My wife is diabetic and has to take blood from her finger several times a day and place it on a disposable test strip that is inserted into a blood glucose meter. This device gives her blood sugar level and helps her determine how much insulin she needs to inject into her body. It is important for her to know this information because too high a dose can lead to low blood sugar or a hypoglycemic reaction that can put her into a coma.
Harmoni-Health & Sleep claims to measure your blood sugar using your iPhone and the app
There are 200 million diabetics worldwide who take insulin every day, making them a popular target for scammers. Recently, my wife received an ad on her iPhone for an app called Harmoni-Health & Sleep, which claimed that the app could determine the user’s blood sugar level using the app on an iPhone. When I went to the App Store and looked at the app’s listing, I didn’t find a single word about this amazing feat.
The Harmoni Health & Sleep app appears to claim in ads that it can measure a user’s blood sugar levels. | Image credit: PhoneArena
On the App Store listing for Harmoni, there was a screenshot that said “Track health trends,” and it shows a blood sugar reading and a graph showing a person’s blood sugar trend. However, the page only says that the app “tracks” heart rate, blood pressure, blood sugar, and blood oxygen. By “track,” the developers mean that you get your glucose reading the old-fashioned way with a glucose meter and enter the results into the app. The app doesn’t measure your blood sugar, as it would have you believe. The same goes for blood pressure readings.
We always recommend that you check the comments section on the App Store or Play Store for red flags before installing an app. The comments section for Harmoni-Health & Sleep shows three fake five-star reviews. More likely, however, is a one-star review from May that says an iPhone user received advertisements for the app that promised to test his blood sugar without needles, show him his blood pressure, and more. He wrote that the app doesn’t do what it promises.
“I’ve been getting ads for this app that promise to test my blood sugar without needles, tell me my glycemic index, check my blood pressure, etc. Does it do that? NO. It absolutely does NOT do what the ads say it does. I hope someone at Apple sees this and does something. In the meantime, I’m deleting the app (which almost had a paid subscription for the “Pro” version snuck in) and going to the FTC’s website to see if I can report false advertising there.” – Comment by b_s_l on the App Store.
Another one-star review referenced the same ad, pointing out that it included a disclaimer saying the results might not be accurate. See, this is a clever scam. On the App Store, Harmoni claims it tracks your blood sugar and blood pressure, which simply means you give it the numbers and it records your results. But ads for the app, which are outside of Apple’s jurisdiction, make it look like the app is measuring your blood sugar and other important metrics.
Apple was recently duped twice by a developer who smuggled apps with pirated video content into the App Store
Harmoni-Health & Sleep isn’t the only app trying to confuse consumers by claiming it measures your blood sugar and blood pressure but only stores the values you provide. This could be a serious problem that Apple needs to address now before some iPhone users lose their money on features that developers advertised but didn’t deliver.
