Nightscout – an open source, do-it-yourself continuous glucose monitor in the Cloud

John Costik, a software and systems engineer, whose son, Evan, was diagnosed with Type I diabetes in 2012, felt that the tools he and his wife were given to care for their son were “inadequate for such a data-heavy disease.”
They realized that if they collected the right information and analyzed it correctly, they could do a lot more for him and keep him healthier

Costik and his wife received the Dexcom G4 CGM for their son in February 2013, and after one week of his son in daycare, they realized they didn’t want to be disconnected from the data coming from their son’s monitoring unit. Out of the box, it can only transmit data from the arm sensor to the unit. Costik began analyzing the CGM’s Windows software and discovered a way to communicate with the unit directly. He wrote a simple Windows application that polled the CGM receiver every five minutes for data and uploaded the data to a Google Docs spreadsheet automatically. He also wrote an iOS app for him and his wife to use.
Next, to make the process more convenient and mobile, reducing the need to lug a laptop with the monitoring unit, Costik created an application that worked on an Android phone and was connected via USB. As the cellphone was attached to the CGM receiver, the data could be then uploaded to the cloud. Costik shared his code so others could develop with it. At that point, Costik was contacted by Lane Desborough, whose son, Hayden, was diagnosed with Type I diabetes in 2009. Desborough wanted to develop a system similar to Costik’s and through their collaboration formed Nightscout.
The first Nightscout rig had a mobile phone tethered with the Dexcom CGM and transmitted sugar levels to an iPhone. Nightscout takes the data out of the CGM, pumps it up into the cloud, from which it can then be viewed on any web browser around the world and even things like a smart watch.
Desborough developed a software program using Costik’s shared code and various open source web services and frameworks. In a few weeks, Nightscout became a system to remotely monitor Hayden’s diabetes. The code was then shared on a GitHub repository, which now includes code for the Pebble Watch, iOS, Windows Phone, Android and other devices.

More info: http://www.nightscout.info/
http://vimeo.com/109767890