Thursday, August 4, 2011

Hacking is possible, so what about Homebrew?

I think part of the reason this has occurred to me is due to my affinity for gadgets... I have, in addition to the CGM and pump, a ridiculous number of them [mp3, DSi, palm, camera, phone...]

So naturally, after reading this, I'm not concerned about dying from having my pump hacked. I'm wondering about why we don't have pumps that look like this:
Full color, optional touch screens, excellent battery life, wireless internet capable, and, if you're up to it - you can customize it beyond what Nintendo even designed. I guess my wish also goes with the whole 'diabetes equipment is stuck in the '80s' argument - I mean, come on, who makes an oval shaped thing with at least three inches of unused annoying space? Could the d-manufacturers take a hint from the cell phones, mp3s, tablets, etc makers?
Android is a perfect example of what I want. I want a free operating system for my whatever brand pump, I want to be able to tinker with the functionality and the color scheme, be able to ship data right to an Excel spreadsheet or to a website; I want a ridiculous amount of cross-platform compatibility.

People can develop apps for Android stuff [phones, and the Nook, as well as other stuff probably]... Can you say an app that tracks your CGM and an app that gives you suggestions on what to do because your blood sugar is x (ie calculate a correction and ask for confirmation to bolus it). 

Why can't I homebrew my pump? I can jailbreak my iPhone, run emulators on my DS, and put an entirely different OS on my mp3 player. OH NO it's the government. Ugh. Clearly the number one reason we don't have this is because the FDA thinks we're all stupid and don't know how to manage our disease, when clearly, we know more about it than they do.

You'd still be able to have your awesome Animas pump or Medtronic pump. But you could customize them to be ridiculously awesome, useful machines. Things that you could actually use to show off your street cred with the nerds and geeks. 

I hunger for the day when I can put a picture of Jimmy Howard in the background of my insulin pump. Until then, I'll have to put up with a semi-translucent smoke MiniMed 722.

No comments:

Post a Comment