Putting an old raspberry pi to good use… as a NightScout display

I wanted to put an old and disused Raspberry Pi to good use and have it as a 24/7 live blood glucose display linked up to NightScout

For those of of you who don’t know what NightScout is, it’s a system linking an App (such as xDrip+) with your CGM (continuous glucose monitor) to upload it to a website hosted in the cloud to give access to a persons blood glucose (and also pump) data remotely. Find out more at the website http://nightscout.info

One of the key things I was looking for here was a system that automatically loads my data in full screen upon turning on, and reboots & reloads it after a powercut too (withouth any error messages of the powercut etc).

We don’t have many power-cuts here in the UK, but I like things that take care of themselves and with the Raspberry Pi screen I was using not having a touchscreen, I didn’t want to have to keep getting a keyboard and mouse out to fix it if it did go wrong…

I predominately used a guide by Keith Barr at http://www.colorado-barrs.com/CGM/ . I had knowledge of linux which helped me and even I had a few hiccups along the way so I wanted to make this really simple for other people.

For this reason I have made a downloadable image of my operating system which can simply be stuck onto a micro SD & pla-ced into your Raspberry Pi.

DOWNLOAD A ZIPPED COPY OF THE IMG FILE HERE HERE = ~2.6 GB
http://diabeat-this.com/app/raspberrypi/nightscout-display/SDCardBackup.img.zip = ~2.6 GB
NOTE : This will need to be unzipped to access the .img file inside

Then instructions on restoring this .img file to your SD card on Mac, Linux or Windows are available at 
https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/installation/installing-images/
using a tool called Etcher… 

Once you’ve don’t that put the SD card back into your Raspberry Pi and plug the Pi’s power back in and you should be working in a few seconds once it’s booted

HOWEVER !!! This will be loading my data (sorry if its looking bad, I’m trying haha)

YOU WILL NEED A KEYBOARD AND MOUSE PLUGGED INTO YOUR PI NOW

Edit the autostart file on your Pi in the home director by going to
Accessories > Terminal
and entering

nano ~/.config/lxsession/LXDE-pi/autostart

Then edit the second to last line which reads
–app=https://haspdenbloodglucose.herokuapp.com/bgclock.html
and replace “https://haspdenbloodglucose.herokuapp.com/bgclock.html” with your own nightscout URL clock page, or any site / page you want for that matter.
for example
–app=https://tomsawyersbloods.herokuapp.com/clock/bgclock

Note : the URL changed format after writing these instructions. The old "/bgclock.html" page became "/clock/bg-clock" hense the update above.

Use CTRL + X to save and type Y and hit enter to confirm saving the changes… Unplug & plug back in your Raspberry Pi and you should be away…

NOTE THE USERNAME AND PASSWORD ON THE RASPBERRY PI SYSTEM ARE
USERNAME : pi
PASSWORD : Pa55word!
YOU MAY NEED THESE IF TRYING TO REMOTELY AUTHENTICATE USING VNC ETC.