Comparing OTC continuous glucose monitors

And now for something completely different! I was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes about two years ago, just before SIGCSE 2024 in Portland. It seems like it’s been much longer. After my PCP told me I didn’t need to track my blood sugar – I just needed to change to my diet, easy peasy! – I insisted on a referral to a diabetes education, and also changed PCPs as soon as I could. Nurse Toma hooked me up with a continuous glucose monitor (CGM), without which lifestyle changes would have been much more difficult. My insurance covered both the Dexcom G6 and the Abbot Freestyle Libre 3 sensors, so I tried them both, and preferred the Libre 3. I was mildly annoyed by the Libre 3 app’s insulin data entry fields, which were prominent but not relevant to me. I was more annoyed by the low glucose alarms, which needlessly woke me in the middle of the night when I slept on my arm wrong and squashed the skin around the sensor (for the uninitiated, this is called a compression low). But the data was…