[Diabetes-talk] Follow up: CGM accessibility

[Megan]

Hey all, 
After another month using a CGM off and on, I have discovered the following. 
1. We are not the only ones who want to do something with the CGM receivers. Severl hobbyists have done things such as rig the receiver to display on a smart watch, make it play nicely with the Mac, and get trend graphs without using the company's provided software. So basically, there is programming code that has already been written to extract data from the receiver and display it on another screen, be it a computer, smartphone, or smart watch. It's just a matter of writing programming code to make it do what we want it to do--I.E. read the data, interpret the arrow, and then voice the results. A couple of techy friends and I have had our heads together looking at this and trying to write python programming code that would allow someone to connect the receiver to a computer or Raspberry pie (a mini Linux computer you can put in your pocket), read your BG and whether you are rising or falling, and possibly even calibrate the receiver via USB. Keep in mind that this is *not* FDA approved and will never be, so I don't necessarily know that I want to release any of our code. But the preliminary programming code that interfaces with the receiver is easy to find if you do a Google search. Provided you've got some programming experience or some friends who have, it wouldn't be hard to use the existing information to build something that works for you. I will also be looking at what the laws are regarding this kind of thing, and whether we could circulate the code without being legally responsible in case someone misuses it. I would also need to check with my friends and see if they would be OK with circulating the code, provided we wouldn't be held legally responsible. 
I will keep you posted with further developments. Ultimately, I want to play around with some electronics and create a single unit that would hold the receiver and contain all the components to read the data accessibly and be able to interact with the CGM. It might just be a pipe dream but it's worth looking further into. 
Best, 
Megan