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  • For 25 years, I’ve had Type 1 diabetes. Like the tens of millions of Americans with diabetes, one of the most important things I have to do to stay healthy is make sure my blood sugar is in normal range.

Continuous glucose monitors (CGMs) allow diabetics to track their blood sugar 24/7. They’re incredibly useful, providing insight on how your blood sugar reacts to insulin, food, exercise and whatever else affects it.

Abbott Laboratories and Dexcom are the leaders in the CGM market, which hit $5.1 billion in revenue in 2021 and is expected to reach $13.2 billion by 2028, according to Vantage Market Research. Abbott’s CGM systems, called FreeStyle Libre, generated $3.7 billion in revenue last year, with 4 million users globally.

Abbott has just released its newest CGM, the FreeStyle Libre 3. It comes with an important upgrade. Whereas the previous systems were “flash” CGMs, which means you had to hold your reader or phone close to the sensor to get a reading, the new version sends data straight to your phone.

I tried it out for over a month. Here are my takeaways:

How it works

The insertion device comes in a small box and is rather compact. The Libre 3 is only approved by the Food and Drug Administration to go into the arm. The insertion was painless, and the sensor itself is tiny compared to others I’ve used.

CNBC’s Erin Black tests new CGM Abbott Freestyle Libre 3

CNBC | Erin Black

The app requires a scan of the sensor, and then it takes 60 minutes to warm up. During the first 12 hours, a blood drop icon will appear.

Abbott Freestyle Libre 3 iPhone app

CNBC | Andrew Evers

Abbott says the sensor is acclimating. It also advises using a blood glucose meter to ensure the sensor is accurate. I found that it was accurate immediately, even while it was warming up.

Abbott Freestyle Libre 3

CNBC | Erin Black

The sensor stays on for 14 days. It gives a new reading every minute, compared to a reading every five minutes from the Dexcom G6. The adhesive worked well and showed no sign of falling off after two weeks. It still doesn’t require finger sticks or calibration.

Abbott Freestyle Libre 3 sensor

CNBC | Andrew Evers

The trend arrows tell you if your glucose is steady, rising or falling. The alarms are customizable. If you want to silence low and high alerts, you can use the app’s “do not disturb” function. The urgent low alarm can’t be silenced, as required by the FDA.

The app has some useful features for tracking average glucose and time in range and gives you the option to share the data with loved ones. It also has a reports feature that gives you insights into patterns so you can make dosage adjustments. 

The Libre 3 is small and accurate

I love how small it is, so small in fact that I kept forgetting I was wearing it. I put my Dexcom G6 nearby to compare. There’s a big difference.

Abbott Freestyle Libre 3 size vs Dexcom G6

CNBC | Erin Black

It was accurate most of the time. But I found that during times of rapid change, such as when I forgot to take my insulin after a meal, it became inaccurate and had a hard time keeping up.

I did have two compression lows with the first sensor. A compression low is when the sensor gives an incorrect low reading. One occurred while I was sleeping on my side, and the other was while I was sitting on the couch and leaning on the sensor. I readjusted, and the device quickly corrected itself. I made sure to choose a better placement for the second sensor.

The app can be improved

In the app, you can’t customize the graph size. It shows a range of 50 mg/dL to 350 mg/dl. I’d like the ability to adjust that so it’s a little tighter, because my blood sugar rarely goes above 250 mg/dl, so there’s a lot of wasted space.

There’s also no ability to zoom into past readings. Sometimes when I’m low I like to be able to zoom in and see how quickly the number is changing. And while it does send notifications to my iWatch, Abbott doesn’t yet have an app compatible to use with it, so seeing your blood sugar on your watch isn’t possible. Abbott says it’s something they’re working on for the future. 

Abbott Freestyle Libre 3 Apple iWatch notification

CNBC | Erin Black

Prescription required, price varies

The Libre 3 requires a prescription, so the cost will be different for everyone. Abbott said users with insurance can expect to pay $0-$25 per sensor and $70 per sensor without insurance. You’ll need to buy two a month.

Would I recommend this to other diabetics? Yes, but it depends on the user. For diabetics like me who use insulin pumps, the Libre 3 isn’t compatible yet. Abbott said it’s working on pump integration with Tandem Diabetes and Insulet. The company is also working with Bigfoot Biomedical on integration with its insulin delivery system.

For diabetics who rely on manual insulin injections or who diet to manage their diabetes, this is a great way to monitor blood sugar. 

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Arm shares dip 8% on revenue miss

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Arm shares dip 8% on revenue miss

The replica of the ARM is an electronic chip board during a collaborative ceremony launching a partnership between Malaysia and ARM Holdings in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, on March 5, 2025.

Hari Anggara | Nurphoto | Getty Images

Arm Holdings shares dipped as much as 9% in after-hours trading on the company’s first-quarter earnings results Wednesday.

 Here’s how the company did, compared with estimates from analysts polled by LSEG:

  • Earnings per share: 35 cents vs. 35 cents expected.
  • Revenue: $1.05 billion vs. $1.06 billion expected.

The company said it expects second-quarter revenue in the range of $1.01 billion to $1.11 billion, which was in line with $1.05 billion expected by analysts tracked by LSEG.

ARM is a chip technology firm that sells architecture for making chips that power billions of devices, including Apple and Qualcomm‘s chips.

During the quarter, Samsung launched the Galaxy Flip 7 based on the Exynos 2500, built on Arm’s compute subsystem platform.

CEO Rene Haas said in an interview with Reuters that the company was “consciously deciding to invest more heavily,” suggesting the company is considering designing its own processors.

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Qualcomm beats on earnings, highlights growth in Meta smartglasses

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Qualcomm beats on earnings, highlights growth in Meta smartglasses

Cristiano Amon, CEO & President, Qualcomm, on Centre Stage during day one of Web Summit 2024 at the MEO Arena in Lisbon, Portugal.

Shauna Clinton | Sportsfile | Getty Images

Qualcomm reported fiscal third-quarter earnings on Wednesday that beat Wall Street expectations and provided a stronger-than-expected guide for the current quarter. Qualcomm shares slid in extended trading.

Here’s how the chipmaker did for the quarter ending June 29 compared to LSEG consensus expectations:

  • Earnings per share: $2.77 adjusted versus $2.71 expected
  • Revenue: $10.37 billion versus $10.35 billion expected

In the current quarter, Qualcomm said it expected $2.85 per share at the midpoint of adjusted earnings on $10.7 billion in revenue at the midpoint. Analysts polled by LSEG were expecting $2.83 in adjusted earnings per share on $10.35 billion in revenue.

Net income during the quarter ending in June was $2.66 billion, or $2.43 per share, versus $2.13 billion, or $1.88 per share a year ago.

Qualcomm’s most important business is selling chips for smartphones under its Snapdragon brand, including the central processor and modem for high-end devices made by Samsung. It also provides modems to Apple. Its handset chip business reported $6.33 billion in revenue during the quarter, just shy of Wall Street expectations of $6.44 billion.

Qualcomm expects to lose Apple as a customer for its modem business in the coming years. But the company has been working to diversify its business by making chips for other devices, including Windows PCs and Meta‘s Quest virtual-reality headsets and Meta Ray-Bans smart glasses.

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Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon highlighted the company’s work with Meta in a short interview on Wednesday.

He said that making chips for devices like Meta’s Ray-Bans smart glasses was a good example of the chipmaker’s AI strategy, which was to embrace “personal AI,” or AI applications that run on devices, not the cloud.

Qualcomm reports its Meta revenues under its “Internet of Things” division, which had $1.68 billion in revenue during the quarter.

Amon referenced Mark Zuckerberg‘s AI vision statement Wednesday that focused on “personal superintelligence,” saying “the upside we had in the quarter within IoT is what we do in with smart glasses.”

CFO Akash Palkhiwala said that Meta had stronger-than-expected chip consumption during the quarter.

On Monday, Ray-Ban parent EssilorLuxottica said that sales of the smart glasses more than tripled on an annual basis.

“Mark put out a video today, just with a very clear vision of how they see personal AI and super intelligence evolving, and we are a key part of making that division happen,” Palkhiwala said.

Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses are powered by a Qualcomm chip. Qualcomm, Samsung and Google are working on smart glasses, according to Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon.

Nurphoto | Nurphoto | Getty Images

Amon also said Qualcomm would start to provide data about how much its chip business is growing without Apple — about 15% this year, he said.

Qualcomm is also looking to expand into data centers and sell versions of its chips that can be used for deploying artificial intelligence, Amon said on a call with an analysts. He said that Qualcomm was already in discussions with a major cloud company — called a hyperscaler — to supply AI chips. He said that Qualcomm could start to see revenues in its fiscal 2028.

“While we are in the early stages of this expansion, we are engaged with multiple potential customers,” Among said. “We are currently in advanced discussions with a leading hyperscaler.”

The company’s automotive business has been highlighted by Amon as one of the biggest growth opportunities for the company, but in the third quarter, it grew 21% to $984 million, below the 24% growth rate of the company’s IoT business.

Qualcomm’s other major division is QTL, which includes licensing fees for technology that Qualcomm developed and patented, including parts of the 5G standard. Overall, QTL revenues rose 11% to $1.32 billion.

Qualcomm said it spent just under $1 billion on cash dividends and $2.8 billion repurchasing 19 million shares of its stock during the quarter.

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Meta’s Reality Labs posts $4.53 billion loss in second quarter

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Meta’s Reality Labs posts .53 billion loss in second quarter

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg presents Orion AR Glasses as he makes a keynote speech during the Meta Connect annual event at the company’s headquarters in Menlo Park, California, on Sept. 25, 2024.

Manuel Orbegozo | Reuters

Meta’s Reality Labs, the unit tasked with building the futuristic metaverse, continues bleeding money.

The social media company reported its second-quarter earnings on Wednesday and revealed that Reality Labs logged an operating loss of $4.53 billion while recording $370 million in sales during the period. Analysts were projecting that unit to post a second-quarter operating loss of $4.99 billion while generating $381 million in sales.

The Reality Labs division oversees the Quest line of virtual reality headsets in addition to the Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses, which are jointly developed with the French-Italian eyewear giant EssilorLuxottica. Meta wants Reality Labs to create cutting-edge products similar to the prototype Orion augmented reality glasses that could underpin a new, immersive computing platform.

But developing VR, AR and other new devices is an expensive endeavor, with the Reality Labs division logging nearly $70 billion in cumulative losses since late 2020. Meta in April said Reality Labs recorded an operating loss of $4.2 billion during the first quarter while bringing in $412 million in sales.

Although the Quest VR headsets haven’t become breakout hits, the Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses are showing signs of success.

EssilorLuxottica on Monday said Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses sales more than tripled year over year for the first half of 2025. The eyewear giant and Meta debuted in June the new Oakley Meta smart glasses, which is the latest product spawned from their partnership.

Meta said in April that an undisclosed number of Reality Labs employees who were part of its Oculus Studios VR and AR software unit were laid off.

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