What’s all this about then?

More: Detailed SuperSapiens Review

Let’s go back to the start of the tech in this story, where ABBOT makes a blood sugar sensor called LIBRE SENSE. I’m assuming it is and was mostly intended for medicinal purposes for diabetics to monitor blood glucose. As far as I know, ABBOT is mostly interested in making these sensor disks and supplying them to 3rd parties. The disks have a lifespan of a week or so. A single disk is taped to your skin and has a tiny needle that enables blood sugar readings to be taken.

There are several other companies that use the ABBOT sensors along with their proprietary apps to sell you a solution for Continuous Glucose Monitoring (CGM). Supersapiens is one of those companies and they target athletes.

Athletes know that sugar (carbs) fuels their endeavours and in some ways, blood sugar levels represent the available fuel supply levels (ish).

Similar in some ways to Muscle Oxygen, these levels can go up either if more blood sugar is created, or if the production stays the same but the usage falls. Without getting too carried away, my understanding is that the interpretation of the data is not as straightforward as interpreting power or heart rate ie a specific value doesn’t mean anything without understanding the context of the demand/supply around it and that will probably be further compounded by the notable delay from ingesting carbs to have them available to burn in your muscles.

If high-level athletes can truly understand the dynamics of their blood sugar levels, there are obvious benefits that will enable them to optimise fuelling strategies and maintain longer and/or more intense training sessions. These are great benefits that could give us mere mortals some excellent insights as well.

Supersapiens is only available in Europe right now but even then, in its first 12 weeks on the market, Supersapiens reported more than 2,000 paying athletes on its system. This initial success clearly validated a market need and I guess that’s why Wahoo and others made the investment.

It is interesting that Wahoo is involved. Clearly part of its strategy is to remain a credible provider for top-tier athletes. Being an investor in Supersapiens should mean that Wahoo will be guaranteed access to the technology when it becomes more commonly used.

FYI: Supersapiens are also planning a wrist-wearable and maybe there is some overlap there with Wahoo’s hardware plans (probably not).

More Info: supersapiens.com