Blog for parents of kids with diabetes who fancy tinkering with Technology

A few months ago, when I started looking for technological solutions to get the long-awaited continuous measurements of the Free Style Libre 2 glucose measurement sensor that the Spanish National Health Authority gave us in Madrid, I could see in many forums that there people discussing about a mysterious patched Android App that worked on your mobile, which could capture the sensor data,  send the data to XDrip and view the data continuously on multiple mobiles.

This seems to open up the world of possibilities of Nightscout, which could be connected to XDrip and in this way send the data to the cloud, to my particular Nightscout web site, where I could store the data and then share it with other mobiles, perform automations, etc. A new world of possibilities opened up in front of me!

It is true that I had already achieved this goal with Diabox before, as you can see in my article «Diabox. The App that measures glucose continuously and shares it via Nightscout«, but the Diabox method also had some problems that I did not like, such as disabling the loss of signal alarm due to lack of Librelink coverage, so I decided to put hands on and started to investigate how I could create this patched App and connect it to XDrip.

If you remember, this is one of the methods that I told you in my previous article «How to make your Free Style Libre 2 a continuous glucose meter (GCM)» when I indicated that XDrip is one of the possible software solutions that allow you to measure glucose continuously using software without the need of additional hardware elements. In order to connect to XDrip it is necessary to create this patched App that will collect the data continuously.

The truth is that it has cost me a lot to debug the methods that could be described on the internet and be able to create the patched App (they had some flaws and forgot some important steps that don’t allow you to move forward and finish creating it). But at the end I achieve my goal and I could do it, so I can say that I am very happy with this methodology. I will explain carefully how I created the patched App and how you can do it too. I hope you will find it useful!

Therefore, What we are going to see in this article?

• Initial Warning
• Configure the Debian operating system (Linux) on your Windows 10 computer
• Commands to create the patched App
• Next steps

Initial Warning

This point is crucial and that is why I want to reflect it at the beginning so that you take it into account and decide by yourself if you go forward.

The patched app is an alternative version to Abbot’s Librelink App, which the community a few years ago modified in order to obtain continuous measurements of the Free Style Libre 2 sensors. Therefore, the responsibility for creating and using this App lies in you or the person who decide to create it. If you decide to create it, you are going to do it freely and under your will.

So once this warning has been done, I’ll explain below how to create the patched App.

Configure the Debian operating system (Linux) on your Windows 10 computer (Linux)

Before starting this section, the first thing I must say: Please do not panic! The process is easy, believe me.

In order to generate the patched App it is necessary to install on your computer the Debian operating system, which is a version of Linux. This operating system is fully compatible with Windows and can coexist on your computer perfectly. So, you will continue to use your Windows computer in the same way as before.

First of all, in order to install Debian, it is necessary to activate the Linux subsystem on Windows. To do this, look in the magnifying glass you have in the bottom bar and write «Activate or Deactivate Windows Features» to look for it.

At that moment a menu will open. There you have to activate the option «Linux Subsystem for Windows» as you can see in the image below. This functionality is called WSL for short description.

Once this is done, we have to restart the computer so that we can start using Linux.

Once the computer restarts, we will have to install the Debian operating system. To do so we have to look for it in the Windows application store. In the bottom bar of your computer you will find a white briefcase with the Windows symbol on it. Click on it and you will enter the Windows application store (Microsoft Store).

Within the Microsoft app store, search for «Debian» and click on «Obtain». The Debian operating system will then be installed on your computer.

As soon as it is installed, you can click on «Open” and voila! the magic is done and a black screen with the name «Debian» will appear along with the command line or Shell, where we can enter the necessary Linux commands to create the patched App.

If when you start Debian it asks you to create a username and password, enter the ones you consider, but remember them, because both of them will be asked you successively throughout this process. Especially when using commands with «sudo».

Commands to create the patched App

Very important! Before proceeding with the following steps, it is important to disable if you have any antivirus on your computer, like Windows firewall. Although it seems very radical, I went crazy until I realized that the next steps that have to be executed in Debian did not work because the connection between my computer and Github was blocked by my firewall and therefore did not allow me to download the code to create the patched App. So, to go to the next step, please disable the Microsoft Defender firewall. To do so you have to write in the magnifying glass at the bottom of your screen «Firewall and network protection». Once you enter in that section of the settings menu you have to disable all firewalls, as you can see in the image below.

Once we have disabled the Windows Firewall, we open our new Debian operating system on our computer (look in the Windows 10 magnifying glass for the word Debian and then select it). Once the black screen of Debian commands is opened, we will have to enter the following commands:

• To update the operating system: sudo apt-get update
• To install the app that allows you to download code from Github: sudo apt-get install git
• To download the Github repository where the code is with the installer of the patched App: git clone https://github.com/TinoKossmann/Librelink-xDrip-Patch
• Open the folder where the code has been downloaded with the installer: cd Librelink-xDrip-Patch/
• Run the App creation script: sudo ./install-apt-dependencies.sh
• Run the script of one of the components of the App: sudo ./download.sh
• Create the patched App: ./patch.sh

As soon as all these commands have been executed, you can find the file with the App already patched in C:\APK. This application is called «com.freestylelibre.app.de_2019-04-22_patched.apk» and you will have to copy it to your Android mobile to later install it.

The «.apk» files allow you to install applications on Android phones without having to download them from Google Play. It is the way we have to be able to install unofficial applications on our mobile terminal, developed by third parties.

To copy it to your Android mobile, you will have to connect it to the computer by a USB cable and pass the file from the computer’s hard drive to the mobile.

If you see that you get stuck in any of the steps, there is a video where the whole process is recorded and that will surely help you. The only problem is that it’s in German, but nevertheless it’s easy to follow. I leave you below a link to it so you can watch it.

It is very important that you now reactivate your antivirus as well as Microsoft Defender Firewalls! Do not forget to do it because if not you will be unprotected against any virus.

Next steps

That’s it! We have been able to create our patched App and have it available on our mobile to connect our sensor to XDRip. This will allow us to have continuous readings in the XDrip application (every 5 minutes) and many more things that can be done in the App.

Another of the great advantages of being able to have the values in XDrip is that we can send the measurement data to our Nightscout website, which will allow us to store our data individually, program automations, send the readings to watches or smart bands, etc. It opens up a great world of possibilities that, thanks to technology, will make the life of your child with diabetes much easier (and their parents, for sure!).

In the coming days I will publish another article where I explain how we can configure XDRip to extract the data from the patched App.

Well, so far so good! Thank you very much for your time that you have invested in reading this Blog. I hope this article will help you to go ahead on the way to have an easier and more normalized life in the case that you have a child with diabetes or even that you have diabetes.

I hope this article has been useful to you!

Regards,

Daniel