Should I Use WiFi Or Cellular Data With Dexcom?

We were at the pool with another Type 1 family recently. They had just started using a Dexcom Continuous Glucose Monitor (CGM) and we were talking about how helpful it is for a variety of reasons. The mom's biggest frustration was how often "I lose data when following my daughter's blood sugar remotely."

I started asking questions to try to understand the issue. It turned out that her daughter's cell phone was set up ONLY to work on WiFi, and not on cellular service. That meant whenever her daughter's phone connected to a WiFi network, the signal transmission was great. At other times, it resulted in lost signal.

Fortunately, it was an easy fix: we changed the settings (see picture of my phone for an example) by turning on cellular service and turning off WiFi. This solved the problem of intermittent data - but might cause a different one: her daughter will now be using cellular data for calls and data...so they might need to change her cell phone plan to ensure they have adequate data to cover all of her non-diabetes use of the phone. (Dexcom data transmission utilizes very minimal data; the same might not be said for a social kiddo!)