It’s said that good things come in small packages – and, at 5 foot, 3 inches, I’m inclined to agree in most cases.

But when it comes to diabetes devices, I’m not sure that saying still rings true for me.

When Tandem recently announced FDA clearance of the Tandem Mobi pump, which boasts the title of being the world’s smallest and most durable insulin delivery system, I started wondering about device sizing and best practices. As someone who tends to misplace things like my car keys and cell phone on a semi-regular basis, I usually appreciate it when my belongings are large enough to be easily visible from a distance; thereby, making them instantly locatable when I forget where I last put something down. I totally get that, as a tubed insulin pump, it’s almost impossible to misplace a Tandem Mobi (especially when it’s physically attached to a body), but I still think it’s worth thinking about the practicality of sizing for diabetes devices.

Yes, at first glance, smaller size likely means greater convenience and levels of discretion – two things that people with diabetes undoubtedly appreciate. But a pump that’s so small that it can fit inside the tiny coin pocket of my blue jeans (yes, that pocket that really serves no other purpose than to home a quarter or two) just seems like it’s begging to be lost or forgotten somewhere. Again, I’m fully acknowledging that the Mobi isn’t like my Omnipod due to the tubed versus tubeless design, but I’m imagining any component of my Omnipod system (the pod or the PDM) shrinking down in size and finding myself cringing rather than rejoicing. I just know that if either were smaller, I’d definitely be more likely to misplace my PDM more often, or fret over a teenier pod reservoir because logic dictates that a smaller pod would mean a smaller reservoir, causing a need for more frequent pod changes due to size alone.

So this begs the question: Is smaller really better when it comes to diabetes devices? Or, does small translate to convenience or annoyance for other people with diabetes? One thing’s for sure, smaller seems to be the way of the future for medical technology in general, so I may just have to get used to the idea that my diabetes devices are going to shrink over time and that I will just need to keep an open mind about that.