For somewhat obvious reasons, there aren’t many medical hacks making their way to the quarterfinal selection of The Hackaday Prize. One exception to this is [Thomas]’ Hypoglycaemia Alert System, a Bluetooth device that detects low blood sugar in sleeping diabetics and calls for help.

This isn’t the only blood glucose monitor that made it to the quarterfinals of The Hackaday Prize. [John Costik] reverse engineered a continuous glucose monitor for his Type 1 son (we also did a hacker bio on him). This project has a slightly different scope and doesn’t rely on pre-existing blood glucose sensors. In fact, it doesn’t detect glucose at all. Instead, it uses humidity and temperature sensors to detect the heavy sweating that often occurs with low blood glucose levels.

This hypoglycaemia monitor is meant to be worn by a user at night. Glucose levels can drop while sleeping, and if they drop too low blood sugar can result in death. When the monitor detects the symptoms of low blood glucose, it connects to a smartphone through a Bluetooth link and sends an SMS alert to phone numbers in the contact list. Whoever receives this message will then try to wake the potentially unresponsive diabetic, and failing that, would put some cake frosting under their gums (Seriously. Ask a police officer/EMT for cake frosting. The good ones have some).

[Thomas] is well on his way to a functional device despite having a few problems with his enclosure. Right now he’s working on the Bluetooth comms part of the build, and we hope a complete, working device is right around the corner.

The project featured in this post is a semifinalist in The Hackaday Prize.