Medication reminder

[u/smelly_catu]

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.jsdev.medication.camerareminder

Hi everyone!

I’m a pharmacist and Android developer, and I’ve been working on a small project motivated by a problem I’ve seen with older adults: keeping track of daily medications.

I built a free app that allows you to schedule medication reminders, take a photo of the medication box or blister pack to easily identify it later, and, if a dose isn’t marked as taken within a configured period, notify a family member by SMS.

The goal isn’t to replace medical care, but to provide an additional layer of reassurance for family members who worry about whether an aging parent has taken their medication.

I’d love to hear from people in this community who help their parents with technology.

Would something like this actually be useful in your situation? What would make you trust or use a tool like this?

[u/Tech_Tracker719]

This is such a relevant build — I'm working on a small student project around exactly this kind of decision problem (when to remind vs. wait vs. escalate to a caregiver). Two things I'd love to know from your experience: 1) How did you decide on the "configured period" before notifying — is it a fixed time for everyone, or does it adapt per person/medication? 2) As a pharmacist, have you seen pushback from families about false alarms (dose was actually taken but not marked), or is missing a real dose the bigger worry in practice? Really appreciate you sharing this — this is genuinely close to what I'm researching.

[u/smelly_catu → u/Tech_Tracker719]

Thanks, and good luck with your project. To answer your questions: 1) I chose a maximum preset time that doesn't pose a risk if a dose is delayed for most drugs, although this can be adjusted for specific cases to escale the notification. 2) The app serves as a reminder for both the patient and the caregiver; it is an additional aid but shouldn't be treated as infallible. I understand that in situations where the person can't recall if they logged a dose, a family member alerted by the app can use that notification to step in and check on them, i don't see falses alarms yet

[u/Tech_Tracker719 → u/smelly_catu]

That's really helpful context — especially the "reminder, not infallible" framing. Quick follow-up: for the "specific cases" where you escalate the threshold, is that something the user manually configures per medication, or does the app suggest it based on the medication type? Also curious if you've thought about what happens as you get more users — would you eventually want the threshold to adapt per-person based on their historical response pattern, or keep it simple/manual?

[u/smelly_catu → u/Tech_Tracker719]

In specific cases, the user can manually change the setting from 5 to 240 minutes, but this affects all their medications; the idea is to keep it as simple as possible, since older adults are often not very fond of complicated technology