After writing a brief article about the delays in receiving my Aidex, I got a shipping notice the very next day. Talk about coincidence!
It arrived a couple of days later, just over 3 weeks after I placed my order.
What’s in the box?
The box contained the contents in the picture below:
A lot of stuff to try out alongside the Aidex.
The bits and pieces, and insertion
Ignoring that for now, this is the applicator and transmitter:
The applicator is very similar to that of the Libre, but with a button instead of a simple push down. It’s a little disconcerting because the sensor isn’t round and you have to use the button to align it for insertion, which is something I failed miserably to do and ended up with this:
As you can see, I also messed up applying the overpatch, which is very floppy and really needs two hands, so isn’t all that easy to apply one handed when using an arm insertion.
The insertion was relatively easy, even if I messed up the patch!
Pairing the transmitter with the app was very quick, and the pairing took less than five mins, which is one of the quickest I’ve seen.
Talking of inserting the sensor, the options available are the backs of the arms and the abdomen. I have used the arms in this case, because I find they tend to be more accurate compared to fingersticks.
Finally, once everything is set up, then it takes an hour to warm up, in line with the Libre. Notably, when you start the sensor it gives you an option for a new sensor or a used one, suggesting it will apply a different calibration model dependent on sensor age.
And what of the application?
The following two videos show interaction with the app. The first thing you land on is the homepage, which offers 6, 12 and 24 hour views. There are then additional tabs showing history, trends, blood glucose for calibration and events such as exercise, insulin, medicine and food.
Then we have the settings. In this section are the alert settings, instructions for use, your profile, transmitter details and a few other bits.
The eagle eyed amongst you will have noticed no settings for sharing the glucose data, and I’m not sure there is one.
It’s also worth noting that it doesn’t specify calibration frequency, only stating that if blood readings are a long way from the sensor, calibration may be sensible.
That’s a brief overview of the system. Once it’s warmed up and running, we’ll see how accurate it is and how long the sensors really last.
Keep watching!
I’ve seen you asking a few questions of glucorx on Twitter. Just wanted to say, I don’t think they’ll be able to answer any/most of your questions when it comes to the technical side. They have just bought the product license to sell in the uk. Same as all their products, they buy cheaply from Asia, import them and rebrand and sell them on. Probably a fine model for needles, lancets, test strips when it’s quite basic tech. I’d be very worried about this sort of tech and their ability to support those living with diabetes or upskill staff around it in their own team or in diabetes centres. You might be better contacting the Chinese company direct for anything equil or aidex related!
Thanks Damien. I’m trying to highlight this to Twitter GBDoc.
So far, I don’t think this is a good product, and hasn’t been properly imported and thought through.
The CGM performance on day 1 is so bad that it could result in car accidents and the ability to use CGM for driving in the UK to be revoked.
It really shouldn’t be on prescription.
Have just seen Damian’s and Your (initial) comments. I am concerned the NHS may eventually fob patients off to use this product as the NHS’s “go to” cgm of choice, not based on its relative accuracy, features, etc but solely because it is cheap.
Just as they did a few years ago when patients in my ccg were forced to use this supplier’s blood glucose monitors.
Looking forward to your eventual objective review.
I believe you asked in another place the supplier of this product to confirm where patients’data who use their cgm is stored. At the moment I understand it is unclear whether the data is stored in the UK or Europe or China. Has the supplier of the product answered that question? If UK patient data is being stored on servers in China, is that compliant with current UK data protection laws?
They confirmed via DM, instead of the public thread, that it is in AWS (assumed to be Amazon Web Services) and the Ali Baba reference in the docs is a non-updated error. The privacy policy that you accept allows for data to be stored outside the UK, so it’s not specified where the data is held.