Frequently Asked Questions

What is Pillbox Alert?

Pillbox Alert is an appliation that runs on Android-powered phones. Pillbox Alert is a reminder application that helps you take your pills and supplements on schedule.

Does Pillbox Alert run as a background service?

No, this app does not run in the background 24x7, hogging your phone's precious memory. Instead, Pillbox Alert uses a nifty Android feature called the AlarmManager. This allows Pillbox Alert to have Android "wake it up" in time to deliver the next alarm. This means Pillbox Alert presents the smallest possible performance hit to your phone. Read the next FAQ on Task Killers for an important caveat.

Can task killer apps affect Pillbox Alert?

Unfortunately, yes, they can. We love task killers, especially when they kill long-running background services that drag phone performance to the ground. However, some over-zealous killers go too far and remove AlarmManager entries made by other apps, even though these entries take up no additional phone resouces.
If you notice missed alerts, we recommend you add Pillbox Alert to your task killer's "exceptions" list.

What should I do if I suspect my task killer has killed Pillbox Alert?

Open Pillbox Alert. That's it; you're good to go. Every time you open Pillbox Alert, it re-calculates your current med schedule and queues the next alert.
(Pillbox Alert also re-calculates your schedule and queues alerts when you change an alert time, turn an alarm on or off, or reboot your phone.)

I don't run a task killer, and my alert(s) didn't go off. What can cause that?

Things to check:

• Volume: Remember your phone's volume setting affects Pillbox Alert's alarm volume. If you silence your phone, you will silence Pillbox Alert.
• Mute: In Pillbox Alert, hit the "Menu" button and select "Preferences." Un-check the "Mute" checkbox if it's checked. (This checkbox silences only the PillBox Alert app. All other phone sounds are unaffected by this checkbox.)
• Check your schedule: Pillbox Alert will not issue an alert unless a particular time has a med associated with it, and the alarm is enabled for that time. In other words, just establishing a time is not enough; you must add a med to the time for the alarm to sound.
• Status: If you marked a pillbox cell as "Taken" or "Skipped" in advance, the alarm will not sound for that time. This is intentional!

If you have checked all that and Pillbox Alert still fails to alert you, we would love to know about it. Please tells us as much as you can about it here.

How do I remove a medication from a time?

1. Go to the third tab (called My Pillbox)
2. Touch the time from which you want to remove a medication. This will bring up a screen labeled "Pillbox Cell"
3. Long-press the medication you want to remove. A context menu will appear, one of the options will be "Remove Med." Select that option.

How do I delete a medication that is no longer needed?

1. Go to the first tab (called My Pills)
2. Long-press the med you wish to delete. A context menu will appear, one of the options will be "Delete Med." Select this item; it will delete the med and remove it from all alert times.

Oops! I took my stuff early; can I mark it as "Taken" (or "Skipped") before (or after) the alarm time?

Yes. To mark something as "Taken" or "Skipped:"

1. Go to the third tab (called My Pillbox)
2. Long-press the row you want to mark. A context menu will appear; select the appropriate status.

You may remove the status of a cell, only if that time is in the future. Times that have already passed may be marked as "taken" of "skipped" only; not cleared.

When I clear the log, today's meds are not removed. Why?

Pillbox Alert uses today's log entries to keep track of today's alerts. You can clear today's log tomorrow!

Some of the times in the log are not what I expect them to be. What's up with that?

The log displays the time you actually marked a medication as taken, not the original alert time. For example, if you "snoozed" your 9:00 AM placebo reminder, then acknowledged the snooze alert at 9:30, the log will display 9:30. Or, let's say you have an early dinner and mark your dinner-time meds as "Taken" in advance, the log will show the early time, not the normal alert time.

Our goal is to make the log reflect the times meds were actually taken rather than their scheduled times, even though this can look confusing in some cases.