A glucose sensor that isn't a subscription
editorialDevices & Hardware · partly solved · hardest part: science, manufacturing, regulatory
The open diabetes community solved the software and left the sensor closed. The recurring cost of consumables, not the algorithm, is what keeps continuous monitoring out of reach.
This is editorial, not a record. Registry entries are cited facts about things that exist; an opportunity is our argument about something that does not. The links to existing work are checked against the catalog — the judgment around them is ours, and you should disagree with it where you know better.
Continuous glucose monitoring is a razor-and-blades market: the reader is incidental, the disposable sensor is the product, and it expires on a schedule set by its maker. Enzyme chemistry, membrane design, and factory calibration are the moat, and they are protected by patents and process knowledge rather than by anything published.
An open sensor. The community has already built the hardest-looking parts — the dosing algorithms, the phone apps, the remote monitoring — and those are genuinely mature. What is absent is an electrode and membrane stack that a small facility could produce with acceptable accuracy and drift, plus the calibration method to make it trustworthy. This is wet chemistry and process engineering, not firmware.
Anyone rationing sensors, which includes insured patients hitting supply caps. Diabetes is the one area where an open community already has the software, the users, and the clinical evidence — and is blocked entirely on a consumable.
Self-hosted continuous glucose monitoring visualiser and remote-monitoring server built by the diabetes community.
Reference implementation of the OpenAPS artificial pancreas algorithm for automated insulin dosing.
Android application implementing automated insulin delivery for compatible pumps and glucose sensors.
iOS application for automated insulin delivery, built on the LoopKit frameworks.
The published reference design and build documentation for the OpenAPS automated insulin delivery approach.
- openaps.orgretrieved 2026-08-05 · via manual
OpenAPS and the surrounding projects demonstrate mature open control software built on top of commercial sensors, which is the basis for the claim that software is solved and the consumable is not.
Last revised 2026-08-05.