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Dana Heartbeat

Dana(RS-v3 / -i) heartbeat modes

Please read the full page and only activate this if truly needed

Enabling this feature will put a big load on your iPhone's battery or your pump's battery. Therefore, only use it if your sensor doesn't provide a heartbeat, i.e. the NightScout remote CGM, Dexcom Share, etc

Danakit provides two ways to enable a heartbeat:

  • Background sound
  • Continuous Bluetooth mode

Which mode to choose?

You should choose Background sound when:

  • You prefer a higher phone battery drain over a higher pump battery drain
  • You are able to change the permission of the Loop app in Xcode or change the Github action build step

You should choose Continuous Bluetooth mode when:

  • You prefer a higher pump battery drain over a higher phone battery drain
  • You are aware that the pump's UI will be blocked 24/7 unless you: disconnect in the Loop app, kill the Loop app, or disable bluetooth on your phone

Background sound

An extra feature available for the Dana pumps is the background sound. This feature was developed in order to keep the Loop app running in the background.

Normally, your CGM will have an active Bluetooth connection, which prevent the Loop app from being put into a suspended state. But when you are planning on using a CGM, like NightScout remote CGM, Dexcom Share, etc, you rely on a active internet connection, and not on an active Bluetooth connection.

In order to activate, follow these steps:

  1. Activate the UIBackgroundMode - audio:

    • When building with Mac, go to the LoopWorkspace Xcode project and select the Loop project. Go to "Targets" -> "Loop" -> "Signing & Capabilities" and scroll down to "Background modes". Enable the checkbox for "Audio, AirPlay, and Picture in Picture". Then rebuild the app and go to step 2. Xcode background sound example

    • When building with Browser, you will need to make a change to the GitHub Actions workflow. Go to your LoopWorkspace fork on GitHub and press . on your keyboard. You will be redirected to a github.dev page with the code of your LoopWorkspace. Now go to ".github" -> "workflows" -> "build_loop.yml". Scroll down till you see the - name: Fastlane Build & Archive command. Just before this command, add the following to this script (example):

    - name: Update entitlement background sound
  run: sed -i -e 's/<string>bluetooth-central<\/string>/<string>bluetooth-central<\/string><string>audio<\/string>/g' Loop/Loop/Info.plist
    • To save your changes to the "build_loop.yml", go to the Source Control tab on the left (should show up with a blue 1, see image below). Enter a message and press the green "Commit & Push"-button. By pressing this button, GitHub will automatically make a new browser build for you and push it to TestFlight Github web ide example

  2. After you have done the onboarding of the pump (see steps above), go to the pump settings. Scroll down the "Pump name" and long-press this row. A modal should pop-up with the question, whether you want to toggle Silent tones.

    In order to activate this feature, the modal should say something like: Yes, Enable silent tones. When it says: Yes, Disable silent tones, it will disable the background sounds. Loop example background sound

  3. Done! Every time you put the Loop app in the background, it will play a toneless sound, which prevents it from suspending the Loop app

Continuous bluetooth mode

This mode replicates how a CGM works: it keeps the bluetooth connection open even though no command's are being executed. Like stated before, this will drain your pump's battery more than usual.

How to unblock the pump's UI

If you want to replace the reservoir or want to interact with the pump's UI, you have three options to temporary disable Continuous bluetooth mode:

  • Disable bluetooth on your phone (not recommended)
  • Kill the Loop app (not recommended)
  • Using the disconnect feature (recommended)

To use the disconnect feature, go to the Dana pump settings and use the Disconnect from pump button. You will get prompt to set a notification reminder. This reminder will be sent to you if you haven't reconnected the pump within the given time. This feature is fully optional, but is recommended.

Dana continuous disconnect

How to enable Continuous bluetooth mode

Now that you know what the risks are of this feature and how to unblock the pump's UI, can we talk about enabling the feature. Go to the Dana settings and long press the Firmware version row. You will be prompted to enable or disable the feature, choose Yes, Switch to continuous mode and the feature has been enabled!

Dana continuous disconnect