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Comment by ShakataGaNai | Hacker News Reader

He has that. The problem is not the CGM, it's everything around that (and the fact that both Freestyle Libre, and Dexcom, don't readily expose the data for the DIY types to do anything with).

While the Dexcom is "better" (than Freestyle Libre) in my opinion because the recent revision can talk directly to your phone continuously (the Libre only sends alerts, getting data requires you tapping phone to arm)... your insurance may cover only one or other. Either is way way better than nothing, but both are still a long way from automation.

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Not sure exactly what you mean by "getting data" but recent versions of both Libre and Dexcom have apps where you can view graphs of data on your phone with no tapping step.

NHS likely doesn't pay for Dexcom. Someone has figured out how to make the Dexcom app broadcast values it's received, it works great: https://www.patreon.com/byod

It seems like you and the GP didn't read even the first 20% of the article. The author shows their CGM in the first 2 page lengths. They mentioned they did all of this because the official Libre app was constantly losing connection with their CGM. He bought a "hat" device called a "Miao Miao" and then siphoned off the data to his own CGM service that won't cut out if it receives, as the author puts it, "anomalous readings"

It has a side benefit of allowing them to show it on their Apple Watch using Google Calendar only.

Actually I did read the whole thing before posting... There are different CGM models where some require scanning and some report continuously. My reading was that the author's model seemed to only support scanning thus the need for the hat, rather than periodic updates to an app that newer models provide, but it doesn't seem 100% definitive from the article as I don't know if on newer models data export might require scanning? The point of my comment was that rather than all this work, getting a different device could more-or-less enable the desired functionality without so many workarounds and the bulky hat device by eliminating the whole scanning/inconsistency aspect. Though if you want to pull the raw datapoints etc. and export them elsewhere, then there are still more complications. The non-scanning ones might still be a bit unreliable as well, not sure where that aspect is coming from.

"Getting data" would mean automated exports into a format that you can actually do some processing on. Not just viewing graphs on a screen.

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