Automatic Medicine Reminder Using Arduino

When it comes to our loved ones, we always want to stay them healthy and fit. But what will happen if they get ill and forget to take medicine on time. We would be worried, right?  At hospitals, there are many patients and it is difficult to remind every patient to take medicine on time. The traditional ways require human efforts to remind them to take medicines on time. The digital era doesn’t follow that and we can use machines to do that. The application of Smart Medicine Reminder is very wide and can be used by patients at home, doctors at hospitals, and at many other places. When it comes to reminding, there can be many ways to remind it:  

1. Show it on a display 
2. Send notification on email or Phone
3. Using mobile apps
4. Buzz alarm
5. Using Bluetooth/ Wi-Fi
6. Get a call
7. Remind for next medicine time while reminding current time

We can combine ways depending upon the need. To keep things simple here we made a simple Medicine Reminder using Arduino which reminds us to take medicines 1 or 2 or 3 times a day. The time slot can be selected using push buttons. Also, it shows the current Date and Time. We will further extend it to an IoT project incoming articles where an email or SMS notification will be sent to the user. This medication reminder can also be integrated with Patient Monitoring System.

 

Components Required for Automatic Medicine reminder using Arduino 

1. Arduino Uno (We can use other Arduino boards also, like Pro mini, Nano)
2. RTC DS3231 module
3. 16x2 LCD Display
4. Buzzer
5. Led(any color)
6. Breadboard
7. Push Buttons
8. 10K Potentiometer
9. 10K,1K Resistors
10. Jumper Wires

 

Arduino Medicine Reminder using Arduino Circuit

The complete circuit diagram to build a smart medicine box using Arduino is shown below 

 

Below are the pin connections of Arduino with different peripherals

        Arduino Pins                                       Peripheral Pins

• 2                     -----------------------------> D7 of 16x2 LCD Display
• 3                     -----------------------------> D6 of 16x2 LCD Display
• 4                     -----------------------------> D5 of 16x2 LCD Display
• 5                     -----------------------------> D4 of 16x2 LCD Display
• 7                     -----------------------------> 3rd push button
• 8                     -----------------------------> 2nd push button
• 9                     -----------------------------> 1st push button
• 11                   -----------------------------> EN pin of 16x2 LCD Display
• 12                   -----------------------------> RS pin of 16x2 LCD Display
• 13                   -----------------------------> +Ve Pin of Buzzer and Led
• A0                   -----------------------------> Stop Push Button
• A4                   -----------------------------> SDA of DS3231
• A5                   -----------------------------> SCL of DS3231
• 3.3V                -----------------------------> Vcc of DS3231
• Gnd                 -----------------------------> Gnd

 

 

In this Medicine Reminder Project, RTC DS3231 is interfaced through I2C protocol with Arduino Uno. You can also use RTC IC DS1307 for reading the time with Arduino. RTC DS3231 also has inbuilt 32k memory which can be used to store additional data. RTC module is powered through the 3.3V pin of Arduino uno. A 16x2 LCD display is interfaced using SPI. A buzzer is used to alert and remind that it’s time to take medicine. Four push buttons are used where each has distinct select feature. The first push button is used for reminding to take medicine once per day. The second push button is used to remind twice per day and the third push button is used to remind thrice per day. The fourth push button is used to stop the buzzer when user has heard the alert.

 

Working of Automatic Medicine Reminder System

The Pill Reminder Alarm is powered using 5V supply. When it first boots up, it shows a welcome massage as “Welcome to Circuit Digest”. The LCD screen is set to cycle in three screens. The 1^st screen shows massage as “Stay Healthy, Get Well Soon”. The second screen is a help screen which tells to press select push button to select any one time-slot to remind (once/twice/thrice in a day). The time slot is changeable in program and can be configured accordingly. Right now we have fixed this into three durations i.e. 8am, 2pm, and 8pm.

 

We have divided time slots into three modes. Mode 1 selects to take medicine once/day at 8am when user presses 1^st push button. Mode 2 selects to take medicine twice/day at 8am and 8pm when user presses 2^nd push button. Mode 3 selects to take medicine thrice/day at 8am, 2pm and 8pm if user presses 3^rd push button.

 

We can also add a feature to snooze the buzzer for 10 minutes (not included in this project). When user selects desired slots by pressing push buttons, the user input is recorded and the time is taken from RTC. When time is matched with selected time slot then the buzzer starts buzzing. User can stop the buzzer by pressing STOP button. The same process continues for the next slot reminder. Complete process is shown in the Video given at the end of this aricle.

 

Programming Arduino UNO for Medicine Reminder

It is very easy to write program once you have thought of the ways to remind taking the pills. Here it will show the reminder on display, buzz a buzzer and indicate it using LED. It also have option to select three time slots (once/twice/thrice per day) and when time will reach it start alerting the patient by buzzing the buzzer. Then the whole system will look like following:

User gets help instructions on display > User selects time slots (once/day, twice/day, thrice/day) > Print confirmation message on display > Time keeping started > Buzzer and LED starts when time matches with user selected slot > User stops by pushing a stop push button > End

We can change the program and hardware if we want to add more features. To understand in much simpler way, we have broken down program into small functions. The functions are easy to understand and implement. The complete program is given at the end of this project. Let’s start with the program.

Since, we have used other peripherals like 16x2 LCD Display, RTC DS3231, so we first have to include libraries for that. Library required are as following:

<LiquidCrystal.h>  
<RTClib.h>   (https://github.com/adafruit/RTClib)
<EEPROM.h>
<Wire.h>

 

The EEPROM library is used to keep the track of user select input if Arduino is not turned on. And when user power on the Arduino it gets the previous state of push buttons using EEPROM library. The Wire.h library is used since the RTC DS3231 module is communicated using I2C.

 

Always check if the RTC is properly wired or it is not damaged, since RTC will play an important role in time keeping of the whole reminder system.

  if (! rtc.begin()) {                      // check if rtc is connected 
    Serial.println("Couldn't find RTC");
    while (1);
  }
if (rtc.lostPower()) {
    Serial.println("RTC lost power, lets set the time!");
  }

 

The time adjustment can be done in two ways, either automatically using system compile time or by entering it manually. Once we have set the time, comment the below lines unless you want to change the RTC time again.

rtc.adjust(DateTime(F(__DATE__), F(__TIME__)));        
//rtc.adjust(DateTime(2019, 1, 10, 7, 59, 52));

 

This switch statement is used to read the previously saved state of the push button and resuming the state for appropriate and accurate reminder time.

val2 = EEPROM.read(addr);                         // read previosuly saved value of push button to start from where it was left previously
  switch (val2) {
    case 1:
      Serial.println("Set for 1/day");
      push1state = 1;
      push2state = 0;
      push3state = 0;
      pushVal = 01;
      break;

    case 2:
      Serial.println("Set for 2/day");
      push1state = 0;
      push2state = 1;
      push3state = 0;
      pushVal = 10;
      break;
   
    case 3:
      Serial.println("Set for 3/day");
      push1state = 0;
      push2state = 0;
      push3state = 1;
      pushVal = 11;
      break;
  } 

 

This statement is used to get the millis to use for timing and control of the defined interval screen cycling.

currentMillisLCD = millis(); // start millis for LCD screen switching at defined interval of time

 

Start reading the digital pins connected to push buttons.

push1state = digitalRead(push1pin);                  
push2state = digitalRead(push2pin);
push3state = digitalRead(push3pin);
stopinState = digitalRead(stopPin);  

 

Below function is used to read the push button state and write it to EEPROM. Whenever the push button gets pressed the state is written to EEPROM. Also it prints the message on LCD display of the selected user input choice. Similarly the functions push2() and push3() is used.

void push1() {                   // function to set reminder once/day 
  if (push1state == 1) {
    push1state = 0;
    push2state = 0;
    push3state = 0;
//    pushPressed = true;
    EEPROM.write(addr, 1);
    Serial.print("Push1 Written : "); Serial.println(EEPROM.read(addr));  // for debugging
    pushVal = 1;                                             //save the state of push button-1 
    lcd.clear();
    lcd.setCursor(0, 0);
    lcd.print("Reminder set ");
    lcd.setCursor(0, 1);
    lcd.print("for Once/day !");
    delay(1200);
    lcd.clear();
  }
}

 

Below function is used to stop the buzzer and led. It is always good to give suggestions. Print a suggestion message on display “Take medicine with warm water”.

void stopPins() {                   //function to stop buzzing when user pushes stop push button

  if (stopinState == 1) {
//    stopinState = 0;
//    pushPressed = true;
    pushpressed = 1;
    lcd.clear();
    lcd.setCursor(0, 0);
    lcd.print("Take Medicine  ");
    lcd.setCursor(0, 1);
    lcd.print("with Warm Water");
    delay(1200);
    lcd.clear();
  }
}

 

The below function is independent of the time keeping but always cycles in three screens which helps user. As we are keeping a care to patients lets print a greeting message as we know that emotional support is very helpful in healing patients in more quick time. You can choose your own creative message. Let’s print a message as “Stay healthy, Get well soon”.

The second screen is for giving instruction to patients as “Press buttons for reminder..”.  The Third screen is used to simply show current date and time.

void changeScreen() {                 //function for Screen Cycling

  // Start switching screen every defined intervalLCD
  if (currentMillisLCD - previousMillisLCD > intervalLCD)             // save the last time you changed the display
  {
    previousMillisLCD = currentMillisLCD;
    screens++;
    if (screens > maxScreen) {
      screens = 0;  // all screens over -> start from 1st
    }
    isScreenChanged = true;
  }

  // Start displaying current screen
  if (isScreenChanged)   // only update the screen if the screen is changed.
  {
    isScreenChanged = false; // reset for next iteration
    switch (screens)
    {
      case getWellsoon:
        gwsMessege();                // get well soon message
        break;
      case HELP_SCREEN:              
        helpScreen();               // instruction screen
        break;
      case TIME_SCREEN:
        timeScreen();                  // to print date and time
        break;
      default:
        //NOT SET.
        break;
    }
  }
}

 

This function is used to start buzzing and blinking the LED simultaneously if the selected time has reached.

void startBuzz() {                    // function to start buzzing when time reaches to defined interval
//  if (pushPressed == false) {
 
if (pushpressed == 0) {
    Serial.println("pushpressed is false in blink");
    unsigned long currentMillis = millis();
    
if (currentMillis - previousMillis >= interval) {
      previousMillis = currentMillis;         // save the last time you blinked the LED
      Serial.println("Start Buzzing");
      
if (ledState == LOW) {                  // if the LED is off turn it on and vice-versa:
        ledState = HIGH;
      }  else {
        ledState = LOW;
      }
      digitalWrite(ledPin, ledState);
    }
  }
  
else if (pushpressed == 1) {
    Serial.println("pushpressed is true");
    ledState = LOW;
    digitalWrite(ledPin, ledState);
  }
}

 

This function is used to compare the user selected time slot at 8am and starts buzzing the buzzer and blinking the LED until user presses the stop push button. Similarly the functions void at2pm() and void at8pm is used to start buzzer and led at 2pm and 8pm.

void at8am() {                      // function to start buzzing at 8am
  DateTime now = rtc.now();
  if (int(now.hour()) >= buzz8amHH) {
    if (int(now.minute()) >= buzz8amMM) {
      if (int(now.second()) > buzz8amSS) {
        /////////////////////////////////////////////////////
        startBuzz();
        /////////////////////////////////////////////////////
      }
    }
  }
}

 

This is how you can simply make your own Automatic Medicine Reminder using Arduino. You can also use ESP8266 with Arduino to make it an IoT project which will be able to send email alert to the user.

Complete Code and demonstration Video is given below.