Electronic – Reading data from a glucose meter

usb

What would be the easiest way to read data from a USB glucose meter externally with a microcontroller. Not with the software that is provided. So how could I incercept the digital signals that are being sent out?

Best Answer

The native interface to most glucose meters (Abbott, Bayer, J&J and Roche) is a UART output. There is circuitry at one end of the cable that translates this to USB protocol. It is possible to read the data with a UART by using a 2.5 mm or 3.5 mm plug to connect directly with the meter.

The J&J uses a 3.5 mm plug with Tip being Tx and Ring being Rx (Tx and Rx wrt your UART, not the meter), and communicates at 9600 baud. Except for the various J&J One-Touch models, the signal levels for the other brands are typically neither regular UART (0 / 3.3) or RS232 (+-5) levels but some weird combination. Some models also swap Tx/Rx compared to the J&J. Note: the One Touch Ultra and Ultra 2 use a different (more text based) protocol than the binary protocol used by the Ultra Mini (see CoderTao's answer for a link to the latter).