Dexcom STS Software review

Warning for those of you who are faint-hearted. This is not good software. So this is a very critical review

After some pestering, I finally received the download software for my Dexcom CGM system. I paid for the system on March 30th, and received the software today April 10th. It wasn't worth waiting for.

In a nutshell, this is extremely poor software. According to the Dexcom Help About screen, this is version 9.0.2.18. Why they would use a complicated numbering scheme is just an indication of how little they're thinking of the user.

To me this feels like beta software. There was no attempt made to give the user any level of control.

You can only do three slightly useful things with the software. Download the readings from the Dexcom receiver, view up to seven days worth of readings at a time, and print a report showing the readings over an extended period, with seven days of readings summarized on each page.

The screen to view the readings is shown below. You can see strong correlation between the Dexcom readings (blue circles) and the Ultra meter readings (red X marks). If you hold the mouse over a symbol you can see the summary value in mg/dL.


Later in the review, I show an example of the Modal Day view
for the data. This is valuable for doctors and, with some help, patients.

I believe that software like this is unusable for the average patient. It doesn't provide information that they can readily act on. At the end of this review I've outlined some areas for improvement.

The rest of this article is a screen by screen description of what I found in the Dexcom software.

Dexcom Software Details

When I loaded the CD that the software arrived on, it immediately started installing. I was given no installation choices about where to put the software. This was the only screen that I saw.


The whole feeling I got during thw install was the lack of control I was given. Notice how the screen above only has a Cancel button? And there's no option to indicate where to install the software.

The next screen below warned me to remove any attached Dexcom receivers. Now this is written all over the box that contains the software and cable, but I understand the need to be cautious.


So after pressing OK, the next screen tells me to connect the Dexcom receiver using the supplied cable.


I connect the cable to a USB port on my computer and to the Dexcom receiver. After pressing OK, I get the obligatory legalese screen.


Now I'm ready to download data from my Dexcom receiver....but the software isn't.

First I've got to fill in some details to get the download going. On the screen below, I click the New button (picture is after I filled in my details).


Then I fill out this form. You could leave it blank. But then if you exported the data, it wouldn't have your name. I added the minimal amount of information.


Then I press the Start button to get the transfer going. I had data from March 23rd to April 10th, about 18 days worth. While the data is transferring I see the following screen. It takes about four minutes to transfer all the data across.


After that I can finally see the data, up to seven days at a time. Apart from the Glucose Trend view (shown at the start of my review), there is also a Modal Day view that shows up to seven days worth of data superimposed over a single 24-hour time period.


I think this is the most valuable aspect of the Dexcom software. You can select for example three days worth of data and then use the arrows to see successive days. That gives me some idea of the trends.

Minor Points

The Dexcom software was almost hidden on my PC. I had to use a special tool to find it buried under the following area:

C:\Documents and Settings\Bernard Farrell\Local Settings\Apps\2.0

After a good deal of investigation, I could not figure out which file in this area is holding the data itself. So for a technical person like me, I couldn't figure out how to extract my own data from their software so I could look at it in more detail.

Areas for Improvement

I could write several pages here. Let me just make a few points.

First. Make two versions of the software. One for patients and one for doctors. An individual doesn't need to track patients. This same criticism is true for software from OneTouch and Minimed. I think they're using the same group of consultants!

Second. Let us get at our data. Better yet, make it available in a standard format. That way we can build software to combine this with data about food, insulin, and other useful information.

Finally. Add some basic statistics. How about the average (mean) blood glucose value for the displayed time period? Or the percentage of time between a range of values. This could really help.

Other stuff. I'd like to compare what happens over different time periods. Show me the trend for a 14-day period. Give me the modal view for a selected set of weekends. Allow me to mark a range of readings with additional data to indicate sickness, menses, etc.

Your Assignment

Have you any experience with diabetes-related software? Are there things that you like or don't like? How about providing some comments that might help in the development of the next version of this software.

Have you used the Minimed software for this CGM? How about posting a review somewhere for that.

Labels: CGM, Dexcom, review, software

posted by Bernard @ 7:02 PM