August 5, 2009

WaveSense iPhone App - First Impressions

My first impression was can I buy stock in this company - they get it.
Seriously.

I made a little flickr set of real bad pictures of the app. There are more picture there than here because I am not competent at uploading pictures to the blog.

This is a stand alone logbook application. As such it is just another app. Entering data sucks but this is clearly the first step. When they have Bluetooth working this is gonna be very cool and I will have to buy my kids iPod Touches. (I assume at that point the program no longer is standing alone and they have to go through the FDA. I am officially not holding my breath. Tough luck kids.)

When you open the App and accept the terms (the ones you didn't read) it starts on a little home page. Since you are new it points out two features to try right away - add information or get help. You can push the other buttons too but these two are good places to start, well who starts with help? This is America we don't do instructions. That leaves enter stuff.

You can ad a glucose reading, carbs or insulin. BG and carbs go in similar screens. Insulin has a whole different look and feel. I assume that is so you know you are entering insulin but it seems kinda like 'one of these things is not like the other.' I am sure they thought it through 'cause everything else seems like they thought it through. Go to flickr see more.

When you enter BG or carbs there is a nice big screen and a key pad. It assumes you are entering information for the current date and time but that can be changed with the typical iPod data wiz wheels. The sceen changes color if you are above or below target ranges.

They give you the option of entering a tag for the relationship to meals. Pre or Post Breakfast Lunch & Dinner. Night is also an option. WaveSense has the good sense to not assume it is pre or post meal by the time of day. It is like they get the idea you schedule may vary like your diabetes.

There is a crap load of options to enter a host of notes. There are 5 notes screens, Food, Exercise (including my most common one - Missed Exercise), Insulin, Meds and Notes. Notes includes my favorite "Dirty Finger." What a great and honest note for a test. You can ad you own notes to the predifined options - note the YDMV I added here. This is brilliant and the missing part of every log book I have seen. You want it as a note you can make it. Did I mention they get it and it as used here is a word that means YDMV.

After you cram in a bunch of data you can look at it; Log book style, charts or statistics. In the log and charts all you need to do is touch an entry and the details notes and all pop on to the screen. Hey why was that number out of range? Oh yeah the set failed, I was attacked by a key lime pie that made me miss my exercise and I under bolused but other than that I was good.

Go to flickr see more or maybe just go to the app store. It is free.

Oh and it doesn't look like a publicly traded firm so I don't have shares.


UPDATE: There's a quick video overview of this at theBetesNOW.com

9 comments :

  1. Just an FYI the iPod Touch unfortunately does not support bluetooth. Even though the device has the chips in it Apple decided to disable it as it would compete with the iPhone. A new version of the Touch will likely be coming out this September but again I doubt it will support bluetooth. That all said the devices are great (we have two of them) and my 11 year old daughter was just diagnosed last week. I'm looking forward to download the app.

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  2. Thanks Sean

    That settles it no iTouch for the kids! LOL

    Sorry to hear about the DX

    Check out Children With Diabetes it is a good place for support (right there in my link list) and read the newbie stuff here (also in the side bar.)

    Feel free to look be up at CDW happy to help out any way I can. Been at the 1 week past DX - twice. It sucks.

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  3. Following up.

    My understanding is that the Touch 2 with the 3.0 operating system has some blutooth capabilities. I don't know if that includes shooting info into the iPod or just hooking up a set of Captain Kirk wireless ear buds.

    http://www.engadget.com/2009/03/17/2g-ipod-touch-to-have-bluetooth-capability-unlocked-by-iphone-os/

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  4. They have indeed enabling some bluetooth features with 3.0: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3647

    They have specifically disabled headset support again to prevent competition with the iPhone. I'll try downloading 3.0 later today to test out the bluetooth functionality. I don't have a WaveSense meter so I can't test it with that (they gave us a Precision Xtra in the hospital).

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  5. Well it doesn't really matter as there isn't a bluetooth meter out yet. WaveSense apparently has one in the pipeline but not out.

    The Xtra is a good meter and is the only meter that test for Ketones. We use them for that. You are gonna need school meters. Ask the endo for more.


    Be on the look out for some lows if it is your first week. You are likely to get hit when that initial insulin resistance stops. See my newbie tips or feel free to email bennet (at) YDMV.net

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  6. I just downloaded and installed 3.0 on my wife's iPod Touch. It does in fact now support bluetooth but it appears only to allow the use of bluetooth headphones. I could pair it with my laptop and cell phone but in both cases it simply appears as a headphone device (e.g. no file system support) which means it's unlikely to support any meter that has bluetooth.

    I'm a software developer and maybe down the road I'll look into developing my own software download from the devices. I know the Precision Xtra uses a simple USB serial port for communication. What I'm really interested in software to help me predict my daughters insulin needs instead of reacting to them. For instance it seems a simple heart rate monitor (built into a watch) could go a long way in accurately measuring activity levels. Then using that historical information I would be able to predict carb/insulin needs for when a specific activity is upcoming (e.g. soccer practice).

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  7. Hi Sean

    Sorry to hear about your dd's dx. I'm Bennet's wife and I just wanted to point out that being

    "interested in software to help me predict my daughters insulin needs instead of reacting to them. For instance it seems a simple heart rate monitor (built into a watch) could go a long way in accurately measuring activity levels. Then using that historical information I would be able to predict carb/insulin needs for when a specific activity is upcoming (e.g. soccer practice)."

    You will find there is no such information. My kids have been dx for 5.5 yrs and 4.5 yrs respectively. And they can do the same activity the same time of day after eating the same food and have completely different insulin needs before, during and after. I wish you loads of luck and patients for the first few months can be frustrating. Stopping by the CWD forums and just hang out lots of parents there to get advice from and vent too..

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  8. Thanks dear, I was gonna break the bad new to him myself at some point. Sean here is the deal - Your Diabetes May Vary.

    My best advice is be to start planning now to go to CWD's Friends for Life next July in Orlando. We'll see ya there.

    For now help her learn to feel lows.

    Hope to see ya on the CWD parent's forum.

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  9. Great review! I've been meaning to download this and try it, and now I think I'll have to. I did want to let you know that you can take screen shots on your iphone.. it's really simple :)

    If you hold the top (power) button and the home button at the same time, then let go, it will grab one for you... super easy! They're saved on the phone as PNG files, just like screeshots in OS X.

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