As anyone who takes medicines regularly will attest to, the days have a tendency to blur together, making it hard to remember if you did something like take that day’s dose or not. There are plenty of products available to help keep track of medication reminders but many are overly complicated, so [Jeroen] built this one which keeps simplicity and usability as its core design principle.
[Jeroen] calls it the MedMinder, and it’s a small, compact, rectangular device with a four-character display meant to sit on a countertop. When it’s time to take a medicine, the display will show that medicine’s four-letter code until the user pushes the single button under the display, signalling that they’ve taken their dose. If many different medications have to be taken at the same time, it displays the first priority until the button is pushed, and then displays whichever one is next after that.
Programming is a little less straightforward, as the medications need to be added to the source code and uploaded to the Arduino that sits at the center of this build, but with the source code available this isn’t too difficult for someone with minimal experience with microcontrollers.
In an idealized world, technology should make our lives simpler or easier, and this small device goes a long way towards helping with that goal. Especially for an important but mundane task that can be surprisingly easy to lose track of. Although we glossed over the accuracy of this device’s clock in this article, we do have a comprehensive guide for selecting the right real-time clock for microcontrollers like this.
The simplicity is a virtue, but hear me out: imagine this on an ESP8266 with a configuration in a LittleFS file system. The ESP8266 has a locally-served web page that Billy the family tech support kid can reach locally across the WiFi network. There he can update the medications (or whatever; such a tool could be used for other reminders) as needed using a simple web-based editor that saves the config in LittleFS. ChatGPT could vibe-code that for you no problem.
I would put the medication needs in a Google calendar, local calendar on Home Assistant or similar and have an ESP32 pull it down and it could even give feedback and set a flag in the calendar when the button is pressed.
I have an extremely simple “manager” for my daily pills.
It is a box with 7 little compartments with semi-transparent lids. The lids are marked with the days of the week.
I can tell at a glance whether I’ve taken today’s pills. No electronics needed.
If I need to take pills at different times a day, there are boxes that have a row of compartments for each day. Easy-peasy.
Fill the compartments once a week, take pills as scheduled.
About the only thing that I think you can reasonably add to such a pill box is an alarm function. “Bing-Bong,” and the compartment for the currently due pills blinks at you until you take the pills.
looks like someone is going to be able to continue taking their meds after the EMPs pass through!
There’s a plan. Buy up a bunch of the little pill boxes in different sizes, package them with “EMP proof” labeling and sell them to the preppers for use during and after the nuclear war they are so sure is coming.
A good idea in general. A low-tech equipment store, selling equipment that is all muscle powered. Refurbished old sewing machines (with a box of 1000 needles and 100 spools of thread.) Solid wheel wheelbarrows. Simple surveying equipment with iron sights, Shovel heads, axe heads, spoke shaves to make your own handles out of a convenient scrap of wood. Bows and arrows, along with tools to make arrows and do the fletching (and courses to teach you how.)
There’s a lot of stuff you could market to such folks.
There is (was?) a store in Ohio that sold lots of things for off grid living, catering to the Amish and people with remote cabins. Their business skyrocketed as Y2K approached.
I wish I remembered the name. Yes, they had a website.
Need a kerosine refrigerator small enough to be carried by mule? They had you covered!
Found them! https://www.lehmans.com/
One of the articles: “Goat Milk vs Cow Milk: How to choose?” I think I have the answer: depends on which critter you have. Neither? Oat milk!
Hey, I know that place! I’ve been to Lehman’s a few times as it’s not far from me. Still there as of my last visit a few years ago.
And remembering is exactly the problem. I forget ~once a week to take my morning pills, because I am a creature of habit, and changes like sleeping in can disrupt my habits and I forget to take my pills. It’s gotten better with an alarm on my phone, but still not 100%
I keep my pillbox next to my toothbrush. Brush teeth, pop pills. If I forget, just take a quick look to see if the pills are still there.
I have the dosette box, but combined with a base that has a switch that detects when the box is lifted. ESP32 sends a signal to webpage, which in turn sends a SMS if I forget to take the pills.
for this particular problem i’m on team dosette box. but it’s related to a general PIM personal information management problem that has been on my mind for decades. what if you want to just add one note, without setting down what you’re doing? for tracking my drug use (like this project), adding to my grocery list when my hands are messy, symptom/stat tracking (like for finding migraine triggers or cyclic mood changes), or even the name of that new song i’m learning out of the big song book so i can remember that it’s half-learned and ready to play again tomorrow. just a ton of things, most of them i’d like to have just a short note and a date code, maybe a category marker.
i’ve used custom PIM software for 25 years, notes and checkbook register. carried forward from HP95LX -> palm -> ipaq linux -> android. i’ve worked out schema and scripts to like show it on the wall display or android notifications to nag me. i’ve worked out everything except how to add a note to the thing conveniently enough that i can start throwing a larger number of smaller tasks at it.
seems like obviously the answer is voice-driven computing i just don’t think it’s there yet.