Picked up a Sensocard monitor yesterday. I am in Australia and I am not sure on availability of this monitor elsewhere. Here is the website for the talking version.
Sensocard
The talking version could be great for visually impaired. I got the non-talking version. Very taken with this tester and finally I may have found a replacement for my ancient Accucheck Active as my main tester. The Freestyle mini, and the Optium Xceed both failed in my book.
What I like in a tester:
Simplicity and small size. I want it on me at all times. I like to grab my tester, perform a few movements and have it back in my bag/pocket in approximately 8 seconds. Bells and whistles like lights are desirable but only after the previous conditions are met. Accuracy is good too, but I will give a little leeway for convenience.
The Freestyle fails miserably with simplicity with needing to be turned on for a test, the manual calibrating, and test strips that need concentration to insert the right way. The Xceed fails with this as well with the fiddly, messy foil strips which I dislike (even if they give more accurate results), a badly positioned light switch and a case that fell apart a month or two in.
The Sensocard is as simple to use as the Accucheck Active. It replicates the pop lid/grab strip/strip in/blood on/done! approach that I have valued with the Active.
It's also faster to turn on, about 2 seconds, and the test seems around 5 secs.
It requires a very small amount of blood and I've found it sucks it up nicely much like the xceed, but even more readily. Calibrating new strips is easy enough, a little card inserted briefly and a few button presses.
In itself, it is the most pocketable tester I've seen in that it is on 7 mm thick and 90 x 55 mm, like a very large credit card I suppose!
I am not convinced on build quality, It seems a bit cheap and clunky, though solid. I feel it could break. This could obviously be a problem but not a huge one considering how cheap these things are these days. I didn't even bother trying the pricker that came with it, it made a noise like a trampoline spring.
The case it comes is to put it mildly, ridiculous. It is like a small book, it looks like it belongs on a hospital trolley. I immediately tried putting the tester in the freestyle pappilon softcase, where it fits perfectly, like coming home.
The main issue I have with this tester is that the drums of strips are short, but very wide, at 3cm. It is another bizarre design decision considering how slim the tester is and how slim the overall package could have been. The strips themselves are tiny and are cut in a convenient arrow to differentiate the ends.
Put in the Freestyle case with the freestyle (or Accuchek) pricker, it's a fantastic tester to have in your pocket. The only thing holding it back are those thick drums. I am hoping to find some kind of slim drum or container I can transfer the strips to without jeapordising their accuracy.
Linear Mode
