FreeStyle Libre Reader

Amazing product. An incredibly easy way to monitor your blood sugar levels without pricking several times a day. The reader is easy to use and accurately predicts the glucose levels for up to 8 hours. Very useful if your diabetes requires you to measure your glucose many times a day. Makes it much easier to plan meals and decide whether or not to indulge in certain foods. The reader is very small and can easily be carried around in your bag. To test your glucose you just have to take the reader and scan the sensor. Painless and only takes one second as promised. Would highly recommend along with the sensor.

While the Reader and Sensor are ok and work right if all the instructions are followed correctly, the biggest downside for me was the limitation of being stuck with a standalone Freestyle Libre Reader. Reason being, Freestyle LibreLink mobile app and Freestyle Libre Software are not available for download in India. They have tightly controlled this restriction, so for an average user there is no way to download data to computer/cloud and create analytical reports, which is the whole point of having a CGM like apparatus (Freestyle is less than CGM and it is called FGM). While I can see some data/graph in the reader, there is no way for me to have a glucose reading for a given time (like PP, if you forgot to scan the sensor after 2 hours), which is a huge downside. The graph in the reader is at the best indicative. Rest of the reports are fine but will sit in the reader and the best you can do is click a picture of them from your mobile phone for further sharing. Again, Abbott's cloud solution called LibreView, (you guessed it right) is not available for Indians (India).Overall, this is a little convenient as it saves you from pricking your fingers multiple times in a day, but that is it. There is no justification for the cost escalation to around Rs. 10,000/month (for two of their 14-day sensor) for such a limited functionality (vs. around Rs. 3000/month for strips if you test 4 times a day). I don't think I am going to go with my second sensor and will stick with my strip BSL monitoring till such a time this instrument becomes more useful to me.It is quite confusing as to why Abbott would launch this instrument in the Diabetes capital of the world without supporting apps and software. Maybe Abbott is dumping their outdated reader in the Indian market, who knows ... when modern mobile phones are perfectly capable of scanning their sensor (which has made their reader redundant).I did write to Abbott's Indian customer care and all they had to say was "The FreeStyle LibreLink app and FreeStyle Libre Software both are currently not launched in India yet". Just "in your face" one sentence; no timelines or we are coming soon, etc... I am giving 1 star because that really is a deal breaker for me.My conclusion for the serious Indian diabetics (unless you like to experiment) is that this instrument will make a very small value addition to your daily life compared to the huge monthly cost escalation that you will have to commit to.

Overall the experience was really good like it helped me so much with my sugar levels as I was alert every time using freestyle libre sensor. It was very less painful but before freestyle libre sensor I was using a glucometer and the finger pricks were very annoying. I would recommend freestyle libre sensor because its compact design is really nice and the adhesive was very strong and good quality so that it stayed intact. The readings were also very accurate when I checked with my glucometer. It showed the going upward and downward trends of sugar which really helped me manage blood glucose levels. It was very comfortable at night while sleeping. In my opinion it’s really less painful and comfortable, I love it and would wear it more often.

I picked up the reader a couple of months back and while it does what its supposed to do, of reading the blood sugar, its restricted in its capabilities many of which are available in non Indian markets.Pro-1) Very simple to use and fairly accurate. I have compared my reading using the traditional blood glucose meters with this and they are close to each other (this is due to the fact that the sensor reads the sub cutaneous tissue and for sugar in the blood to reflect in the sub cutaneous tissue it apparently takes about 15 mins. So it means the readings here will be lagging the blood readings by about that amount of time) This is of not any major significance to worry about its accuracy2) The preset graphs and readings do a good job of representing your falling and rising sugar levels and has helped me understand my body sugar rhythm in a way like never before3)The usability is very simple and even senior citizen or kids can also use it without any learning curve.Cons:Now comes the big grunts which I feel can make this product an awesome tool to combat hypos and hypers1) The reader is a closed unit meaning I cannot export my data or share it with my Dr. There is no way for me to access the data outside the reader! WHY?2) The European and US markets have a mobile app that can do the job of this reader and also let you download and share the data. Why is that App not available for the Indian market?? I discovered a third party app available for Android phones only called "Glimp" that can read the data on the mobile3) The sensor (see my sensor review on the sensor product page) monitors and stores the glucose continuously, BUT dose not send it to the reader automatically. You need to scan it to download the data. So despite me going low and the sensor measuring knowing about it will not come to any aid unless I remember to scan.4) The data entry option in the reader is very basic and limited to inputting numbers only. While this works for inputting the Insulin units it dosent help in inputting notes for food which requires you to enter the grams of carbs consumed! They expect me to sit at the dining table with a weighing scale and measure before I eat???5) The reader throws up an error once in a while asking you to wait for 15 mins before scanning again, not sure if its a problem with the reader or the sensorAll in all it can be a great tool to help you manage your sugar effectively if you are ready to overcome these limitations.