Libre2 blocking mobile internet issue

Status
Not open for further replies.
A

Adup

Member
Relationship to Diabetes
Type 1.5 LADA
Hello!
I'm new to the Diabetes UK forum, but have been closely following all your really infomative posts, many of which have helped me navigate the difficult post T1D diagnosis waters.
As a bit of background - I was diagnosed as a T2D in November 2021, before my T1D diagnosis in May 2022 thanks to the persistance of my GP practice nurse.
I consider myself extremely lucky to have been given a Libre2 on prescription fairly soon after my diagnosis, after having a very scary hypo at work.
This has eased some of the anxiety around dealing with BGs and their ramifications, however, I have struggled (and still am) with the well documented alarm loss situation android phones seem to have with the Libre2. The other problem I have noticed is that when the alarms are working I'm unable to access the internet on my phone and can't download videos or images, etc. I think it may be someting to do with bluetooth or the wifi connection as it seems to work ok when I'm out and about using 4G. The signal at home is teribble which is why I can't connect to the internet via 4G at home when the alarms are working.
I've called the Libre help desk a number of times, but they simply suggest reinstalling the app, which doesn't help. I'm thinking of switching to an apple phone but would prefer to fix the problem in case it's as simple as changing a conectivity setting.
Apologies for the long winded report, but just wondering if anyone else has had an issue with this?
 
Adup said:
Hello!
I'm new to the Diabetes UK forum, but have been closely following all your really infomative posts, many of which have helped me navigate the difficult post T1D diagnosis waters.
As a bit of background - I was diagnosed as a T2D in November 2021, before my T1D diagnosis in May 2022 thanks to the persistance of my GP practice nurse.
I consider myself extremely lucky to have been given a Libre2 on prescription fairly soon after my diagnosis, after having a very scary hypo at work.
This has eased some of the anxiety around dealing with BGs and their ramifications, however, I have struggled (and still am) with the well documented alarm loss situation android phones seem to have with the Libre2. The other problem I have noticed is that when the alarms are working I'm unable to access the internet on my phone and can't download videos or images, etc. I think it may be someting to do with bluetooth or the wifi connection as it seems to work ok when I'm out and about using 4G. The signal at home is teribble which is why I can't connect to the internet via 4G at home when the alarms are working.
I've called the Libre help desk a number of times, but they simply suggest reinstalling the app, which doesn't help. I'm thinking of switching to an apple phone but would prefer to fix the problem in case it's as simple as changing a conectivity setting.
Apologies for the long winded report, but just wondering if anyone else has had an issue with this?
Click to expand...
could you ask for the libre receiver and get your libre alarms etc via that?
 
Hi and welcome.

I use the Libre 2 reader to scan my sensor rather than my phone, which I find extremely reliable and it is nice and small and picks up the sensor signal very easily when I scan, whereas I believe some phones have to have quite exact placement over the sensor to pick up the signal. Anyway that is beside the point, what I wanted to say is that I have the "out of range alarm" switched off. It conserves battery life and isn't using up so much Bluetooth capacity which I think can be limited with some phones. Interestingly, The out of range icon is shown on the reader when it is in the other room charging as it is now, but the alarm still activates when I am going high or low, so the high low alarm has a much greater "range" so I would encourage you to switch off the out of range alarm and just leave the high and low alarms on. It is possible that this may well fix the problem for you because the "range" signal/alarm is not draining your resources.

Another option is to pester Abbott for a Libre reader if you are interested in that option. Some people really resent carrying an extra bit of kit around but it can also be used as a BG meter with Optium test strips, so can be used instead of another BG meter. The info displayed on the reader is not as extensive as the Librelink app but you can download it to LibreView and see all the AGP reports there, so it isn't like the info isn't available. Obviously if you don't have a PC then you may have problems downloading to LibreView and hence sharing your data with your team but you can use a reader and phone with the same sensor, so you could just scan 3x a day with the phone to download the data to LibreView and use the reader for alarms.
.
 
@Tdm obviously types quicker and more succinctly than I do. 🙄
 
Ha! Thanks for the suggestions. I'll look into the scanner option. I use the app on my phone to log all my injections and food intake, so may need to think of some work around with the scannaer and phone. Maybe if I turned the alarmes off on my phone and used a scanner just for the alarms, that might work? Thanks again!
 
Adup said:
Maybe if I turned the alarmes off on my phone and used a scanner just for the alarms, that might work?
Click to expand...
If you use the reader and your phone, you need to initialise with the reader and that means the readed is the only thing that gets the alarms. So you're forced, really. You can continue scanning with your phone (and entering extra stuff), it just won't get the alarms.

(If you use Novo Nordisk insulins, the newer reusable pens can be scanned to provide injection doses and times. Though marking doses as an air shot has to be done by hand which is annoying (they really ought to mark 1 or 2 units followed shortly by a larger dose automatically as an air shot (or "flow check") and the real dose.)

What you're seeing from your phone sounds like a phone specific issue. It's not something I ever noticed, though I mostly used the reader for alarms (I think I used my phone for a few sensors just to try it). (I now use my phone for alarms but with an unsupported app Juggluco, and find that works fine.)
 
Thank you, I'll try the scanner when I start my next sensor. Interested to see if it may just be my phone (has been dropped many times😳). Apple phone users don't seem to have had any problems with their Libre2s (that I've heard of), so may be time for an upgrade🙂
 
Adup said:
Thank you, I'll try the scanner when I start my next sensor. Interested to see if it may just be my phone (has been dropped many times😳). Apple phone users don't seem to have had any problems with their Libre2s (that I've heard of), so may be time for an upgrade🙂
Click to expand...
Don't you believe it! Some seem to have had problems with their NFC in their Apple phone getting "fried" after an update, essentially requiring a new phone as it would not scan the sensor at all after that and no Apple pay which also uses NFC.
 
Hello,

Apparently Wi-Fi can interfere with BT? Similar band width frequency?

You could try changing the channel on your router. They normally come by default on channel “1,” just set it up on the highest channel number you’re given.
You might also have a neighbour’s router signal causing dropout on your device? Hence the download issue.
Changing your router channel might resolve this, too.
 
Thanks for the advice all, I will try the WI-FI tip as I'm sure the route of the issue lies there🙂
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top