CareSens Dual Glucose Meter

Notes regarding the Caresens Dual Glucose + Ketone meter

This meter is supported as of the Sat 9th June 2018 nightly.

Pairing

This meter is only Bluetooth discoverable while in the pairing mode. To use it with xDrip you should follow this sequence:

• Ensure you have taken at least 1 blood test with the meter
• Make sure the meter is forgotten within Android Bluetooth settings so that it is not paired.
• Open xDrip+ Settings -> Glucose Meters section
• Long press the S button on the meter until you see SET on the screen
• Press the > button so you see YES displayed, then press the S button again
• You should now see BT displayed on the screen, press the > button until you see PAIR displayed and press S again. The display should say PIN
• Now quickly select Scan for Bluetooth Meter in xDrip settings and then select CareSens xxxx from the list.
• Now watch for a pairing dialog to appear on the phone. It should ask you for a pin code
• Look at the bottom of the meter screen it will have a 6 digit number which you enter in to the phone to pair.
• If all goes successfully you should hear beeps as xDrip syncs the data from the meter and then allows auto-meter-start to be enabled.

After pairing, the only time xDrip will be able to connect to the meter is if there is new data available or if you enable the pairing mode again. Although after successful pairing this will just wake up the bluetooth on the meter allowing you to test that xDrip is still receiving data.

Limitations

This meter doesn't allow us to read the internal clock to determine the actual time that a reading was taken, but it does allow us to set the clock. Every time the meter connects to xDrip it will have its clock set to the current phone time.

This should mostly ensure accurate times on readings, but there is still a potential issue that the first reading you take after daylight saving time begins or ends will appear an hour offset.

One way to avoid this problem would be to manually adjust the clock of the meter before you take the reading when the clocks change or place the meter in to pairing mode which allows xDrip to connect to it and sync the data at which point xDrip will update the clock for you.

Ketone readings

This meter also supports ketone measuring. xDrip can handle this and will sync these readings, but at the time of writing nothing is done with them, but you can check them in the event log by searching for ketone

General Design Notes

This is quite an easy meter to operate. It is a little larger than I like but as its a dual glucose and ketone meter that is acceptable. The display is easy to read and the buttons easy to operate. Only a small amount of blood is needed. The case seems pretty good with a sensible clear section over the display.

I wish it was a little more helpful with Bluetooth discovery but I expect the way it is implemented is to conserve power which is probably quite an effective optimization. Time will tell whether it syncs as reliably as other devices.

If any meter manufacturers would like me to integrate support to xDrip for their meter or appraise the technical implementation of their Bluetooth support etc, feel free to get in touch.