Component Overview
AAPS is not just a (self-built) application, it is but one of several modules of your closed loop system. Before deciding for components, it would be a good idea to have a look at the component documentation.
IMPORTANT SAFETY NOTICE
The foundation of AAPS safety features discussed in this documentation is built on the safety features of the hardware used to build your system. For closing an automated insulin dosing loop, it is critically important that you only use an insulin pump and CGM that are tested, fully functioning and approved by the official instances of your country. שינויים בחומרה או בתוכנה ברכיבים אלה עלולים לגרום למינון בלתי צפוי של אינסולין, ולגרום לסיכון משמעותי למשתמש. If you find or get offered broken, modified or self-made insulin pumps or CGM receivers, do not use these for creating an AAPS system.
Additionally, it is equally important to only use original supplies such as inserters, cannulas and insulin containers approved by the manufacturer for use with your pump or CGM. Using untested or modified supplies can cause CGM inaccuracy and insulin dosing errors. Insulin is highly dangerous when misdosed - please do not play with your life by hacking with your supplies.
Last but not least, you must not take SGLT-2 inhibitors (gliflozins) as they incalculably lower blood sugar levels. The combination with a system that lowers basal rates in order to increase BG is especially dangerous as due to the gliflozin this rise in BG might not happen and a dangerous state of lack of insulin can happen. More information here.
Necessary Modules
Good individual dosage algorithm for your diabetes therapy
Even though this is not something to create or buy, this is the »module« which is probably underestimated the most but essential. When you let an algorithm help manage your diabetes, it needs to know the right settings to not make severe mistakes. Even if you are still missing other modules, you can already verify and adapt your Profile in collaboration with your diabetes team.
The Profile includes:
BR (Basal rates): provides background insulin;
ISF (insulin sensitivity factor): how much your blood glucose level will be reduced by 1 unit of insulin;
CR (carb ratio): how many grams of carbohydrate are covered by one unit of insulin;
DIA (duration of insulin action).
Most loopers use circadian BR, ISF and CR, which adapt hormonal insulin sensitivity during the day.
More information about your Profile on the dedicated page.
Phone
See the dedicated page Phones.
Insulin pump
See the dedicated page Compatible Pumps.
Advantages and disadvantages of some pump models
The Combo, the Insight and the older Medtronic are solid pumps, and loopable. The Combo has the advantage of many more infusion set types to choose from as it has a standard Luer-Lock. And the battery is a default one you can buy at any gas station, 24-hour convenience store and if you really need one, you can steal/borrow it from the remote control in the hotel room ;-).
The advantages of the DanaR/RS and Dana-i vs. the Combo as the pump of choice however are:
The Dana pumps connect to almost any phone with Android >= 5.1 without the need to flash lineage. If your phone breaks you usually can find easily any phone that works with the Dana pumps as quick replacement… not so easy with the Combo. (This might change in the future when Android 8.1 gets more popular)
Initial pairing is simpler with the Dana-i/RS. But you usually only do this once so it only impacts if you want to test a new feature with different pumps.
So far the Combo works with screen parsing. In general that works great but it is slow. For looping this does not matter much as everything works in the background. Still there is much more time you need to be connected so more time when the BT connection might break, which isn’t so easy if you walk away from your phone whilst bolusing & cooking.
The Combo vibrates on the end of TBRs, the DanaR vibrates (or beeps) on SMB. At nighttime, you are likely to be using TBRs more than SMB. The Dana-i/RS is configurable so that it does neither beep nor vibrate.
Reading the history on the Dana-i/RS in a few seconds with carbs makes it possible to switch phones easily while offline and continue looping as soon a soon as some CGM values are in.
All pumps AAPS can talk with are waterproof on delivery. Only the Dana pumps are also ”waterproof by warranty“ due to the sealed battery compartment and reservoir filling system.
מקור ערכי הסוכר
See the dedicated page Compatible CGMs.
AAPS-.apk file
The main component of the system. In order to install the app, you have to build the apk-file yourself first. Instructions are here.
Reporting server
A reporting server displays your glucose and treatment data, and creates reports for detailed analysis. There are currently two reporting servers available for use with AAPS : Nightscout and Tidepool. They both provide ways to visualize your diabetes data over time, provide statistics about the time in range (TIR) and other measures.
The Reporting server is independent of the other modules. If you don’t want to use a reporting server, you should know that it is not mandatory for running AAPS in the long term. But you still need to set up one as it will be required to fulfill Objective 1.
Additional information on how to set up your reporting server can be found here.
Optional Modules
Smartwatch
You can choose any smartwatch with Android WearOS 1.x up to 4.x. Beware, WearOS 5.x is not compatible!
Users are creating a list of tested phones and watches. There are different watchfaces for use with AAPS, which you can find here.
xDrip+
Even if you don’t need to have the xDrip+ App as BG Source, you can still use it for i.e. alarms or a different blood glucose display. You can have as many alarms as you want, specify the time when the alarm should be active, if it can override silent mode, etc. Some xDrip+ information can be found here. Please be aware that the documentations to this app are not always up to date as its progress is quite fast.
What to do while waiting for modules
It sometimes takes a while to get all the modules for closing the loop. But no worries, there are a lot of things you can do while waiting. It is necessary to check and (where appropriate) adapt basal rates (BR), insulin-carbratio (IC), insulin-sensitivity-factors (ISF) etc. And maybe open loop can be a good way to test the system and get familiar with AAPS. Using this mode, AAPS gives treatment recommendations you can manually execute.
You can keep on reading through the docs here, get in touch with other loopers online or offline, read documentations or what other loopers write (even if you have to be careful, not everything is correct or good for you to reproduce).
Done? If you have your AAPS components all together (congrats!) or at least enough to start in open loop mode, you should first read through the Objective description before each new Objective and setup up your hardware.