What about the Bluetooth and Wi-Fi signals?
The antenna. That’s another big part of the challenge. Antennas radiate when they are of a size that is appropriate for the frequency — so 2.4 GHz, which is what Wi-Fi and Bluetooth operate at — for optimal transmission and performance, they require an antenna that’s probably 6 inches long, roughly. The challenge of the design is to make the antenna as effective as possible given the size you’re cramming it into.
And for FreeStyle Libre, we have this power source in there, the battery has got a metal case and the metal case absorbs RF energy and makes it difficult too.
So we had to do a lot of 3D modeling to really perfect it. Just a lot of experimenting.
You’re able to get those parts together and keep it sterile though the manufacturing?
Yeah. Developing a small sterile sub-assembly that we can put together, sterilize it, and continue to assemble that and the rest of the product, and that’s the way we ended up going.
So that’s how you got the chicken inside the egg?
Exactly. That’s the novel part. It’s not typical to have a multi-faceted sterile barrier system like that. But we put a ton of effort to verify and prove it out. We figured it’d be challenged so we wanted to make sure we had every possible bit of data.
Small. Simple to use. Others benefits?
We saved on a ton1 of materials so we’re also greener with the product, which is important to us.
Is FreeStyle Libre 3 as good as is possible, at least as of now?
It’s dang close.