Wearables are slowly but
surely making their way into our daily lives, but one very critical
aspect—health—is already helping to bring them mainstream. It’s
something that every person is conscious of on a daily basis, and
wearable device makers—as evidenced by the countless fitness
trackers on the market—want to make it easier to stay on top of
exercise, diet, and more.
About half of all American
adults have some kind of chronic illness, and diabetes is one of the
most common. With the advent of smartwatches, we all now have quick
access to at least one useful stat: our heart rate.
Last month we told you
that the company had plans to officially launch an Apple Watch app,
which is now available and plugs into the Dexcom G4 system with
Share. Now, Android Wear users also have access to that data on their
wrist, though, thanks to an unofficial pair of apps called xDrip and
NightWatch.
One person posting to the
Android Wear subreddit is already
using the pair of apps, and had only good things to say:
"It gives me my
always updated blood glucose levels in real time, updated every 5
minutes. No more digging around for the stupid receiver in my pocket
– just a flick of the wrist, and I know what my body is doing. I’ve
been a type 1 diabetic since age 12, and am now 27. This is such an
amazing thing for me. While it may seem like a small thing, I love
it, and the development team deserves some recognition!"
The app can do a lot more
than just show you a graph of your blood glucose levels (although
that’s all I would need to be impressed). There are 4 different
watch faces included (that embed the data so that it’s always
glanceable), a scrollable graph that shows blood glucose over the
previous 24 hours, customizable high and low levels for the graph,
and alerts to let users know when their graph goes above or below
those pre-set limits.
Here’s the full list of
features:
BG graph on Android Wear
watches!
Scrollable, zoomable graph
of bg over last 24 hours
Customizable High and Low
levels for graphs
4 Watchfaces
Lockscreen and Homescreen
Widget!!
Built in Alert
Notifications
Retrieves Data from your
existing NightScout site
Retrieves Data uploaded to
Dexcoms servers, no setup required! Just log in!
Retrieves Data from xDrip
locally if both are running on the same phone (No network connection
required)
Even without that, though,
apps like this provide a new level of convenience allowing those with
chronic illness to live a more normal life than ever. Something that
not long ago required constant skin pricking is now possible with a
glance at the wrist. Embedded tech in smartwatches themselves is
probably not far off, but lives are clearly already changing without
it.
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