Will Versa be able to show dexcom contiuous glucose results?

[Leonneke]

Hello!

Does anyone know if Versa will be able to show glucose levels coming from the Dexcom G5 device? Versa seems to be a complete smart watch, does this mean the Dexcom readings can be seen on the watch, like on Apple smartwatch?

Thanks, Leonneke

[SteveH · Accepted solution]

Back in September last year fitbit announced that are partnering with Dexcom to introduce this capability with a potential availability in 2018 on the ionic.

Since then there has been no further update on availability or whether the versa will be included (but I would assume that it is). Certainly there is no mention of availability on the versa at launch.

[Scattyann]

I too am very interested to hear updates on this. I've been holding back from buying ionic till I heard confirmation that it would show dex readings but all has gone very quiet. Now that the versa is out I much prefer this latest watch but again waiting to hear about dex readings. I am an android fan but may have to move to iPhone and iOS and apple watch to get my readings on my wrist. Such a shame there has been zero communication on what's happening with this integration. Anyone from Fitbit able to comment? 

[LZeeW]

@MarreFitbit  I see that you voted for @SteveH 's post.  Can you or another mod give any kind of update to @Scattyann ? 

Fitbit has been very quiet about this feature. 

[MarreFitbit]

Definitely @LZeeW!  Thanks for pointing me out! 

Welcome to the Fitbit Community @Scattyann, it's nice to have you here. As @SteveH said, Fitbit announced a collaboration with DexCom to develop and market products to help better manage their diabetes and get a more complete picture of their overall health.

 

The first planned initiative will be an experience available on Fitbit Ionic that will show users data from the Dexcom G5 Mobile continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) System (with either Android or iOS devices) right on the wrist, without having to open an app. This will be developed using the Fitbit SDK, rest assure it's currently in development slated for this year. 

The full announcement can be found here. However there are no further details I can share with you at this time.

I've also checked if there's someone already on the move in creating Glucose app as the one you want, but there's no one so far. So, the best place to make your voice heard is the Feature Suggestion board on our community, which our product development teams consult regularly to ensure we're delivering on what our customers need and want. Please take a moment to visit and give us your feedback. 

Our product team, community members, and developers look forward to reading and incorporating your suggestions into future versions of Fitbit trackers and apps. 

I encourage you to take the challenge of creating this app. What do you think?  I'll definitely use it! If you consider being the developer of this, check the article How do I develop new apps for the Fitbit App Gallery? for detailed information of the process. 

Thank you so much for your feedback and for participating in our community!

[Scattyann]

Great! Thanks for info! If it is to be made available on the ionic will it therefore be available on the new versa or is it not that straight forward? Difficult trying to make decision on watch purchase before the apps come out and are available. 

As for making one myself, I'm a physicist but have no clue about app development etc, completely out of my league lol 😂

[MarreFitbit]

Hey there @Scattyann, thanks for getting back!  We have in place exciting collaborations with players such as Dexcom and One Drop, both of which are using our SDK to develop experiences for our watch platform. We don't have anything to announce at this time - stay tuned! 

[jbrassard]

I'm thinking the same thing about going with Apple Watch and iPhone. However, I read, I believe on the Dexcom site, that if you want to be able to not have to cart the phone with you, you need to go with the GPS & Cellular watch, as they will be rolling out an update to that which will allow the watch to receive data directly from the transmitter - so you don't need the receiver or phone with you. That would be totally cool! However, when you start pricing it, it is $$$$$ - like if you finance in the iPhone and the GPS & Cellular Apple Watch and do the plan which would include them both, your cell phone bill will be over $1200/mo! So I'm thinking lugging the phone will be my option - but yes, the Android Gear phones have really poor battery life from the reviews and not many of them have all the features I'm looking for - heart rate, sleep tracking, Dexcom integration, and fitness watch. I was really hoping Fitbit would come through with this, but it has been over a year with no progress and there is no mention of them at all on the Dexcom site - especially with the new G6 coming on board. They only mention compatibility with Apple Watch, Google Pixel, and Android Wear. So I am likely going to wind up going with one of those - and as I said, most likely the Apple Watch as the Android battery is like 8 hours of light use from the reviews. Once that starts syncing with Dexcom, it probably gets worse. I had an iPhone once though and really did not care for it........oh well - the only other option is to continue to wait for Fitbit, but I have a feeling this is never going to come to be. One of the posts I saw had a Fitbit rep telling someone to use the toolkit and develop the app themselves!! LOL! So if they're telling us that, I don't think their developers are working on it!

[Gussollby]

I am a current user of a Pebble Time smartwatch. It already has the ability to view dexcom data via several different watch faces. As Fitbit owns Pebble, why is this feature not yet available on the Ionic or Versa? The tech is clearly already in use and you own that tech. It is very frustrating. 

[Leonneke]

I found out that is possible to get dexcom figures on fitbit versa already!
(Although it still goes via your phone, so not directly from dexcom to
fitbit). It works well for me!
You should get your dexcom results into nightscout and set up a watch face
which links to nightscout. It requires some time to set up, but it's not
difficult. There is a group on facebook with dexcom g5/6 users and another
one called cgm in the cloud. I advise you to go there and search the group
for 'fitbit versa'.

Good luck!

[jbrassard]

It appears the Facebook group has no instructions and the Nightscout website is talking about Pebble, which I'm not sure is the O/S Fitbit uses. Can you tell us how you did this to get it working on Versa and maybe provide a link to instructions?

[Gussollby]

Thank you for that info. However, I don’t want to do all that extra work. Right now on my Pebble all I have to do is use the share function in the dexcom app and the Simple CGM watch face and I have my dex data on my watch. Fitbit owns the Pebble tech. Why won’t they use it? I would get a versa in an instant if they did. 

[Leonneke]

well, if you don't want to invest in time it it, then don't.. I'm not
saying you have to, I'm just offering an option and sharing my experiences.

If you would like to go for it, I strongly advise to go to the facebook group and search for posts around fitbit versa, glance and nightscout. I'm sure you'll find it, there are links shared there. I just can't post them here for some reason...

[Leonneke]

I can't paste links in here apparently, my message was blocked..

If you search the facebook group for fitbit versa you will find links that are shared!

[jbrassard]

Unfortunately, I joined both groups and neither has any specific instructions - just pictures of people showing their Versa's with Dexcom data. I posted a question, but so far, all I've gotten are people trying to convince me not to upgrade to the G6 😞 I think I'm just going to go with the iPhone/Apple Watch at this point - it is not worth this much trouble. In the long run, the money I save on my Fitbit Premium subscription will pay for the Apple Watch.

[Shelbyrw]

Can you give me some insite on how to do this. I have a lg g6 and just invested in the versa and i love it. But getting frustrated trying to set it up with my dex.

[Mcurzon]

I just purchased a Versa with hopes I could see my Dexcom sugar levels.  Has a date been announced for the app to communicate with my new Fitbit?

[jbrassard]

You have to setup a Nightscout account, then download xDrip on your phone - but you need to uninstall the Dexcom app first, as they can't co-exist. Then you have to download the watch face. There are a couple of groups on Facebook if you search for CGM and G5. They have links to the instructions. However, be careful with this - it is why I went with the Apple Watch and iPhone. There are many posts from people saying their transmitter batteries are dying prematurely and they are being told to uninstall the xDrip app and reinstall Dexcom prior to calling Dexcom tech support and to not mention xDrip, as it will void the warranty. I had done the Nightscout and xDrip installation on my phone and was seeing how it worked before investing in the Versa. I only ran it for a couple of weeks and when I saw these posts it made me nervous, so I uninstalled it all and put Dexcom back on my phone.

And in all my years on Dexcom, I have NEVER had this happen - but at 5 AM I got a low battery warning - order a new transmitter message. By 6 PM that night, the transmitter completely failed. I fortunately had a replacement on hand, but I have always had at least a week or 2 from the time of that first message to the time the transmitter fails. So it is apparently well known that xDrip and Nightscout are having some kind of effect on battery life of the transmitters. I decided it was not worth the chance and since neither Fitbit nor Dexcom can give a date and have been telling us it is coming for almost 2 years now, I decided not to wait any longer and therefore went with Apple, which is a sanctioned integration. I am quite happy with it actually.

And in the meanwhile, I've had the Fitbit Premium subscription for years and about 2 months ago, it stopped working when you click on the Premium tab. I contacted support and was told they were aware of and working on the problem. It is still not working. I shut off the auto-renew on it. I have not charged my Fitbit in weeks and find I actually like the Apple Watch much better. It has a lot of additional features - like showing your heart rate recovery after a workout. It also shows a graph of your heart rate and gives you average, peak and low for sedentary, resting, sleeping, and workouts. I was actually able to see my heart rate drops significantly several times per day to a very low level and after showing my cardiologist, she actually had me stop a medication.

[steenlarsen]

I have a working solution for Dexcom G5 and Ionic. Its amazing!

However, I am not using the official Dexcom software. I am using the much better xdrip+ software with a Fitbit clock face called Glance.

Visit these pages to download and set it up:

xdrip+ : https://jamorham.github.io/#xdrip-plus

Glance clock face : https://github.com/Rytiggy/Glance

Good luck!

Best regards

Steen

[jbrassard]

I tried xDrip for a brief period, until I found a post telling people if their transmitter batteries died early to delete the app, reinstall the official app, and not mention using it to Dexcom. I deleted and reverted to the Dexcom app and for the first time in over 5 years of using Dexcom, my transmitter died several weeks early - with barely any warning. It gave me the “low battery - order a new one” at 8 am and completely failed at 5 pm. Fortunately I had another on hand, or I would have been without the CGM until a new one could have been shipped.