Test Your Glucose Levels with FreeStyle Tracker

However, at $150.00 for the springboard isn't a bad price for a glucose meter. The fact that it will keep up to 2500 records (check the website for details) and be uploaded to a PC gives it a HUGE advantage over other meters.

My step-dad has a TRG pro, that I may swap my Visor Deluxe for to allow him to use this instead of having to use a normal meter. Also, with all the rebates on Prisms, plats, and such, and the fact that you can take medical devices as a tax write off, its a good time to get this for him.

As a former medical professional, I can assure you that his doctor will enjoy the idea his of being able to chart his sugar/insulin records over the course of a few months, and better understand his maintenance of his disease.

When Handspring cr*pped on the market with Donna's little "non-announcment" last January, the company building this new product had the choice of completely throwing away the investment, or do what little was left to bring it all the way to market and attempt to recover at least some of their costs.

Technology consumers seem to be oblivious to the fact that new hardware takes a long time to develop. Small third party manufacturers have a difficult path - first they have to determine if the new platform has market acceptance, then they can start the motions of their own technology review. Once all the decision makers get on board and the funding is secured (internally or otherwise), then the actual development can start.

In other words, it will take most companies a year to 18 months to be comfortable with a new platform. Then add 3-6 months to walk an idea through management, and another 9-12 months to realize the product. Gee... 2-1/2 years, just about Handspring's lifetime in the market.

People on the consumer side of the PDA fence probably have no idea the number of Springboard products that were in some stage of development. Some were probably killed-off as a result of the non-announcement; in fact, I helped kill one off while advising another to "go ahead" (it was too deeply invested).

In some developer correspondence I've seen, Handspring is finally acknowledging the "vertical market" aspects of the Springboard concept. There may be life in the ol' boy yet.

I'd be willing to bet that plenty of people will buy a Visor and FreeStyle Tracker as a unit just to monitor their Diabetes, which is a disease that is very much on the rise. 17 million people, 6.2% of the entire U.S. population, have it.

ThermaSense is not exactly a bit player. They are big on the meter market. Their FreeStyle is amoung the the best on the market.

Besides the usual R&D lag for products, medical diagnostic equipment takes a lot of time and effort to get past the FDA, even for a well troddened product like a blood glucose meter. I suspect the product was pretty much finished and awaiting FDA approval long before Handspring started hinting at doing away with the Visor line.

Meter manufacturers make their money on the strips, not the meters. Between rebates, trade-ins and sales, most bG meters available today can be had for free or nearly so. While the market for meter users and the market for Visor users each may be fairly larger, I can imagine that the overlap of those two markets is not very big. So instead of amortizing the R&D costs over the (increased) strip sales,
users are pretty much going to have to pay the real cost of the meter. Moreover, for this meter, there are no competitors.

I'll probably wait for a review. I'm not all that happy with the form factor, and I'd like to hear how the software measures up. I'm glad that a Co like ThermaSense has gone ahead with this, and not a startup. I hope (but don't expect) OneTouch and AccuChek make Springboard Modules too.

I think this is an interesting product, albeit a niche product. It'll be interesting to see what happens.

Check:
http://www.mendosa.com/meters.htm
http://www.mendosa.com/software.htm
for more info.

http://www.visorcentral.com/content/Stories/1420-1.htm