Xdrip+ vs Tomato for MiaoMiao

Capt-Slog said:

Hi Guys,
I seem to be hogging the forum tonight, but I have another burning question. (YES, even more exciting than the mystery of the dimple!)
I have read a lot about people using xdrip+ with their MiaoMiao and android phone, but has anyone compared it to the MM Tomato app? I have heard that Tomato gives a more accurate reading than xdrip+

However, one of my goals is for others at work to see my readings. I work in an office on my own for most of the day and I want others in my building to be able to see my readings on their pc.
I can’t expect them to keep a webpage open all day, when they have their own work to do. But I was daydreaming about some sort of small monitoring program that would take data from xdrip+ or NightScout and flash up some sort of warning message on their desktops if I go Hypo.

There are at least 2 other type 1 diabetics at our factory, so a program like that might be designed to monitor more than one person, but still sit in the background on a pc.

As soon as I have my MM and sending data, I am going to start tinkering.
I was told that learning Python was a good idea if I wanted to design my own stuff.

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That reminds me of a “lone worker” device my colleague used to wear in case he ran into trouble when working alone in a workshop.

Capt-Slog said:

Is that a button that hangs around your neck like some infirm people people have at home?

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This was about 8 years ago so the technology was of that time but he wore it around his waist and it could detect a change in body position from vertical to horizontal for any reason. At that point an alarm was automatically triggered back to the receptionist who had been briefed on what to do next etc etc.

The idea was that if he collapsed in the workshop (short story - his role and the technology he was calibrating required him to work in isolation) then an appropriate alert was sent out.

Capt-Slog said:

Mmm interesting.
I am not horizontal at work very often. But I think I would still like to go down the route of monitoring my blood sugars so that I can decide at what point people are alerted. I have been very low whilst still sat in my chair.

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I see. He tended to spend most of his time standing.

U

Capt-Slog said:

So... Has anyone out there used the MM Tomato app?

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I can't recall anyone on here mentioning using Tomato with mm.

We tend to go for xDrip+ on android or Spike on iPhone (Spike was developed from xDrip+), basically because xDrip+ has a long pedigree and is generally highly regarded by users, the predictive simulator is excellent (input carbs and bolus and it extends the cgm trace to give a rough "weather forecast" of where that will take you, takes a bit if getting used to, but it gives a lot of clues we wouldn't otherwise have).

I suspect it's a bit like the earlier blucon transmitter from Ambrosia Systems. I bought one on pre-order back in June 2017, the native app for it was extremely basic, and then moved to xDrip+ in September after they coded it to take data from blucon, and kept with it after getting mm, so never really saw any reason to try Tomato.

Blucon and mm are both fairly solid pieces of hardware, but the software not so much, whereas xDrip+ has been around the block a few times.

Yes, it's open source software, has sign up warnings saying it's a research project not to be used for medical decisions, not approved by any regulator, most DSNs and endos have never heard of it (one asked me if it was "legal"!), but it sure as heck works. I'm happy to make bolus calls from it.

It's kinda underground and undocumented, but what I gather is that the lead developer's daughter is T1, so if it's good enough for the parent of a T1 child, it's good enough for me.

https://github.com/NightscoutFoundation/xDrip/releases

https://jamorham.github.io/#xdrip-plus

Well I was curious so went and found the said app which I have down loaded and installed onto the phone.

Unfortunately, phone being a Samsung/, the blue tooth does not see the MiaoMiao at the moment ~ my watch does and happily connects and sends info back the phone ~technology PFT!~ so I can't comment on how good it is, saying that it looks very colourful and the opening screen tells you "it is for medical research only and not to be used to treat people" or something like that.

So when everything has finished having a hissy fit and talks to each other again I'll let you know what its like.

@Capt-Slog Arh! "accuracy" the one word that gets bound around and can get some people very upset.

The problem is that nothing is 100% accurate even the blood test meters that you finger prick for because, it is mentioned on the forum in many places, they only have to be ~I think~ 15 - 20% accurate (@Scott-C can correct on that).

The Libre, as you may now, works off the interstitial fluid and so will lag behind bloods, which is why many of us use the xDrip, Glimp, Spike because they allow calibrations so can make them more "accurate".

It is just more an 'educated guess' BUT close enough to allow you to mange T1

For me these things are way way better than back in the day when it used to be 5 drops of urine + 10 drops of water mix in a tube add tablet and get a colour, all of which could be anything up to 6-8 hours out

Capt-Slog said:

Are there many people on this forum who get heavily into the algorithm for xdrip+?

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Tim2000s is our resident uber-geek. He's one of the front runners on build-your-own artificial pancreases. Here's his blog:
https://www.diabettech.com

Capt-Slog said:

But I also heard that the Tomato software is more accurate.

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Accuracy is a relative thing with cgm. Dexcom is meant to be a lot better than libre, but a lot of it is down to personal experience and the quirkiness of particular sensors, and calibration.

I've seen people saying dexcom is better than libre, and others saying libre is better than dexcom.

Dex is more popular than libre in the USA, and you don't need to spend much time on sites there to find people reporting dex throwing big fliers.

I've been using libre for about two and a half years now, initially on its own, then with the blucon native app, then with xdrip+.

At all those stages, I've had sensors which just seem to work better than others, and some which are scarily random. It just comes with the territory - sometimes this stuff just doesn't work that well, and that is the case no matter which sensor or software.

William Lee Dubois wrote Beyond Fingersticks about 10 yrs ago, which is like the Stone Age in cgm terms, but he makes a lot of good points which still hold true.

The main one is knowing when to trust your cgm, but also when not to trust it.

No matter what software is being used, I think people can be careless when calibrating it, and that probably has a bigger impact on accuracy than anything.

I never calibrate unless I'm running stable for about an hour. Calibrating on a sharp upward or downward trend just makes it worse. As does calibrating 4 or 5 times a day. Once or twice a day is my limit. There are, of course, rogue sensors which don't seem to hold a calibration for more than an hour or two but hey ho, these things happen.

My current sensor is pretty solid - it's generally only about 0.2 to 0.4 out when I'm stable, but I know that when I'm trending ip or down fast, it'll easily be 1.5 to 2 or more out. Many newbies would interpret that as inaccuracy, but it's not, it's because even the best software on the planet would have difficulty dealing with the ifg/bg lag in a fast rise/drop, and then they would compound the error by calibrating it at exactly the wrong time thinking it will bring it into line.

OK have given the MM Tomato app a go out of simple curiosity.

Installed to Android form the Play Store, there is a link to Tomato website to 'upgrade' the software but I do not know what extra that will give

Looks nice, very bright colours, menu layout is not bad but you have to look carefully to see whats what. It does not offer anything more than other apps, so allows you calibrate, record carb intake (do not know if it does predictive) allows insulin dosages and recorded insulins types you use, set alarms, can do exercise recording and a few other things.

If you are running anything else like xDrip or Spike then you have to get them to Forget the MiaoMiao else it can't see/bind/pair to the MiaoMaio.

Having tried for hour and eventually finding the manual online I gave up with it. I could get it to "bind" with the MiaoMiao but beyond that it did not do anything else, made no recordings and did not display anything on the front page.

Now this may be because the blue tooth was playing up or I need to reset the MiaoMaio for it to bing out a signal so that the App can pick it up, but as it attached to my arm and I have a week of this sensor left I am not willing to take it off and reset it.

I may give it another go when I change.

However, I'm not sure I will because xDrip will work with the Ticwatch and display information one there, plus I can update treatments using the watch, it is something I find more convenient to use and do not have to be reliant on the phone or be near the phone all the time. From what I can see Tomato app will not transmit to any smart watches from the menus I have looked at.

So if it is or is not more "accurate" at the moment don't know.

Capt-Slog said:

Thanks Knikki, you are a Star!
I honestly didn't expect you to go to all that trouble, so thank you very much.

It looks like XDrip+ is the safest bet and as there are lots more people using it, there are more people to turn to if I have problems.

I have just ordered a cheap android watch. It IS really cheap ( £35), so if it doesn't work out I will give it to my 10 year old.

I am trying to prove to my little diabetes group and my EDO that you don't have to spend a fortune to setup a CGM.

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Thats no problem I'm a software tester by trade so was simply interested to see what it was like.

I use xDrip but have also used Glimp, they are very similar but I did not like the layout or the way Glimp worked but there are others who use it and like it. (Spike is the IoS version of xDrip)

As for the watch you might want to double check on what it will do because the phone and watch need to run Google Wear so the watch can get the app from the phone and I do not know if Wear is Android version or phone version specific.

Good luck in your quest for cheap CGM

Knikki said:

OK have given the MM Tomato app a go out of simple curiosity.

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I didn't even know it had it's own app!

You're probably the first person in Britain to have used it, so we'll have to get therower in to award you the illustrious Top Banana award for advances in science...

Re not getting a reading from it, I remember when I changed from the blucon native app to xDrip+, the latter wouldn't work until I deleted the blucon app completely from the phone - even when closed it still seemed tp be running in the background, so the poor little blucon was maybe getting confused about which app to talk to. Maybe the same thing is happening if you've got both xDrip+ and Tomato on the same phone.

Capt-Slog said:

I have just ordered a cheap android watch. It IS really cheap ( £35), so if it doesn't work out I will give it to my 10 year old.

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You've maybe seen this already, but there's some documentation on getting xdrip running on watches:

https://github.com/jamorham/xDrip-plus/blob/master/Documentation/WatchGuide.md

I treated myself as a late birthday present to a Fossil Q Explorist, and was just about to take it back, until I found the guide and realised I had to download xdrip onto the watch as well.

Scott-C said:

Re not getting a reading from it, I remember when I changed from the blucon native app to xDrip+, the latter wouldn't work until I deleted the blucon app completely from the phone - even when closed it still seemed tp be running in the background, so the poor little blucon was maybe getting confused about which app to talk to. Maybe the same thing is happening if you've got both xDrip+ and Tomato on the same phone.

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Yep you could be right there, plus Samsung blue tooth is not the best in the world, the app "appeared" to connect just didn't read anything ~shrug~