I admit that I am a total gadget junkie. Ask my family and friends … if there is a new device available in the market, chances are I have it. Or am planning on getting it. iPods to Blackberrys to iPhones to iPads to Nooks to Kindles. I’ve had them all at one point. And if I still use them, I most likely have the latest generation. Since diabetes management tools have taken a more technological turn in more recent years, those gadgets are not excluded from my obsession. I have used almost all of the insulin pumps and meters out there. The ones available in the US anyway. My newest toy as I like to think of them is the Verio IQ meter from One Touch. A few of my friends had received the product for their own review however I saw it on the shelf when I was in CVS last week. I had a CVS coupon so decided to purchase it (its retail price there is $59.99) and try it out.

Overall I like it. It is lightweight and petite. The screen is color and very vivid. It has a port light where you put the strips in – which is actually quite bright.

This is extremely helpful when testing at night or in low light areas. Each reading gives you the opportunity to select before or after meal.

I test a lot of times a day and not always right before or after a meal. (I’m not always eating!) This feature to me could have been improved by giving the option to not select either or to give more choices. I like the history it gives – 7, 14, 30 and 90 day averages which are easily accessible from the home menu. It does not use good ol’ AA or AAA or even those pesky CR2032 circular batteries. It charges like other electronics.

I like this since I wouldn’t have to worry about carrying extra batteries around for it and I’m pretty good about charging my devices regularly overnight. It also gives trend alerts when it detects trends in BG readings at certain times of the day.

This is a very nice feature to have that trend shown to you without having to download any data first.  This meter does not use the typical One Touch Ultra blue strips like the other One Touch meters. It uses strips specific to the Verio meter. There is no coding for the strips and this is a huge plus to me. The appearance of the strips are actually a bit strange since there is a sort of opening at the bottom where it feeds into the meter. No biggie though. It takes in the blood on the side which is also different. It seems to be a bit easier to me. The readings I’ve compared to my other meters always ran higher. Now I’m not sure if this is good nor bad, just higher. (I have many opinions on the accuracy of BG meters but won’t go into that today) I haven’t tried to download results as of now so cannot comment on that feature.

I won’t be using this is as my primary meter since I’m waiting to be switched to the OmniPod which uses its own PDM and Freestyle strips combo for BG testing. But I do like it and will probably keep it as an alternate meter. One side note – I tried to pay for the meter and strips with my FSA card. I have purchased other meters and strips successfully in the past however this was not automatically covered. Something for me to look into I suppose.

**July 2012 Update**  I realized that my full opinion of this meter has changed a bit since I originally posted this.  For the past few months I have actually been using the Verio as my primary meter.  After using the PDM with my OmniPod for a while, I felt the readings were much lower compared to other meters I have, the Verio being one of them.  At my endo appointment in April I had the lab test BG results from both the PDM and Verio.  (For those that do not know how this is done, when the lab draws blood from your arm they take a sample of that blood and apply it to the test strip at that moment and compare that reading to the one received when the entire blood sample is sent to the lab. Quite interesting actually)  My lab reading was 146 mg/dL.  The PDM was  139 mg/dL and the Verio was 151 mg/dL.  Yes both were close however a 3% difference is better than 5% in my book.  Also, the times where I have taken back to back tests with the Verio have resulted in either the same exact or very close results.  This certainly reduces my doubt in the readings I get.  So not only do I love the quickness, brightness and usefulness of the meter, it is more accurate in my experience as well.