CONTOUR DIABETES app (US)

This app is good at what it does — reading glucose measurements from Contour Next One devices over Bluetooth. Unfortunately, the developers have prioritized their own data needs over those of the consumer. The app prioritizes uploading your glucose data to their proprietary cloud server over syncing with the Health app. And if the cloud server isn’t responding, the reading won’t show up in the Health app until their servers come back on line. If that weren’t bad enough, the app has an extraordinarily hard time syncing to the Health app even on a good day. Typically, it requires force-quitting the app one or two or even three times before it finally gets around to registering the latest reading with the Health app. What should be simple and nearly instantaneous instead becomes a tedious chore for each and every reading. Honestly, it would be easier just to manually enter the data into the Health app yourself. This is MY medical data. I expect that MY need to use MY data should take priority. The Contour Next One pitches itself as a convenient way to get your glucose readings into your phone. It ultimately fails to make the process any more convenient than a traditional glucose meter.

How can an iOS app that is exclusively health related not integrate with Apple HealthKit. I would understand if HealthKit relatively new, but after four years I’m pretty sure the app developers have had plenty of time to figure out how to get data into and out of HealthKit. The only explanations at this point are laziness, lack of focus, or a lack of ability. Overall, the app seems dated. The graphs and charts do not do a particularly good job of showing trends, and everything feels like an app from the 3GS days (right down to the old style keyboard). The app does do a good job of grabbing readings from the monitor, but I probably would have gone for a different brand (or at least no upgraded to the app enabled model) had I known how bad the app was. So now I use this app to capture my readings and then manually log my readings to another, more useful app that does have HealthKit integration, which pretty much defeats the purpose of automatic logging. I would suggest the company either invest in some new developers or outsource app development to someone that can make meaningful updates in a timely manner. Just adding HealthKit integration and granting me the ability to automatically get my data out of this app and into something useful would go a long way. As it stands right now this app is so bad I’m willing to pay out of pocket for test strips to get a better experience.

Dear Sir or Madam, I was hoping that the Contour next one with blue tooth would be able to export data to other apps. Especially the “health data” app aka known as that heart icon. Because being able to import to where I need the data helps with transposing numbers etc. Example Glucose reading of 105 versus 501. When one has dylexia it just gets harder. I use a program called diabetes pilot which not only tracks the glucose, buts help calculate the insulin shots. I also am getting ready for a Dexcom tracking meter, but still requires “calibrating” twice a day. Dexcom pulls the data through the Heart health ap. What I am trying to do is have better control. It also pulls data from a program called nutritionist which helps calculate the insulin for meals. Which as you know can cause the great swings of glucose numbers. Your system must think I am a robot. I can put in a specific time but to remind after a meal needs to be simpler. Because I can plan to have lunch at 12:30 but due to “life”I May not get a break until 1:15 pm. So the rest of the readings of the day need to change. And with ADD, I can get distracted too darn easy. But yours is a start but needs lots of refinement. The first thing I suggest is the integration with the “health” data ap which comes preloaded on every iphone and I pad. Thank you for taking the time to read this.