Connect a CGM

Nightscout with Glide

Any CGM that uploads to a Nightscout site. Beta since Glide 1.0.5. Last updated 22 October 2026.

Glide reads glucose from your own Nightscout site, so it works with whatever uploads to that site: xDrip+, xDrip4iOS, Loop, Trio, AAPS or a Dexcom bridge. Glide's server checks the site every minute. Every phone on the Glide profile sees the same numbers, with the meals and doses the family logs drawn on the chart. Setup happens once, on the profile owner's phone.

Setup

  1. Open your Nightscout site and sign in with your API_SECRET.
  2. Open Admin tools, tap Add new subject, name it glide, and pick the role readable. Save (Nightscout's token steps).
  3. Copy the subject's token, for example glide-1a2b3c4d5e6f7a8b.
  4. In Glide, tap Connect a CGM on a new account, or Settings → CGM on an existing profile. Pick Nightscout, then enter the site address and the token.

You can also copy the subject's whole link (it ends in ?token=…) and paste it into the site address field. Glide takes the token from the link.

Your API_SECRET won't work. It can change everything on the site, and the Nightscout docs say never to share it. Glide checks the token when you connect and refuses one that can write, so it can never change your site. Glide encrypts the token and sends it only to the site you entered (privacy policy).

The site must use an https address on the standard port. A site on your home network, or one with a port number in its address, can't be reached from Glide's server.

What Glide reads

Glide reads the glucose entries only. Boluses, carbs and temp basals that Loop, Trio or AAPS upload to the site stay out of Glide; you log meals and doses in Glide itself. Glide shows each reading in mg/dL or mmol/L, set per account, whatever units the site uses.

Followers

One Nightscout site connects to one Glide profile. Everyone else joins that profile with a Glide invite code, and there is no limit on how many followers a profile has. Nightguard, LoopFollow or the site in a browser keep working beside Glide for anyone who uses them.

If someone else already connected the same site, Glide says This data source is already linked to a profile. Ask its owner for an invite code.

Signal loss, and alarms that do not sound

After 30 minutes without a new reading on the site (you can set 15 or more), every phone on the profile gets a lost signal banner. It does not matter which link stopped: the sensor, the uploader phone or the site itself. Overnight, in the hours you choose, Glide can also ring your phone with a call, so a site that goes quiet at 2 AM does not stay silent until morning.

Night is also when the phone's own settings get in the way. Silent mode, Do Not Disturb or a Focus such as Sleep can hold a notification without a sound. A call from a contact with Emergency Bypass on rings through all three, and the call's setup turns that on for Glide's number.

On Apple Watch

Glide has an Apple Watch app and two watch face complications. The watch signs in from the iPhone, so there is no login on the wrist. The app shows the number, the change per 5 minutes, how many minutes old the reading is, and the last 3 hours as a graph. The round complication draws the number inside a ring that empties as the reading ages, so an old number never looks like a new one.

watchOS decides how often a complication may update. Glide asks for every 10 minutes, and opening the watch app fetches the newest reading at once. Glide's banners reach the watch the way any iPhone notification does. The watch app is free.

What you see in Glide

Live glucose, logging, followers and banners are free. Details on the pricing section.

If the chart stops updating

Glide stops when your Nightscout site stops. Check, in order:

  1. The uploader (xDrip+, Loop, AAPS or the bridge) is running and the site shows recent readings in a browser.
  2. The glide subject is still in Admin tools. If it was deleted, make a new one and enter its token in Glide under Settings → CGM.
  3. The site address has not changed. A new address needs its token entered again.

When the site refuses the token, Home shows a banner that says Can't sign in to Nightscout. Anything else: support.

Glide is not a medical device and is not affiliated with or endorsed by the Nightscout project. Keep the CGM app's own alarms on; Glide's alerts sit on top of them and do not replace them.