And another one? The final poor CGM Smartwatch

As they go, this one looks quite smart, and appears to be running a slightly different operating system to all of the others that I’ve tried. It’s by far the most Apple Watch-like in terms of looks and operation, and this one uses a different app.

It is able to provide a glucose reading once every thirty minutes to the app, and provide a level of tracking throughout the day, as well as blood pressure, heart rate and SpO2. It also tracks sleep.

But how well does it do these things?

Blood Glucose

Whilst it claims to track blood glucose, and has a nice looking interface to test, the results may not be what you want. And the inability to be able to spell on the interface may provide a hint of capabilities and quality assurance.

Below is an image showing what the Dexcom saw (from Nightscout). Following this is a video scrolling across what the non-invasive watch recorded, then the average, min and max for each.

I think you’ll agree that, rather than tracking blood glucose, it’s estimating based on weight, height and being non-diabetic, as there’s no correlation whatsoever between the values it reads and what really happened.

While I didn’t have the best of days, it at least highlighted the failures of the “CGM” watch.

Now, to give it credit where it’s due, it at least doesn’t claim to be a medical device, and this one didn’t come from a link in a Social Media viral marketing video, but it does look similar to the ones seen in those. As you can see below, very small font, but at least it’s there.

So we’ve established that it’s really very far from a reliable glucose monitor. For anyone with any type of diabetes.

How does it function as a smartwatch?

The rest of the sensors…

Starting with the pedometer, it seems to do a reasonable job here, being pretty close to what my Garmin reads.

As we move on to the other sensors though, it becomes more variable.

• Heart rate monitor: seems reasonable, although I didn’t put it under any pressure. Consistent with Garmin.
• SpO2: again, the blood oxygen sensors seemed reasonable and aligned with Garmin data.
• Blood Pressure: great if you want permanently low blood pressure. Not so good if you want to have an accurate reflection of blood pressure.
• Sleep: whilst it isn’t the most sophisticated sleep tracker, I’ve seen a lot worse.
• Body temperature: surprisingly accurate compared to a regular thermometer.

In terms of the sensors, it appears to be a reasonable smartwatch for activities, if not so for Blood Pressure and Blood Glucose.

And as a smartwatch?

Again, it’s a decent looking and feeling smartwatch that works remarkably well with an Android phone. So while it’s not very expensive, and the battery lasts for a while, if you wanted something cheap with a long battery life, you could do worse.

Is this the end for testing non-invasive CGM Smartwatches?

This is the fourth device I’ve tested and it comes with the same issues that the other three had. It doesn’t work as a glucose monitoring device.

Okay, they are cheap. Okay, the idea is great. But really, don’t bother, if that’s your main aim. Wait for something that has been medically approved to do what these things all say they do. Otherwise, you’re just wasting money.

Which is what I’m going to do.

A fun novelty as much as these may be, they are not viable as glucose monitors, nless and until Apple or Samsung (or someone else) manage to release something with a little more utility, or at least some guarantee of effectiveness, I’ll not waste anymore time or money on testing them.