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Comment by bigtunacan | Hacker News Reader

I have 5+ pairs of headphones. One for home, one for the office, one for the gym, and then a couple of spares for when I lose any of the main 3. I have the iPhone 7 and I end up carrying the dongle around in my jeans pocket when I am able to remember it. I'm certainly not paying $10 a pop for spare dongles when most of my headphones didn't even cost that much.

Getting rid of the headphone jack is by far the dumbest move I have seen on the iPhone in a long time.

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> Getting rid of the headphone jack is by far the dumbest move I have seen on the iPhone in a long time.

Then why did you get the iPhone 7? Should have voted with your wallet

Unfortunately I have a life saving medical device that only is compatible with the iPhone. I switched from Android to the iPhone 7 because of this.

Somehow I can't understand how a life saving medical device would require a smartphone of a certain brand, but even if this is the case you could have gotten the iPhone 6 for example

I'm a type 1 diabetic. There is a device by Dexcom known as a continuous glucose monitor that reads my blood sugar via interstitial fluids and then transmits the information via Bluetooth.

When I get unexplained low blood sugars in my sleep, which is believed to be the cause of Dead in Bed Syndrome, it sounds an alarm on the iPhone to wake me up before it's too late.

As for going with the iPhone 6

1) my money would still have gone to Apple

2) I didn't think about what a pain it was until after I bought them

Side notes

1) I have contacted Dexcom regarding an app for Android, but it doesn't seem like it will happen anytime soon.

2) I also tried an open source version for Android, but after purchasing 4 phones in a row that it had varying problems with I decided my life was worth more than being able to stay on Android.

[EDIT]

Diabetes is the number 7 leading cause of death in the United States and low blood sugar is the number one reason for ER visits by Type 1 diabetics.

Thanks for the clarification, and yes, T1 Diabetes is dangerous.

I have Dexcom CGM as well and I just use the hardware alarm that comes with it. The battery lasts days longer than a phone's and it is small enough to fit in my pocket with my phone. I'd argue you would have been safer buying Android and being forced to rely on Dexcom hardware instead of an app.

Yeah, that was what I tried at first. Unfortunately I'm an extremely heavy sleeper and the alarm on the Dexcom device doesn't wake me up. My wife was waking up to the alarm and then she would wake me. She travels frequently for work though so that wasn't ideal either.

Also though, which model do you have?

I have the G4 Platinum w/Share. The sensors for it now ship with a warning sheet stating that you may not receive audible alarms due to issues with the speakers.

Ah, yes, I've had that heavy-head issue, but I wouldn't think your phone would be louder than that alarm. Is it?

I have G5 with Share (I think; I have a drawer full of old Dexcom stuff) and have gotten the same letter, but haven't had that issue. I definitely trust it more than Dexcom pairing with the phone. I'm glad your setup is working for you, though.

Replying here to your other reply since you can't nest that deep.

I know there have been some changes on the G5 so I'm not clear how that works.

With the G4 the Dexcom CGM acts as a proxy to the phone. So when everything is working correctly I get two alarms. So this gives me a certain level of redundancy. Anyway it works for me well enough that I can get a full night's sleep. For years I had alarms set to wake me up several times during the night.

[EDIT]

Also, responding to your question about the phone being louder than the Dexcom. The phone is an order of magnitude louder than the G4.

$2 per on ebay. Just throw 20 bucks at it and buy one for every pair you have.

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