Interesting article on the sheer number of diabetes apps available in Google Play and the Apple Store

[littlevoice359]

In recent research, I found this article on the sheer number of diabetes apps available in Google Play and the Apple Store and how they stack up in terms of feature sets and useability. I thought some of you might find it interesting.

(PDF) App Features for Type 1 Diabetes Support and Patient Empowerment: Systematic Literature Review and Benchmark Comparison (Preprint)

For me personally, I tried several of the apps referenced in the article and none of them had key features I wanted. So, with time on my hands when COVID struck, and skills acquired across a 30yr career in software development, I wrote my own web app, which I now use exclusively to manage my diabetes.

 

[PerSpinasAdAstra]

If I may ask - what features did you implement which weren't in existing apps?

I'm currently learning Python with the intention of writing some software myself for analysing CGM data. I haven't written much code since college though so it's hard going. I couldn't understand why the existing apps were so light on features until I learned about how medical device regulations and data protection law apply to these kinds of systems. Producing a sophisticated system that might help a person analyse their health data and make 'treatment decisions', with that data stored in the cloud and meeting GDPR requirements, can get wildly expensive for a company when it comes to dealing with all the bureaucracy involved. I'm thinking a desktop app so GDPR doesn't come into it, and if I can do a reasonable job I'd make it open-source so that others can add to it. I'm thinking I might have a workable solution by maybe 2037 or so 😉 - if I get my skates on.

 

[littlevoice359]

Biggest issues I found with existing software:

• Carb counting/meal planning functionality was poor and/or difficult to use. Apps might advertise the ability to add new foods by scanning labels but it never worked for me (I live in Ireland and much of the software is US or UK centric)
• No easy way to correlate meal content with the effect it had on my blood sugar.
• Data entry was time consuming or unwieldy. Multiple tabs were an issue with Diabetes:M in particular, even though that was the best app I found.
• Reports were difficult to generate and/or interpret and/or share.
• Importing CGM data was cumbersome.

Hope this helps?

 

[PerSpinasAdAstra]

Biggest issues I found with existing software:

• Carb counting/meal planning functionality was poor and/or difficult to use. Apps might advertise the ability to add new foods by scanning labels but it never worked for me (I live in Ireland and much of the software is US or UK centric)
• No easy way to correlate meal content with the effect it had on my blood sugar.
• Data entry was time consuming or unwieldy. Multiple tabs were an issue with Diabetes:M in particular, even though that was the best app I found.
• Reports were difficult to generate and/or interpret and/or share.
• Importing CGM data was cumbersome.

Hope this helps?

Many thanks.

At this time my plan is to import data from several sources and put it all together such that it can be more-easily analysed. Re. carb-counting - I'm in Ireland too and I get what you're saying. Cronometer is the best of the apps I've found so far, as the barcode-scanning feature is free and you can add foods to the database by scanning the barcode and taking photos of the front of the package and the nutritional information on the back. It does a reasonably good job of automatically interpreting the 'per 100g' info on the label based on the photo. A surprising amount of Irish food products are already in the Cronometer database, though with some errors. It's not terrible, but requires a bit of work. What Cronometer does do well though is enable export of meal data to CSV files. With the paid version of the app timestamps are enabled for meals. I just wish there was an API with the paid version. At this time I hope to write software to parse the CSV files from Cronometer and import them into a database.

Correlating meal data with CGM data (and also exercise data) is exactly what I'd like to do. Importing that data into one system, with a fancy interface that is mostly just graphs and statistics, would make it very much easier to spot patterns.

 

[littlevoice359]

Many thanks.

At this time my plan is to import data from several sources and put it all together such that it can be more-easily analysed. Re. carb-counting - I'm in Ireland too and I get what you're saying. Cronometer is the best of the apps I've found so far, as the barcode-scanning feature is free and you can add foods to the database by scanning the barcode and taking photos of the front of the package and the nutritional information on the back. It does a reasonably good job of automatically interpreting the 'per 100g' info on the label based on the photo. A surprising amount of Irish food products are already in the Cronometer database, though with some errors. It's not terrible, but requires a bit of work. What Cronometer does do well though is enable export of meal data to CSV files. With the paid version of the app timestamps are enabled for meals. I just wish there was an API with the paid version. At this time I hope to write software to parse the CSV files from Cronometer and import them into a database.

Correlating meal data with CGM data (and also exercise data) is exactly what I'd like to do. Importing that data into one system, with a fancy interface that is mostly just graphs and statistics, would make it very much easier to spot patterns.

Many thanks for the info on Cronometer. That is not something with which I was familiar, so I will need to do some investigating.

Correlating exercise data is on my list of things to do, but I am still struggling with how best to gather useful data without it being over burdensome. Best of luck with your development efforts. I know I have gotten a lot of enjoyment from developing my software (and still do), in addition to it making life much easier for me in terms of reducing the effort required to manage my diabetes.