24 Aug 2021

Introducing Hello Meds

A few months ago I released a new app called Hello Meds. It's a medication tracker for iOS. I drafted this post when the app was in beta but never got around to finishing it up, so here's a quick intro to why I built Hello Meds.

There are plenty of medication tracking apps available for iOS already, but most of them are based around the idea of taking the same medication, at the same dose, at the same times every day. While this is obviously a common use-case, my needs are different. My medication dosages and timings change often, depending on other variables in my life. Hello Meds is designed around this use-case in particular, where you want to keep track of the medications and dosages you take, but don't want or need to adhere to a pre-set schedule.

I've tried to focus on making it quick and easy to log that you took a dose of medication so tracking is not a burden and is less likely to be forgotten. Hello Meds supports Siri shortcuts, so you can create a shortcut to quickly log any particular dose + medication combo. You can even combine this action with other shortcut actions. For example, I have shortcuts that log common dose + medication combos I use, and also add the medication name as a tag to my Exist account for today.

I haven't added reminders to Hello Meds yet, but you can use automations in the Shortcuts app to remind you to log a dose at a particular time of day.

Hello Meds also offers quick actions, so you can long-press on the app's icons to quickly log a recent dose that you've used. There's also a simple Apple Watch app included, which makes it quick and easy to log a dose if you don't have your phone handy. Each dose can be tracked with a custom date and time, so you can catch up later, but the watch app has saved me from needing this option many times.

Hello Meds also comes with several iOS 14 widgets. You can use widgets to display a list of all the doses you've taken for the current day, across all medications, or you can choose a particular medication for your widget and display today's doses just for that med. You can also choose a widget that shows your latest dose for a particular medication, as well as shortcut buttons to quickly log various doses of that med.

When you create a medication, you can optionally choose how long a dose lasts before another dose is allowed, and you can ask to be reminded when your last dose has run out.

You can view all the medications you took per day on the History screen, you can export all your data to a CSV file, and the app supports dark mode.

Hello Meds is completely free, and I'd love to hear what you think about it. I've also created a public roadmap for the app where you can see what I'm working on and suggest new features.