Gluco Check shutdown: what's our next step?

[nielsmaerten]

In case you haven't heard, Google is shutting down voice-based apps on Assistant.
Gluco Check will shut down on June 13th, 2023. More info here: https://pages.glucocheck.app/sunset

So... now what?

I'm not sure, that's why I'm opening this discussion. Ideas are welcome.

A possible workaround

Here's an idea I had. Granted it's not fully formed. But maybe we can build from here

• Google is removing all third-party apps from their platform, that much is clear. Never leave the cult.
• So what if we tricked Google into reading our blood sugar from one of its own apps?
• What if we had a service that:
  • whenever our BG is updated in Nightscout
  • the value is updated into an event on Google Calendar with a fixed date?
  • You could say: "Hey Google, what's on my calendar for the 20th of April 1969?"
  • The response would be: "There was 1 entry on that day: at 1:25AM, you had '120 and stable'. "
  • Using Routines, you could even still say: Hey Google, check my sugar. Just map it to the question above.
  • The service should keep the event on that fixed day (4/20/69) updated with every new BG value

The best location for a service like this would, I think, be a Nightscout plugin. But I have zero experience writing plugins for that codebase.

What do you think?

[many7695]

I really hope u are someone else can find a workaround to get google announce our blood sugars I loved my morning routine find out my schedule weather medication turn on music and especially tell me my current blood sugar, thank u for everything u have done the last few years

[nielsmaerten]

I get the frustration. But raging against Google is unlikely to change anything. I think our best option right now is thinking on how to work around this change.

[BenoitAnastay]

I did that with HA, my scene is called with a custom trigger, then HA replies with TTS.

It's not a perfect solution since I don't know which speaker ask for BG and it's not the Google TTS

alias: Glycémie
description: ""
trigger:
  - platform: event
    event_type: call_service
    event_data:
      domain: scene
      service: turn_on
      service_data:
        entity_id: scene.glycemie
condition: []
action:
  - service: tts.cloud_say
    data:
      message: >-
        Votre glycémie est a {{ states.sensor.blood_sugar.state}} {% if
        state_attr("sensor.blood_sugar","direction") == "Flat" %}en ligne
        droite{%- elif state_attr("sensor.blood_sugar","direction") ==
        "SingleDown" %}en basse rapide{%- elif
        state_attr("sensor.blood_sugar","direction") == "FortyFiveDown" %}en
        baisse{%- elif state_attr("sensor.blood_sugar","direction") ==
        "DoubleDown" %}en baisse très rapide{%- elif
        state_attr("sensor.blood_sugar","direction") == "SingleUp" %}en montée
        rapide{%- elif state_attr("sensor.blood_sugar","direction") ==
        "FortyFiveUp" %}en montée{%- elif
        state_attr("sensor.blood_sugar","direction") == "DoubleUp" %}en montée
        très rapide{%- endif %}
      entity_id: media_player.googlehome1221
      language: fr-FR
mode: single

[nielsmaerten]

This looks really cool 🤩! What exactly do you say to trigger the intent? And can you just say it to a Google home, or does it need a speaker connected to a raspi?

I've been looking at Rhasspy and Genie so far. But a solution using 'just' Google hardware would be preferable since 100% of people using GlucoCheck will have had a G-assistant compatible device, Most won't have a HA instance running somewhere.

Nevertheless, congrats on getting this working on HA and (almost) cutting Big G out ;)

[BenoitAnastay]

So it does use the Home Automation abilities of Google Home, I mapped an automation scene with the routines of Google Home, when I say "Hey Google, What's my BG", the scene glycemia is called on HA, then HA send back a TTS to my Google Home, using the nabu casa TTS service.

The issue is that I can't know which Google Home called the scene, thus I don't know where to route the reply, actually there is only the bedroom speaker that replies.

But the the idea might be perfectible, I'm wondering if there is a way to reply to an Home Automation command with custom text, or less conveinient if we can create one routine/scene combo per speaker so we know where to route the answer

[ylorig]

@nielsmaerten have you seen these options (app-actions)?
https://developer.android.com/guide/app-actions/overview

[Tek420]

OY! So my config for your app broke a few months ago and I finally put the time in and went with the Nightscout Pro site all so I could get my GlucoCheck working again on my Google devices! What a bummer to find Google is killing this awesome app! It has saved me a ton of times when I can barely wake up to get my BG read out loud and not have to fumble with the pump, lights, glasses, etc.

So question, I have a HA instance running on a Pi but I do not see how @BenoitAnastay is getting the data into HA to be able to spit out the details. Do you have any insight on that which may help me figure it out? I am nit sure I see it in there even after translating the French.

If not no worries and please, truly from the bottom of my heart, thanks so much for doing the original app. I really used it a lot and you definitely were one of the underappreciated things I used daily to keep on top of my BG. I guess you never appreciate the good things until they are gone or soon to be so!

Dave

[nielsmaerten]

Hi @Tek420
Thanks for these kind words! 😊

I'm using the Nightscout integration for HA: https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/nightscout
Once you've set this up, you'll have an entity in HA called sensor.blood_sugar that you can use to trigger automations.
Here's mine: it plays an alert on all speakers using the TTS service if my sugar drops below 70mg/dl for 15 minutes:

alias: 🩸 Blood sugar low => Play alerts
description: "Plays an alert on all speakers if my BG falls below 70 for more than 15 minutes. During the night, it also turns on the bedroom lights."
# Trigger when BG is <70 for 15m
trigger:
  - platform: numeric_state
    entity_id: sensor.blood_sugar
    for:
      hours: 0
      minutes: 15
      seconds: 0
    below: 70
# Don't do anything if I'm not home
condition:
  - condition: zone
    entity_id: person.niels
    zone: zone.home
action:
# If it is night...
  - if:
      - condition: sun
        after: sunset
        before: sunrise
    then:
# ... then turn on the bedroom lights
      - service: scene.turn_on
        target:
          entity_id: scene.bedroom_dimmed
        metadata: {}
# Repeat the warning message 3 times
  - repeat:
      count: "3"
      sequence:
        - service: tts.google_translate_say
          data:
            entity_id: media_player.all_speakers
            message: Warning: blood sugar is low. Drink a juicebox; right now!
            language: en
            cache: false
        - delay:
            hours: 0
            minutes: 0
            seconds: 20
            milliseconds: 0
mode: single

Second, if you create a script in HomeAssistant, you can call if from a Google Home as if it were a scene.
So for the following script, if you say "Hey Google, activate Glucose Check"... it will read out your sugar to all speakers:

alias: Glucose Check
sequence:
  - service: tts.google_translate_say
    data:
      cache: false
      entity_id: media_player.all_speakers
# This is the template that pulls the value from the sensor, and reads it out in the message:
      message: Blood sugar is currently {{ states('sensor.blood_sugar') }}
mode: single

Finally,
To get Google to activate scenes in HA, you'll have to add HA as a service in your Google Home app.
The easiest way to do this (but not free) is by using Nabu Casa: https://www.nabucasa.com/config/google_assistant/

It's also possible to set this up yourself, but this requires a bit more work. Instructions are here: https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/google_assistant/

---

Hope this helps! Thanks for using Gluco Check all this time. Building it has been a ton of fun.
But... as with all things from Google... they ultimately must end up on https://killedbygoogle.com 🥲

[Atlas-Night-Out]

would it be possible with more instruction on how to get this setup I have all the things just not knowing what to do! Thanks I see the nightscout entity sensor.blood-sugars just no clue on the triggers to get it in there. I also have voice command coming into Alexa just not like it was with Nightscout Status and it giving me a reminder of when my sensor will run out. Simple things like how and where do I have this script will help me figure what to do but with being blind to it all and never using Home assistant before I'm having to learn a lot in a short time!

[nielsmaerten]

I'm not an expert in Home Assistant, but I might be able to provide some general guidance on how to set this up. If you get stuck, the Home Assistant community might be in a better position to help.

1. First, you have to make sure your Nightscout data is getting into Home Assistant. It looks like you already have the entity sensor.blood_sugar available, so I guess this is already working. If not, add Nightscout as an Integration and make sure to configure it using your own site and auth tokens
2. Your next step would be to create a new Script. When creating the script, you can switch to YAML mode and simply copy paste the second code block in there. Make sure to update the entity ids of the media player (probably a Google Home speaker?) you want to hear the result on
3. When you save the script, give it an easy name such as "Glucose Check". This will be the magic word you say to Google to activate the script later on
4. Now, you need to make sure Home Assistant is connected to Google Assistant and/or Alexa. The easiest way to do this is by signing up for Nabu Case, although this is not free. Subscribing to Nabu Casa directly supports the Home Assistant project, so for me personally it's well worth it. But if you prefer, it's also possible to set up the connection on your own without relying on a subscription. Instructions for that are in the link in my post above
5. Once Home Assistant and Google Assistant are connected, you can activate the script by saying "Activate Glucose Check", where "Glucose Check" is the name you gave the script. To Google, the "script" is presented as if it where a scene, which you can activate by saying "Activate ". It's a pretty smart workaround imho. Once the script runs, a voice should read our your glucose value on the speaker you selected in step 2. Note that it's currently not possible to play the TTS message on whatever speaker you used to activate the script.

This is about as much guidance I can give you with Home Assistant, but I hope it helps. If you get stuck, https://community.home-assistant.io/ is probably a good place to get more detailed help. I can also highly recommend ChatGPT: it's familiar with Home Assistant and has been able to guide me through setting up complex automations on many occasions. Good luck 💪

[Atlas-Night-Out]

Thank you for all of this! I will take a look through it as I have HA setup but seem to be getting errors a lot on certain things not sure if its with not using nabu casa TTS service i did workaround to get it free :-)

But I'm getting this come up and no clue why I don't get it with anything else to set up Automation! I also only this week figured out how to do many things from one automation from turning the light on or off in one automation rather than do it separately.

The main thing Im want to get set back up is Sensor age from AASP as I tend to forget when it needs changing and since Google too it away it has happened to me while out already!

I'm also no expert in HA I never touched it before until you said to try Ha to get this to work again from your great work before! thank you for that I loved it! Let's hope we can get HA to do it in a better way so I can try to help others get set up easier for them by me showing how too. But I need to know how too first :-)

This is what Im getting at the moment with trying to add and Automation to Nightscout in Ha

I could be doing it the wrong way though until I go through what you have posted thank you so much!

I have google speakers working in Ha but not Alexa ones yet been trying to get them to work but again with errors.

I know Nightscout if ok and working in HA as you can see here!

[Tek420]

Wow Niels!! Thank you soooo very much for the help and really detailed instructions on how to set this up! I really and truly appreciate your time and help. I am a heavy sleeper and have a hard time waking up. Coupled with my inability to sense my low sugar levels until they are really low, like in the 50s low, this helps me so much to shout out and get a response on what my blood sugar is. I have a few things going on right now to get ready for this but I would like to send you a little something I am going to make to repay your kindness, help, and in appreciation of your time. I need a bit to get things set here to make this but if you are comfortable, please send me an address that I may ship something out to you. It's nothing big and it'll be one of my first attempts so it may not be perfect but I think you will like it! Really and truly thank you again for your help with this, I am going to dig in on setting this up in the morning! Thanks, Dave

…

On Tue, Apr 18, 2023 at 4:32 AM Niels Maerten ***@***.***> wrote: Hi @Tek420 <https://github.com/Tek420> Thanks for these kind words! 😊 I'm using the Nightscout integration for HA: https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/nightscout Once you've set this up, you'll have an entity in HA called sensor.blood_sugar that you can use to trigger automations. Here's mine: it plays an alert on all speakers using the TTS service if my sugar drops below 70mg/dl for 15 minutes: alias: 🩸 Blood sugar low => Play alertsdescription: "Plays an alert on all speakers if my BG falls below 70 for more than 15 minutes. During the night, it also turns on the bedroom lights."# Trigger when BG is <70 for 15mtrigger: - platform: numeric_state entity_id: sensor.blood_sugar for: hours: 0 minutes: 15 seconds: 0 below: 70# Don't do anything if I'm not homecondition: - condition: zone entity_id: person.niels zone: zone.homeaction:# If it is night... - if: - condition: sun after: sunset before: sunrise then:# ... then turn on the bedroom lights - service: scene.turn_on target: entity_id: scene.bedroom_dimmed metadata: {}# Repeat the warning message 3 times - repeat: count: "3" sequence: - service: tts.google_translate_say data: entity_id: media_player.all_speakers message: Warning: blood sugar is low. Drink a juicebox; right now! language: en cache: false - delay: hours: 0 minutes: 0 seconds: 20 milliseconds: 0mode: single Second, if you create a script in HomeAssistant, you can call if from a Google Home as if it were a scene. So for the following script, if you say "Hey Google, activate Glucose Check"... it will read out your sugar to all speakers: alias: Glucose Checksequence: - service: tts.google_translate_say data: cache: false entity_id: media_player.all_speakers# This is the template that pulls the value from the sensor, and reads it out in the message: message: Blood sugar is currently {{ states('sensor.blood_sugar') }}mode: single Finally, To get Google to activate scenes in HA, you'll have to add HA as a service in your Google Home app. The easiest way to do this (but not free) is by using Nabu Casa: https://www.nabucasa.com/config/google_assistant/ It's also possible to set this up yourself, but this requires a bit more work. Instructions are here: https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/google_assistant/ ------------------------------ Hope this helps! Thanks for using Gluco Check all this time. Building it has been a ton of fun. But... as with all things from Google... they ultimately must end up on https://killedbygoogle.com 🥲 — Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#185 (reply in thread)>, or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AEBUEZXP3ZTWXTIRYJ5EW3DXBZGRTANCNFSM6AAAAAAQGFFIQY> . You are receiving this because you were mentioned.Message ID: ***@***.*** com>

[nielsmaerten]

Sorry! Your reply passed completely under my radar (been on vacation for a couple weeks ;)

There's no need to send my anything, though I very much appreciate the gesture 😇
But if you insist, I do have a page where you can buy me a coffee if you want to: https://go.niels.me/coffee
No obligation of course ;)

re. the automations : If you're like me and it takes a while for you to feel low sugars, I can really recommend the first automation I posted. This one will actually wake me up during the night by turning the lights on. But when I wake up sleepy, low and confused I often don't immediately realize I need to get some sugar in me. So then it's a huge help that Home Assistant is literally yelling at me: "HEY sleepyhead! You're low! See that juicebox on your nightstand? Drink it! Right now!"

[Atlas-Night-Out]

why and what are Google up to Niel? I think it's been a great success this reading out are details and for the life in me cannot understand Google at all on this! :-( All the hard work you have put into this for them yet again takes away what is needed It more than maddens me! I looked at what you have written to help but this is way too much for me to understand how to do to change it all to be all working again! I have it at the moment until the 13 Google reading out my levels when I ask for it and at night to read out all details before I go to sleep! I would very much like to carry on using this aUTO PROCESS IF we are able to find or an easier write-up to do this process. I'm no person who as not had to do very complicated setups but this is way past my knowledge to do! Im so thankful for what you have done and I hope Google wake up to helping rather than hindering technologies going forward! Thank you and please let me know if there is any easier way or setup process for me to try! Thanks! Looks like my google devices are all going to be binned! :-(

[nielsmaerten]

It is what it is I guess 🤷 Google's killed many many services in the past. For me, it finally got to the point where I was considering buying a new Google Home speaker, but decided against it. I feel like I can no longer be confident a Google service I'm relying on today will still be around in 5 years. And after Stadia, I don't think I'm alone in this.

Personally, I will be moving to Home Assistant, but I absolutely understand that's not for everyone. Home Assistant is an amazing project, but it's not trivial to get started, and if you just want a speaker to read out your glucose, it's likely overkill.

Maybe Amazon Echo is a viable alternative? I never used it myself, but it seems very close to what Gluco Check does: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWuidksHcY8

In any case, thanks for your support and best of luck! 💪

[Atlas-Night-Out]

@nielsmaerten I was looking last night and looking at Rasberry pi 4 or 3 you can add a Google to it with a small screen to automate the house! so if any changes won't affect your home assistant even if no internet which I think could be a good way to go so google is no longer my friend! Im not at all sure if there is any way this way? But if it is I know it's going to be a big taste for us all to set up and do but Im here to try to help and will write up and do things I can to help get others set up easier.

If we can do it then we will have an updated Google T1 Hub :-) with auto sense to send alerts in in a hypo or if you fall yes I know Im dreaming but not really just very much time-consuming and learning for me. All I would be needing help in is checking my spelling :-) and fully understanding how we can try to do this, I very much think it's worth it with what you have done so far to take this further!

I think a Home Assistant on a 10.1 screen with all the raspberry pi at the back o fit might be a good cheap way to do it but it's so annoying why is Google doing this is it to get an updated hub designed free? or is it another of the BUGS to us all?

Like you, and many more people I'm getting sick of being Google's friend! But Alexa is starting to be easier and less frustrating than Google now! I can get my reading read out by a cube and no need to say a word but the details on that are not as good as Nightscout as no pump details coming to me like it does from Nightscout. But another thing no point me now paying for Nightscout at all as I only did that for this service reading out my levels so again there loss! But we still need are readings read out. Big setup or now we have no choices now! :-(

See this video and this device from Amazon seems a good setup way to go. What's your thought on this and could we still keep getting ar readings to read out?

This video shows how to get Google onto a pi

And take a look at the video on Amazon's site on the 10.1 screens and adding to the back of it to give a cleaner look and bigger screen and it being touch.
Raspberry Pi 4 Touchscreen, 10.1 Inch Portable Touch Monitor

All you would also need like I already have is a wireless Logitech K380 keyboard Logitech K380 keyboard

I want a holiday really not more Unnecessary medical devices yet again that we already have but had taken away again because of Goole think as seen they have been my friend for over many years I think they can pay for my holidays Bills :-) NHS seem to get lots!

[Atlas-Night-Out]

@nielsmaerten This is the setup I made and did to use Echo but like I said no pump details and sensor reminder in it,
I also wrote it up so any mistakes please let me know! Aqara T1 Pro cube Setup to Echo Show

It will also work on the Echo Dot

Which is a lower price!

But like yourself, I think Im going to go for a Home Assistant setup as I have at least one setup method to keep me hanging on the Internet but if that goes down lots of other things go down so my personal feeling is to play safe and go for Home Assistant so even with no internet things will still run in the home.

[Atlas-Night-Out]

Just ordered Home Assistant Yellow so any tips to get started to try to do this will be greatly appreciated, as this Home Assistant is all new to me! So I have no clues what you are on about when you say things like an entity in HA called sensor.blood_sugar

Will be a few weeks before I will be ready for this as I will have to set it all up. Thanks for the tips so far with

nabu casa TTS service

[BenoitAnastay]

The entities are "objects" brought by integrations, the blood glucose sensor comes with nightscout integration

[Atlas-Night-Out]

Not that I could do this but could we not get Nightscout to be an App and then use App Actions to get readings from Nightscout? App Action

[nielsmaerten]

Turning Nightscout into an Android App would be something for the Nightscout Project/Team to look into. I personally have no experience building android apps. And even if a Nightscout app existed, App Actions are too limited for what Gluco Check was doing: they only work on Android phones, not on smart speakers.

[dinizmauricio]

'm here wondering about diabetics who are blind. Does anyone know why Google is disabling these services?

[BenoitAnastay]

They don't think about it.

I guess they are killing apps because first it was a way to sell the speakers with more functionalities but nowadays they realise that it's used mostly for home automation and music thus they can reduce the maintenance cost by removing some functionalities.

The cloud services of those speakers are free, it's financed by hardware selling and advertising there's always a moment when they cannot continue to maintain everything.

It's why the Open Source community wants to bring self hosted solutions, if it's self hosted and open source you will never be restricted by the financial policy of some third party.

[Atlas-Night-Out]

This is great in one way but you would think they would give more time for us all to change over to to Home assistant has to me is a whole new learning curve, and yes it's great at what it can do and freedom but hard to put all things that have been broken back together again Like Humpty Dumpty song! I I will be coming away from Google now! Has I feel they are causing more issues than fixing them!