First Impressions: Asante's Snap Insulin Pump.

A very large box arrived on my doorstep and after spending a couple of hours on Skype with a CDE, I'm hooked up to the Snap insulin pump, made by Asante. I'm doing a four-week trial, which may be an option for you, too - if you'd like to try it yourself, I suggest you go inquire to see if you qualify. (I want you to think about that for a minute - they're letting patients try their pump, for free, for four weeks. Four! Weeks! You have to be pretty ballsy confident in your product to offer that.)

This pump looks (and acts) a little different than what I'm used to, so I wanted to post a few more pictures than what I put on Instagram last night, and share a few thoughts. I've only been wearing it for about 12 hours, so these are definitely "first impressions". 

Hooray:

• The pump utilizes pre-filled, glass insulin cartridges which is great for a few reasons: no wrestling with air bubbles trying to transfer insulin from vial to reservoir, no degradation of insulin due to being in a plastic reservoir, and you actually get to use all 300 units of insulin in the cartridge because the cartridges are filled to 315 units, and the prime only uses 15 - 16 units.
• Less parts - just a controller (the half of the pump that has all of the buttons and screen), the pump body (the part that houses the cartridge and battery - which means you get a new battery every time you change out the insulin), and the infusion set/tubing/connector. 
• Yeah, that auto-prime thing is pretty cool. It made me guffaw.
• You know how with an Animas pump (and maybe others, I don't know), when you want to bolus for carbs, you tell it how many carbs, it suggests a bolus, and then you have to dial up to that amount, confirm it, and then it boluses? There's no bolus dialing with this pump. Let me say that again: THERE IS NO BOLUS DIALING. I tell it how many carbs, it tells me a bolus suggestion, and I just tell it "yep" and it starts delivering it. 
• And you know how Animas pumps (and Medtronic, probs) have that cartridge cap that sticks out from the pump, where the tubing comes from - and sometimes when you sit down it jabs you in the stomach? Yeah, no cap on the Snap. Woo!
• The buttons have a very satisfactory resistance to them. Do you know what I mean? It's a tactile thing - I want buttons that really depress and then pop back when I let go. These feel nice.
• When I press the left-most button, an empty screen reminiscent of CGM graph appears. "Oh", I thought, "there must be some future integration efforts in the works". Well, that is true ("We'd love to be integrated with Dexcom") but also this graph plots all of the blood sugars you've entered for the previous 12 hours. (WHAT?!) Awesome!
• Basically, there are a lot of little thoughtful things designed in this pump, and I'm still discovering some of them. It's made me smirk with delight a few times already, which is a pretty lofty achievement for a medical device.

Are you serious:

• The pump's appearance... leaves something to be desired. Someone asked if "they are doing the 'hipster' pump look, cause it's really doing the old look/new gadget thing well". As you can see above, it's a pretty long pump, too. I'm not sure how pump-in-the-bra is going to work; I'll report back.
• The insulin-dispensing noises remind me of the noise your computer makes when you eject a CD. It's kind of loud.
• This is a huge one for me: the pump does not have a vibrate option for alerts and alarms. In my 8 years of pumping, I have always had my pump set to "vibrate only", so this is kind of upsetting for me. The sounds are adjustable, so I have it on the lowest setting, but it's going to beep every time I bolus, etc. I am really not pleased about that. When I asked about it, I was told that when they did their market research they found that people wanted a "lighter", less heavy pump - and taking out the vibrate capability helped shed some extra ounces. Let me tell you: I'd gladly wear a pump twice as heavy if it meant it could be QUIET, but maybe that's me. As the person who is wearing this thing all the time and in different social situations, I need to be the one who decides when I want to be out-and-proud, and when I want to be discreet. (Update: I've bolused a few times with it now and have the volume set to the lowest level. I generally put my pump back in my pocket while it's bolusing, and have noticed with the last two that I can't really hear the "end bolus" beeps. I am less worried now, but it may be more audible if you're just wearing the pump in a holster at your waist.)

I'll share more as Mr. Snaps and I go along, and try to avoid saying "aw, snap!" in every post about it.

No guarantees though.

Disclosure: Asante sent me a Snap insulin pump to try, for free, for up to four weeks. I am offering my thoughts and feedback to them and will be writing about my experience as I go, because that's what I want to do. I am not receiving financial compensation for my reviews, and opinions are, as always, my own.