

@Ozu , as justadad and tim2000s point out, looks like there is a way of using a smartwatch independently of a phone as the Finow watch mentioned has a sim card which basically makes it a phone in watch format.

There's an article here about setting it up:

https://www.deebee.it/?p=15216

The google translation from Italian to English can be a bit puzzling at times, but it's a starter for ten.

You'll gather from the article that it takes a fair bit of button poking to get it to work, so I'd probably be inclined to try the master/follower gig with phones first while you get used to it, as it's relatively easy to set up, get comfortable with that, and then have a stab at the watch set up.