Wow, this is an incredibly flawed study. If you are type 1, your doctor (if at all competent) will download and help you understand your data. As a Dexcom and Omnipod user, this is also my only method for accessing long term historical data. The study is not surprising, other than the obvious answer, the device manufactures are in the stone age of computing.

I am a very competent software expert, but the software for downloading historical data is simply in the last century, literally. My first Omipod needed Windows 98. Dexcom was a little better, but almost a pointless endeavor.

The software for these devices and many other glucose monitors have until recently been targeted at the doctors and providers, not patients. Also, the software in the devices are woefully poor at associating the pace of life with both readings and effects of food, exercise, stress, and of course insulin. At best you can using something like Dexcom far better real time because of the 24 hour display of readings. Historical data of glucose is useless without context and context is muddled and is error prone over time.

The study, though nice to have to bring the point home, is important mainly for what it is really saying: Historical data from diabetic oriented devices is hard to use and rather useless for most patients and that the industry needs to target the patient with their modern devices and ad ons like heart meters and other devices that measure other body functions.