Original post below. Updated method above this text.

Reposted with permission from Diabetes Daily's David Edelman.

Some clever technologists have discovered how to restart a Dexcom sensor to extend its life beyond ten days. The process works by exploiting a bug in the sensor pairing process.

Katie DiSimon walked us through the process. Katies is involved in the community of people who are building homemade automated insulin delivery systems using current insulin pumps and continuous glucose meters.

In phone’s Bluetooth list, “forget” the Dexcom transmitter from the list. Go to G6 app and stop sensor session. Click yes to end it despite all the warnings. Then choose to start a new session. Choose the “no code” sensor session. Wait 2 hours and 5 min. If any pairing messages come up for the transmitter during the wait, say no. After the wait, restart the phone and open G6 app. This will trigger the phone to try to re-pair with the transmitter. Accept the pairing request. You may need to restart the phone one more time, but then you’ll be greeted with two calibration requests and a new sensor session.

The directions above are for how to restart the sensor without using the receiver. During the restart process’ 2-hour wait, you will not be receiving current glucose readings, similar to any new session start-up process.

If you have the G6 receiver, you have the opportunity to use the receiver for the restart and continue to still receive current glucose values throughout the 2-hour wait. Here are the instructions in the video below.