If you are living with type 1 diabetes, you know how difficult it can be to juggle your lifestyle with the disease. It’s important to manage your daily diet, exercise, and blood sugar levels, but sometimes life gets in the way of even the best intentions.
Luckily, there is a way for busy people with diabetes to stay on top of their health: using an app! There are many apps available that make managing your blood sugar level easy and fun. In this article we will review some of the best apps for type 1 diabetes.
Table of Contents
best apps for type 1 diabetes
A diabetes management app should take work away from you, not create more. Taking these factors into account can help narrow your decision.
Best for community conversations: Bezzy T2D
iPhone rating: 4.7 stars
Android rating: 4.5 stars
Price: Free
Ever feel alone in your diagnosis? Well, Bezzy T2D is here to bring you together with others on an online forum to discuss anything and everything related to diabetes. There are safe spaces to chat about daily life, diet and nutrition, COVID-19, relationships, newly diagnosed, mental health, and more. It’s great to feel connected with others, especially when it comes to your health.
Best for Healthy Eating: Fooducate
iPhone rating: 4.7 stars
Android rating: 4.4 stars
Price: Free, with in-app purchases available
When it comes to managing diabetes, knowledge is power. Fooducate is here to support you in figuring out which foods are best for keeping your blood sugar in a healthy range, because not all foods — or even carbs — are created equal. We loved this app because it has more than 300,000 foods programmed in. Simply scan their barcodes, and you will see an A, B, C, or D “grading” for how healthy the food is. If the food didn’t make the grade, you’ll receive alternative suggestions for more nutritious options. The app makes it easy for you to track and discover more information about the foods you put in your body, including added sugar content, hidden ingredients, and more.
Best for Comprehensive Diabetes Management: MySugr
iPhone rating: 4.6 stars
Android rating: 4.5 stars
Price: Free, with in-app purchases available
This app does it all for type I, type II, and gestational diabetes management. It offers carb counting, glucose tracking, and bolus dose calculation estimates. It can give you reports on your blood glucose levels over weeks, months, and even years. As a bonus, it will estimate your hemoglobin A1C based on your tracking. A clean, intuitive, customizable dashboard interface and the ability to sync with your glucose monitor also set this app apart. MySugr has features that help you make the most out of the app, such as reminders that ping you to follow up with more data (like blood sugar levels after a workout). All the data and charts are easy to send to your doctor, so you can work together to adjust your treatment and better manage your diabetes based on real, accurate information.
Best for Integrated Tech: Glucose Buddy
iPhone rating: 4.8 stars
Android rating: 4.0 stars
Price: Free, with in-app purchases available
Glucose Buddy app can integrate with Dexcom glucometer devices as well as Apple Health Apps, allowing you to more easily track steps, exercise, and meals. You can also enter your information manually. The app offers a 12-week diabetes education plan where you can learn tips that are easy to read (with some lessons 5 minutes and under). Under the subscription plan, you’ll find an ad-free experience and in-depth reporting on A1C and other measures, as well as customizable display options that make the app even easier for your unique use.
Best for Phone and Tablet: Diabetes:M
iPhone rating: 4.6 stars
Android rating: 4.3 stars
Price: Free with in-app purchases
Diabetes:M is a diabetes log app with all the features you’d hope for: test time reminders, a nutritional log and tracking system, integrations with fitness apps, and blood sugar trend mapping. We also like that it is both phone and tablet-friendly. The app also offers an insulin bolus calculator based on the nutritional information you add. Use the app’s powerful tools to look at trend graphs and charts in adjustable timeframes, so glucose management is back in your hand, or with the Apple Watch app on your wrist. If you upgrade to the subscription service, the app allows you to have multiple profiles.
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Tap into powerful articles on type 2 diabetes management backed by a judgement-free community. Bezzy T2D: empowered by each other
Best for the Newly Diagnosed: Beat Diabetes
Android rating: 4.8 stars
Price: Free, with in-app purchases available
If you’re newly diagnosed, this beginner-friendly app can help bring you up to speed with your condition. With plenty of diabetes 101 information, from the foods to avoid to simple ways to increase your physical activity, you’ll be a master in no time. Learn the complications to watch for and stay up to date with treatment options, from medical to Ayurvedic. Download this pocket guidebook and see why it’s so popular. The app is only available for Android at this time.
Best for Blood Glucose Tracking: OneTouch Reveal
iPhone rating: 4.8 stars
Android rating: 4.1 stars
Price: Free
This app, which complements the OneTouch Verio Flex and OneTouch Verio Reflect meters, is a go-to for automatic insights. Using your blood glucose readings, the app automatically searches for and highlights trends. Blood sugar frequently out of range after 9 p.m.? Not only will the app spot the trend but also push notifications will alert you so you can take action. The app plots important trend events in a timeline, too, helping you to spot patterns. Your physician can log in to review your history and adjust your care plan based on your diet and carb ratios. A clean, color-coded interface reveals your high/low distribution, counts your daily readings, and lets you see at a glance when your sugar levels are healthy or out of range.
Best for One-on-One Coaching: One Drop for Diabetes Health
iPhone rating: 4.5 stars
Android rating: 4.1 stars
Price: Free, with in-app purchases available
The One Drop for Diabetes Health app is a diabetes management app that uses your blood glucose data to help you better choose your activities to stay healthy. An added available paid feature is one-on-one coaching from certified health professionals. The app also uses your food, activity, and medication information to help you achieve a holistic diabetes management plan with automated alerts, community sharing, and regular health stats reports so you can see your progress or adjust your behavior as needed.
Best for Easy Shopping List Creation: Diabetic Recipes
Android rating: 4.3 stars
Price: Free, with in-app purchases available
The Diabetic Recipes app allows you to search a vast library of diabetes-friendly recipes by ingredient or style. Once you select your recipes, it will generate a shopping list to help ease your grocery trips. On the recipes side, Diabetic Recipes offers step-by-step instructions, how-to videos, downloadable recipes, and a built-in carb counter so that you know exactly how much glucose you’re taking in throughout the day. The app is only available for Android users at this time.
Best for Personalized Tracking: Glucose tracker & diabetic diary. Your blood sugar
Android rating: 4.5 stars
Price: Free with in-app purchases
Not the most succinct name, but exactly how it sounds. It’s an out-of-the-box app built to help you track the effect that diabetes has on your body and mind. Meant for people with type 1 or type 2 as well as gestational diabetes, this app uses an extensive variety of recording, tagging, and organization tools to help you paint a detailed picture of your journey. You can create personalized tags, such as “after breakfast” or “before bedtime” to track data you are particularly concerned about. You can also export your records so you can share the data with your healthcare professional.
Best for Tracking Multiple Data Points: Blood Sugar Monitor by Dario
iPhone rating: 4.9 stars
Android rating: 4.2 stars
Price: Free
This app is essentially a companion app for a number of Dario-branded diabetes testing and monitoring devices, including the Dario Blood Glucose Monitor and Blood Pressure Monitoring System. Along with lancets and testing strips provided with these devices, these free companion apps let you automatically upload your test results and track your progress in a simple user interface. This app could also literally save your life with a “hypo” alert system that can automatically send messages to your emergency contacts if your blood sugar is at unsafe levels.
Best for Simple Blood Glucose Tracking: Diabetes
Android rating: 4.5 stars
Price: Free, with in-app purchases available
It doesn’t get much simpler than this — the Diabetes app allows you to track and view detailed data about your blood glucose, and tag the data so it’s easy for you to look back on and share with your healthcare professional when you need it. This app does one thing very well, and it’s the app of choice for those who simply want straightforward blood glucose tracking and no other frills. Unfortunately, it’s only available for Android users at this time.
Best for Community Support: T2D Healthline: Diabetes
iPhone rating: 4.7 stars
Android rating: 3.7 stars
Price: Free, with in-app purchases available
Many diabetes apps offer tracking and data features, but few focus primarily on the community of millions who have diabetes and are going through the same experience as you. The T2D Healthline: Diabetes app is a portal into that world, letting you connect with others on a number of forums dedicated to specific topics like complications, relationships, and testing/monitoring.
best free diabetes app 2021
Best Diabetes Apps for Tracking Food and Exercise
Keeping track of what you eat, how much you exercise, and your mental health is essential in a well-rounded diabetes management plan. While it can be overwhelming at first, there are plenty of great apps to help you make healthy choices.
- MyFitnessPalMyFitnessPal is an excellent way to keep track of what you’re eating throughout the day. It offers both free and premium memberships and has millions of different foods registered in the database. MyFitnessPal allows you to scan barcodes to enter food in your daily diary and gives you the breakdown of fats, proteins, carbohydrates, and sugars in each item. To take full advantage of the features on this app you can use the exercise tracker and set daily hydration goals.
- FooducateFooducate is similar to MyFitnessPal in that it allows you to track your food intake, but it has a few different features. Fooducate assigns a grade to each food that you track so you know what the overall nutrition quality is at a glance. For those foods that are poorly rated, Fooducate offers healthy alternatives for you to try. It is free for both iPhone and Android use.Best Apps for Tracking Blood GlucoseRegardless of if your blood glucose monitor can be integrated into your smartphone or not, there are still ways for you to manually enter information. Below are the top three diabetes apps for tracking blood glucose levels throughout the day.
- Glucose BuddyGlucose Buddy is an iPhone specific app for tracking your blood glucose levels. Its features allow for insulin, medication, A1C, and carbohydrate tracking. It can be synced with certain blood glucose monitors and offers areas to track your physical exercise and food intake. You can set up notifications in the app to remind you to check your blood sugar, get some exercise, and more. There are both free and paid options.
- MySugrMySugr allows you to log all of your diabetes data in one place. It’s easy to use and gives you a convenient overview of your blood glucose levels on the home screen. MySugr also allows you to input medications, meals, and carbohydrates. It can by synced with Apple health to create a more comprehensive overview and has integration capabilities with certain continuous glucose monitors. There are both free and paid options for use.
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