My wife needs to take the same pill at dinnertime every night, to the point that it's become mechanical and she, more often than not, does so automatically and then isn't sure if she took it or not. This means she often has to go check several times, even having to get out of bed sometimes to do so. Obviously, it frustrates her a lot!
So it got me thinking that I might be able to create a little device for her that tells her right away she's taken her pill and that would reset automatically every 24hs, at the time she normally takes her pill. What I had in mind was simply two lights: red and green. The thing resets to red at dinnertime, meaning she hasn't taken the pill; when she does, she presses a button and the green light comes on, meaning she has. 24hs later, the device resets itself back to red.
Sounds like it could be the simplest circuit in the world, even for a complete newbie like myself, but the problem is I can't even find the correct way to describe what I'm thinking of making in a way that Google may understand and point me to sources of DIY information I could use! So all my searches came out empty. The closest I got is how to make DIY pill alarms and dispensers, which are (a) not what I need, because the issue isn't remembering to take the pill, but remembering she has already taken it; and (b) much more complicated to make than what my limited knowledge will allow at this time.
After a lot of hitting my head against a wall, I thought that a possible simple solution would be to buy one of those cheap DIY LED display digital clock electronic kits, which have an alarm function, and hook the alarm no to the little piezoelectric speaker that comes with it but instead to some sort of circuit or toggle that would trigger one light automatically and allow for a manual change of light. I even think that I may make it even simpler if I forget the green light and just focus on the red light: the alarm would toggle the light on and a press of a button would toggle it off until the next time the alarm was triggered by the clock.
So my question is: if this last ideas is feasible, what would I have to wire to the alarm output? And because I'm already here asking the pros, is there some other way of achieving the same thing without using a clock kit? Maybe a more elegant solution? Or an easier solution?
Thanks in advance for your input!
So it got me thinking that I might be able to create a little device for her that tells her right away she's taken her pill and that would reset automatically every 24hs, at the time she normally takes her pill. What I had in mind was simply two lights: red and green. The thing resets to red at dinnertime, meaning she hasn't taken the pill; when she does, she presses a button and the green light comes on, meaning she has. 24hs later, the device resets itself back to red.
Sounds like it could be the simplest circuit in the world, even for a complete newbie like myself, but the problem is I can't even find the correct way to describe what I'm thinking of making in a way that Google may understand and point me to sources of DIY information I could use! So all my searches came out empty. The closest I got is how to make DIY pill alarms and dispensers, which are (a) not what I need, because the issue isn't remembering to take the pill, but remembering she has already taken it; and (b) much more complicated to make than what my limited knowledge will allow at this time.
After a lot of hitting my head against a wall, I thought that a possible simple solution would be to buy one of those cheap DIY LED display digital clock electronic kits, which have an alarm function, and hook the alarm no to the little piezoelectric speaker that comes with it but instead to some sort of circuit or toggle that would trigger one light automatically and allow for a manual change of light. I even think that I may make it even simpler if I forget the green light and just focus on the red light: the alarm would toggle the light on and a press of a button would toggle it off until the next time the alarm was triggered by the clock.
So my question is: if this last ideas is feasible, what would I have to wire to the alarm output? And because I'm already here asking the pros, is there some other way of achieving the same thing without using a clock kit? Maybe a more elegant solution? Or an easier solution?
Thanks in advance for your input!
