When I wrote about Amy Tenderich’s call for someone to design a better Insulin pump, perhaps by taking inspiration from the iPod, I didn’t really think anyone would actually do it. This certainly wouldn’t be an attractive market for Apple, and there are only so many design firms out there who would be willing and able to dedicate time to the project without being paid.
But I was wrong. Almost immediately San Francisco based Adaptive Path met with Amy and decided to spend time trying to design a more attractive Insulin Pump. They’ve now completed the initial design work and have been writing about it on their blog. Amy also followed up today with a long post describing the project. A video overview is below.
The folks at Adaptive Path are both thought and practice leaders. I’ve hired them for a project at my previous enterprise company, with fantastic results for my website I was managing.
I’m pleased (but not surprised) to see them working on some very important products to help folks.
Great stuff, thanks for covering something outside of the web bubble, great story Michael.
Great. Now you take a life-saving device, and make it look like a theft-magnet. Is this a good plan?
It certainly makes for an improved lifestyle…Adaptive Path deserves much credit.
It is important however to remind folks as the video did at the start that the product is not yet ready…
skeptik
Uh huh, I really want to steal your key fob. If it’s a sketchy neighborhood, simply tucking the device in your pocket or down your shirt on the chain won’t be an issue
Part 2: Put it on your ankle then maybe someone will think you’ve just escaped house arrest. Thieves beware
I think their design is pretty cool and fairly unique. Though these type of mock-ups for diabetes devices are showing up all the time, that is exactly where great tech starts.
A device such as this would pose a great solution to some of us diabetics especially if it conformed to open standards to allow free exchange of the data with various computer based and online diabetes management systems.
We would definitely love to work with such a device to integrate with Sugarstats.com as from the sketch it would track meds and also activity.
Very cool and for a great cause.
I have to say, though, I’m a little tired of names that involve removing vowels before a final “r” to make a product seem more tech.
OK, they have designed it. It seems like a good product. Is there some path to actually produce it?
At this point they need someone to pay them for their work, and then spend the money necessary to manufacture the product. Are they looking for such a company? They have taken the first step, are they going to stop now?
Great job. I love seeing new innovations like these that have the chance to make the world a better place.
Profit and Social benefits are always maximized when they work together.
Way to go Adaptive Path!
Tim McCormack
iRent2u.com – The Online Rental Marketplace
Oh yeah… we should have mentioned that the dropped “r” in the Charmr name started as kind of a joke. And since we didn’t have much time to think of a better name with everything else going on, somehow it stuck. :-p
I love the idea. Junkies get ready….IV doping……That was soo cool, I love the touchscreen idea of giving yourself units
Sounds like a cool idea…I like that
this is great….well done.
For the record, you can measure carb intake from the skin level, so the insulin monitor can test carb consumption as well, to save on that one extra “estimate my carbs” step.
I’ll be first to say this is not thought out well and I would be hard pressed to believe that someone with who wears an insulin pump worked on this or was consulted. First off, the reservoir cannot be just some pouch attached to the skin. There needs to be a highly precise mechanism to deliver insulin in tenths of a unit. This is why the housing on current pumps are so bulky and uncomfortable. Second, continuous glucose monitoring is nowhere near as accurate as a finger test. If you’re wearing a pump with CGM, you’re constantly calibrating. I can only guess that CGM will become as accurate as a finger test in the future.
Marston A — right on. Lock-in on your data just sucks. We should be able to use the best software available for trends/monitoring.
Interesting ideas, but the medical industry is an easy target for product designers to do “what if” projects. The insulin pump has been designed over and over for many years and always without an actual prototype. I would love to see someone design with a more pragmatic approach for today’s technology.
This is a great device. I have friends that have diabetes and this would simplify their life considerably.
Did they really have to call the thing charmr ? I am so so tired of the funny r endings, and now on a diabetes solution it’s just too much.
Diabetics can now watch mp4s while checking their blood sugar. I think they should start a social network around this – and auto-update twitter with the test results! Arrington for the Nobel Prize!
i’m not sure this is the great success you guys are chalking it up to be.
they spent their time, that’s very nice of them.
they designed a cool looking, bells-and-whistles product, that’s very creative of them.
but it’s completely fictional and can’t be built with today’s technology. that’s very useless.
apart from the great publicity this gives adaptive path, i don’t see what benefit this is to anyone else.
I hate to think that people design things to be unattractive purely so others won’t be tempted to steal them.
Then again, maybe that whole section of consumers is who are driving the continued sales of Samsung, Phillips and Dell Mp3 players that you see all over Best Buy and CNET.
?
John Carlin: On the contrary, we met with not only Amy Tenderich (who is an authority on the topic) but also spoke with pump-wearing diabetics and diabetic educators and did our own research on the topic as well. More on our research:
http://www.adap...-from-diabetes/
We looked at current trends in technologies such as continuous monitoring and, while it is not as accurate now as finger pricking, will likely become more accurate in the next several years, which is the time frame for this project. What we’ve proposed is several years out–roughly, as long as it would take to fully design, engineer, and manufacture this product.
John, our blog post on the research process talks about the diabetics we consulted. The reservoir (and everything else you see in that diagram) is enclosed in a silicone housing that’s a little hard to make out in the YouTube video — you can see it more clearly in this blog post. We left the pump mechanism out of the diagram just to keep things simple. You’re right that our design presumes that CGM technology will get more accurate in the future. We also agree that data portability, shareability, and interoperability is essential.
And for their next trick, the flying car we can all buy for $999. I’m sure it was a fun design project, and if it gets somebody at Minimed thinking that’ll be a good thing. However, since the very first “integrated” pump and meter just hit the market, and it requires 2 separate infusion sites, which will be a deal killer for most diabetics, this is purely an exercise in fantasy. The amount of technology they have in the pump today is amazing, yet the Charmr appears to requires a very major technology advance.
I think the real lesson here is that really great UIs are always easier to build if you aren’t constrained by reality.
Articulating a set of principles for optimal experiences is incredibly important, even if the technology to support the full vision is still a ways off.
We must continually challenge solutions, especially to issues such as these, to make sure that they are serving the audience or end-user as well as possible. We still accept too much avoidable mediocrity in product design.
An exploration of what might be possible such as Charmr, grounded in the needs and desires of real people is much more than a fantasy. It should serve as a lodestar.
This is great, especially if it makes the user feel more comfortable and not an outcast due to their illness.
I didn’t see all the details in the blog — but does device connect to wireless networks and report back to monitoring service or physician?
If it did such a thing — I could see utility for other medical monitoring devices, like a heart device and of course monitoring services like life alert.
sounds like a true iHero.
Err, that came off more negative above then I meant. The point I was going for, and missed, was that there is no way this is a 2-3 year forward looking design in the real world. In a perfect world, yeah. But in a perfect world, they wouldn’t be dealing with the FDA.
It’s not really going to help the 100,000’s of blind or partialy sighted diabetics out there…
ok — it won’t help the blind see.
Now imagine you add TomTom to the device — now it could navigate the blind diabetics.
I have no stake in this company – but I think we are moving into a realm were anything is possible — as far as information sharing goes.
In the spirit of web 2.0, I suggest that it be free to all and ad supported.
I have the pump that is shown in the video. The CGM portion of the device now cost $300 a month to mantain with all the needed supplies. The delivery unit and brains cost $5000. My insurance covered all but 450. I now regret the purchase, because I have found a company that would give me no cables to deal with and no extra device strapped to my belt all day.
IT has a much better delivery system than even the one shown in the video. THe only thing they need to compare to the video is a prettier device to complete the management system.
Take a look. http://www.myom...cts/section/189
If anyone from omnipod is reading, I could use a device.
Not to be cynical but you have to wonder what type of fees AP is charging to afford the luxury of working so diligently for free.
I’m sure there is good intent behind this effort but given the history of some of the founders, it seems more like self-promotion than anything else.
Nemrut, you are, in fact, being cynical. Nor are you adding anything constructive to the conversation.
@ Anthony, call it what you will…but i think articles that are overly altruistic and pollyannish in tone deserve additional scrutiny and should be called out for whtat they are…
I have an aunt that uses the pump and monitor and have heard how she struggles with it – they aren’t as good as hyped and they have a long waiting list to even get one.
Some good points about possible theft and some easy labeling can be done. Back-side can have the medical alert symbol and info – Most diabetics wear the bracelets anyway.
I’d also recommend that the screen changes to an alert message that the connection was lost from the pump – exactly what not sure, but if someone were to steal it, this can flash an alternating “Diabetic Medical Device – Connection w/ Pump Lost”.
I published a proposal for diabetes data standards(PDF) some time ago. They’d suit a device like this and help make it part of a total solution.
I do hope that with this additional interest in diabetes devices for real people that the standard might get picked up.
As for the various criticisms, remember this is a design prototype. They did it in 9 weeks. So it’s not going to be perfect, but it is a huge step in the right direction. I’d sign up to test one out!
As an insulin pumper for the last 8 years and one of the biggest girl geeks you will ever meet…this truly is a product that is techie, exciting and motivating for me and totally turns me on. When you deal with this disease day-in-and-day-out, you can’t help but start to feel better when you see dramatic improvements in the medical industry like this. Next step…a digital cure for this wretched disease.
I’d like to say it’s a
When I first saw this video I was thinking, “Am I that far off the trend already? Last term I was still doing this Long Term Implantable Insulin Pump studies, and now the technology is mature enough to produce the ‘charmr’?”
The accuracy of CGS in the abdomen
The infusion pumps durability and controllability
The spikes of different blood sugar level
The software that is able to deal with delay between sensing, releasing drug, and
The wireless capability
And the power consumption consideration
The legislations for such smart pumps (i.e. who’s going to be responsible if people die)
Then I read the comments and realized this video was trying to set up goals for Engineers/Companies to achieve. It’s nice of that Adaptive Path put a YouTube video clip like that and please pardon my skepticism above.
It would be really nice to have that device and it sure looks cool. I also have a diabetic father and I hope he gets to enjoy this in the near future.
But there is really a lot of researches and advancement to be done before this device comes out.
Anyways, I’ll be hopeful.
I am a Diabetic and looking into insulin pumps for delivery and management. When I saw this design “Concept” I was really excited. This is exactly what the Diabetes community needs: An innovation in the community that will give fellow Diabetics a little more comfort in properly managing this life-changing disease. I’ve heard of too many Diabetics that say they don’t manage their blood sugars, insulin dosages and diet because it is so inconvenient and people stare. Here is the best solution I have seen to date. I really hope that someone in Corporate America sees the value in this design and runs with it. Whoever does will reap the benefits.
hi i enjoyed the read
hi nice post, i enjoyed it
hi nice post, i enjoyed it
Is this available on the market? I am so excited!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Please say yes! Please!