Popular meters

This week, I received my Didget and forced my boyfriend to be the guinea pig. He played the DS game for all of three minutes, and asked if he could just use the meter and make me play the game (he left the bulky white meter at home, however, and took his snazzy sleek Ultra Mini with him instead). The DS game is pretty elaborate, but is a point-and-click adventure, so I imagine it has an end point. From what I can tell, I believe that Bayer envisioned this product being ported for a dozen or so different games to appeal to a range of kids, but the new DS systems no longer have the legacy slot for the meter. I guess that’s my opening.

I am working on the initial logic in Processing for my little GluPets, but also continuing research into glucometers and how they output data. Perhaps someone can help me hack one of these guys?

The Bayer Contour meter doesn’t seem to have a great deal of functionality beyond simple metering. I don’t see anything about the meter having USB connect-ability, for example.

However, the Contour USB version has not only a more robust display, but has a built-in USB plug so that one could then download their information onto the computer. The software has charting and other data vis capabilities, but obviously, not made for kids.

The OneTouch UltraMini is the meter my boyfriend uses, and the one I’ve seen most in public, probably because it’s super slim and comes in colors. The output is super simple, however, and mostly just gives you a number and time.

The UltraSmart is a larger meter with probably the most robust built-in visualisation I have seen from the more popular meters. It not only has on-board flagging capabilities with charts to plot out one’s numbers, but also comes with a software kit so that one can upload, visualize, and print their blood glucose data. This one is great, but still, not extremely exciting for your average kid, unless they are REALLY into graphs.

If I am to exploit any of these meters, I imagine the OneTouch UltraSmart has the best potential, as it already has a lot of software on board. However, I have no idea how to even begin doing this.

Volunteers?