ANT Forum

Hello,

I'm not an ANT + developer, but rather a tech savvy dad who's struggling to monitor an ANT + continuous glucose monitor. My 7 year old son wears the transmitter and my wife and I would like to be able to monitor his readings from a room about 40 feet away. The manufacturer only guarantees a 20 foot range, and most of the time we do drop signal outside of that range.

Is there any way we can use a wireless amplifier device nearby his transmitter to increase signal strength and perhaps extend the range?

Is there anything I can do to my wireless network (my understanding is this is also on the 2.4 ghz range of ANT +) to better reduce interference between the two networks?

Any other ideas from the ANT + gurus?

Much appreciate the help. My wife and I would love to start getting a good night's sleep soon.      

Hi,

Could I ask which product you are using?

     

Dexcom G4 Platinum Continuous Glucose Monitor      

Hi erikpolta,

As you are probably aware, the 2.4Hz wireless spectrum is susceptible to a variety of physical and electromagnetic interferences inside the home. A quick search will show you that some of these are easy to work around while some may be unavoidable.

(ex. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetic_interference_at_2.4_GHz,
http://support.babyping.com/customer/portal/articles/424767-solving-wi-fi-interference-issues ,
http://www.far-far-away.com/~yousif/articles/wifi-sig.php)

Aside from removing interference, the two technical options available are to either amplify the signal or to add a relay in between the transmitter and receiver. I would stay away from the amplification route because of the complications that can arise from modifying the hardware of an invasive medical device such as a CGM.

My recommendation would be to contact Dexcom asking them to build a signal repeater that would allow them to extend the range of their device (Dexom is using a proprietary messaging implementation so we would not be able to guide you in building such a device). Another option would be to request Dexcom to add a live recording aspect to their Dexcom Studio PC Software suite so you could receive the live data on a PC in your child's room and forward that data to a PC in your room.
     

Thanks for the info!
Yeah, it looks like Dexcom is aware of the shortcomings and planning to address them in future product releases. Thanks Again!