This New App is Designed to Make Tracking Your Insulin Easier


 2022-11-10

Eli Lilly recently announced the rollout of the Tempo Personalized Diabetes Management Platform, their first connected personalized platform. This platform aims to help provide a centralized experience to support people with diabetes with self-management of treatments using Lilly insulins. 

The platform will consist of three parts that work together:

  • Tempo Smart Button
  • TempoSmart, a compatible mobile app 
  • Tempo Pen, a prefilled insulin pen Image showing the TempoPen, Tempo Smart Button, and a phone showing the TempoSmart app

The Tempo Welcome Kit will include the Tempo Smart Button, blood glucose meter (BGM) and other diabetes supplies (i.e. lancets and BGM test strips).

How does it work?

The Smart Button is a reusable medical device that attaches to the disposable Tempo Pen. Using Bluetooth, the connected platform is customized to detect, receive and record insulin dose information directly from the smart button to the mobile app, TempoSmart. 

Other advanced features include: 

Similar to other diabetes management platforms (DMPs), Tempo will offer interfaces for data sharing—Tempo Insights—allowing for all data collected to be automatically sent to health care providers and clinics. 

The Tempo Pen is currently available for use with Lyumjev (insulin lispro-aabc) injection, 100 units/mL, Basaglar (insulin glargine) injection, 100 units/mL and Humalog (insulin lispro injection) 100 units/mL.

You will not need to get a new Tempo Smart Button every time you get a new Tempo Pen. The button is interchangeable among all three Tempo Pens and has a battery life of up to eight months. Your providers are also able to view battery life through Tempo Insights, which can inform them when to refill a prescription for a new button.

Why choose Tempo?

There are different kinds of insulin delivery methods, and it is up to you and your health care team to decide what system fits your lifestyle, budget and diabetes management needs. 

Although some methods can make insulin therapy easier, there are limited options that automatically log insulin dosage. Having a way of automatically logging insulin doses would help ease the burden of daily diabetes management.

Logging insulin doses is important for preventing double dosing—which increases the risk of severe hypoglycemia–and for tracking the progress of your diabetes treatment. 

The Tempo Personalized Diabetes Management may be a useful addition to your diabetes management if you already use Lilly insulins or are looking to automate your insulin logging. This platform is also one of the few platforms to connect with activity trackers, making it easy to see your diabetes data at all times—especially during exercise.

When will it be available?

Lilly will be performing a phased rollout of the Tempo Personalized Diabetes Management Platform to select clinics first, then will be available nationwide and only in English in 2023. 

Upon availability, Lilly will be offering a savings card for the platform to those who qualify. To get more information and updates, you can contact the Tempo Customer Support Service by calling 1-855-Lilly-Tempo or text TEMPO to 85099.

With the capability to automatically log and track insulin doses, you and your health care team can make data-driven decisions about changes to your diabetes management.


Don’t use insulin but want to learn more about diabetes management platforms? Check out these resources to see if using a DMP is right for your diabetes management:

This content mentions Lilly, an active partner of Beyond Type 1.
News coverage by the Beyond Type 1 team is operated independently from any content partnerships. Beyond Type 1 maintains full editorial control of all content published on our platforms.

WRITTEN BY Liz Cambron-Kopco, POSTED 11/10/22, UPDATED 05/23/23

Liz has been living with type 2 diabetes since 2014, but grew up surrounded by it as a first-generation Mexican-American. With a bug for research, Liz pursued a PhD in molecular biology and spent her early career studying insulin signaling in invertebrates to understand how insects' tiny little bodies work. Along with advocating for women and girls in STEM, Liz shares her personal journey with diabetes on her social media platforms to help teach people to become their own advocates. Her passion for advocacy led her to join the Beyond Type 1 team. When she's not advocating, Liz enjoys hiking with her husband and their terrier/schnauzer mixed pup Burberry.