This changes everything for the DIY Diabetes Community – TidePool partners with Medtronic and Dexcom

I don’t speak in hyperbole very often, and I want to make sure that you all understand what a big deal this is for the diabetes DIY community. Everything that we’ve worked for for the last 20 years, it all changes now. #WeAreNotWaiting

“You probably didn’t see this coming, [Tidepool] announced an agreement to partner with our friends at Medtronic Diabetes to support a future Bluetooth-enabled MiniMed pump with Tidepool Loop. Read more here: https://www.tidepool.org/blog/tidepool-loop-medtronic-collaboration“

Translation? This means that diabetics will be able to choose their own supported equipment and build their own supported FDA Approved Closed Loop Artificial Pancreases.

Open Source Artificial Pancreases will become the new standard of care for Diabetes in 2019

Every diabetic engineer every, the day after they were diagnosed, tries to solve their (or their loved one’s) diabetes with open software and open hardware. Every one. I did it in the early 90s. Someone diagnosed today will do this tomorrow. Every time.

I tried to send my blood sugar to the cloud from a PalmPilot. Every person diagnosed with diabetes ever, does this. Has done this. We try to make our own systems. Then @NightscoutProj happened and #WeAreNotWaiting happened and we shared code and now we sit on the shoulders of people who GAVE THEIR IDEAS TO USE FOR FREE.

Here’s the first insulin pump. Imagine a disease this miserable that you’d choose this. Type 1 Diabetes IS NOT FUN. Now we have Bluetooth and Wifi and the Cloud but I still have an insulin pump I bought off of Craigslist.

Imagine a watch that gives you an electrical shock so you can check your blood sugar. We are all just giant bags of meat and water under pressure and poking the meatbag 10 times a day with needles and #diabetes testing strips SUUUUCKS.

The work of early #diabetes pioneers is being now leveraged by @Tidepool_org to encourage large diabetes hardware and sensor manufacturers to – wait for it – INTEROPERATE on standards we can talk to.

Just hours after I got off stage speaking on this very topic at @RefactrTech, it turns out that @howardlook and the wonderful friends at @Tidepool_org like @kdisimone and @ps2 and pioneer @bewestisdoing and others announced there are now partnerships with MULTIPLE insulin pump manufacturers AND multiple sensors!

We the DIY #diabetes community declared #WeAreNotWaiting and, dammit, we’d do this ourselves. And now TidePool expressing the intent to put an Artificial Pancreas in the damn App Store – along with Angry Birds – WITH SUPPORT FOR WARRANTIED NEW BLE PUMPS. I could cry.

You see this #diabetes insulin pump? It’s mine. See those cracks? THOSE ARE CRACKS IN MY INSULIN PUMP. This pump does not have a warranty, but it’s the only one that I have if I want an open source artificial pancreas. Now I’m going to have real choices, multiple manufacturers.

It absolutely cannot be overstated how many people keep this community alive, from early python libraries that talked to insulin pumps, to man in the middle attacks to gain access to our own data, to custom hardware boards created to bridge the new and the old.

To the known in the unknown, the song in the unsung, we in the Diabetes Community appreciate you all. We are standing on the shoulders of giants – I want to continue to encourage open software and open hardware whenever possible. Get involved. 

Also, if you’re diabetic, consider buying a Nightscout Xbox Avatar accessory so you can see yourself represented while you game!

Oh, and one other thing, journalists who cover the Diabetes DIY community, please let us read your articles before you write them. They all have mistakes and over-generalizations and inaccuracies and it’s awkward to read them. That is all.

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