Interesting read. Unfortunately, the author never follows up on the initial observation that allegedly lead to this investigation:
After being lucky enough to receive an iBGStar meter from Sanofi the day before its launch, I ran a few comparison tests between it and the Bayer Contour USB, which I’d been using the past two years, and discovered that the iBGStar consistently gave me a reading 20-25 points higher.
That is to say, her observation was that the meter lacked
accuracy. She went on to explain why meters cannot achieve lab precision. What she said is correct, but it's completely missing the point.
It's a simple matter of statistics - no amount of variation in strip age, interstitial fluid, etc can explain away a consistent trend. If one meter always reports a different BG (e.g. my Navigator is always 1 mmol/l less than any of my other meters*), they are not measuring the same thing.
Worse, this makes the meter useless - if you know that it always produces false hypos, you'll just start ignoring them so you might just as well not bother testing.
* Latest example: I tested after an intense cardio workout. Navigator said 2.6 mmol/l (which is impossible, I'd have noticed BG falling to 2.6 mmol/l), and I checked with my AccuCheck Mobile which reported 4+ mmol/l. I went to wash my hands and do another test, which came back as 2.8 mmol/l and 4+ mmol/l respectively. It doesn't matter in which order I do them, or if I use a different finger, etc. Abbott says the variation is perfectly normal, of course, perhaps showing that their call centres are not staffed by statisticians. With my Optium Xceed or (trial) Contour, the same thing happens all the time.
