Pill Reminder Kit

Why medication tracking gets fragile so fast

One or two medications, a single alarm is enough. Five medications, different times, 'before food' and 'with food' rules, bottles that empty mid-month — reminding stops being the problem and record-keeping becomes the problem. Most apps build the list but never turn the data into something a user can actually take to the doctor; the question 'did I take it?' falls back on memory.

Easing three friction points at once

There are three real friction points: (1) building the list — getting the medication name, dose and frequency in correctly takes time; (2) logging through the day — even unlocking the phone and opening an app is too much when the reminder fires; (3) bringing real data to the doctor — saying 'I usually take it' instead of showing a clean picture.

The build followed the same order. For the list, a camera-based label scan: the user points at the bottle, the model extracts brand name, dose and unit, the form pre-fills — the user just confirms. For daily use, the Today screen stayed sparse: a 'Take' button next to each dose logs it in one tap, no animation, no confirmation dialog. For the doctor, a one-page PDF: 30-day adherence, per-medication compliance, a small heatmap; no branding, no ads.

The interactions screen was deliberately kept on its own tab — to avoid alert fatigue, warnings live in a place the user comes to, not in the daily flow.

Why Claude, why Expo

The label-scan flow needed the model to turn an image into structured JSON — medication name, dose value, unit, frequency hints. Claude's vision plus structured output combination is predictable on this work; it preserves brand names accurately and extracts dose values reliably even on non-English labels.

Expo was chosen for the same reason as the other apps: single codebase, both iOS and Android, manageable store flow. The notification side stayed simple — Expo's local notification layer covered dose reminders without needing server-side push; reminders are scheduled on-device.

What shipped

An iOS app that scans medications from a label, logs daily doses, surfaces interactions, alerts on low supply and produces a one-page doctor PDF. The design language stays deliberately sparse — health context calls for quiet and trust, not bright colours or gamification.