We just got a quick look at one of those
Vitality GlowCap bottles. It's about as dead simple as it looks: the LED at the top of the cap glows (orange, but there's also a blue mode that must mean something else like "you're all going to die"), and with the right amount of adult supervision you can push down and twist off the cap. All the details of the service, which involves patent recognition to figure out the best way to remind you and incentivize you to take your pills via phone calls, flashing lights, and social network reminders, aren't completely ironed out, but it sounds like Vitality is paying AT&T up front for the bandwidth -- at least you won't have another charge on your AT&T bill to worry about. Not shown is a base station that the GlowCaps connect to over 2G wireless (more unclarity here, but rest assured your prescription infos will be beamed over the internet via AT&T's network), and which does the primary flashing when you need to take a pill.
posted March 25th 2010 11:51AM
this would be perfect for my (legal) medical marijuana ;)
@inertone You need medical marijuana (presumably for pain or some other physiological factor), and you can't remember to use it yourself?
@badasscat
LMAO...its not that...he's just been under a lot of stress lately XD
@Steve Miller
definitely the stress!
@badasscat
I believe there is a much rumored effect of marijuana that may have something to do with needing a reminder . . .
@bolezhinkov
double post. classy, I know. but they should have put a little 8-bit chip in it to create the melody for nicklebacks "hit" . . . this is how you remind me
@inertone Oh, come on. How hard can it be to set an alarm clock for 4:20?
@processfive
hahaha
its a bit difficult if im already medicated ;)
@inertone : Time to take your cialis man! Oops, sent via twitter and facebook. :(
With as well as they handle phone calls I would TOTALLY trust them with grandpas vital medicine!
Hope they keep the bottles on the window sill!
@gentlefury I was thinking that the LEDs might scare the pants off of grandma and grandpa, while the phone calls would just serve to confuse :)
I sometimes forget my pills, but ... wow.
Might get this for my girlfriend, though.
So basically the world will know when your off your meds?
Not only do they have to remember to take their pills, now they have to remember to charge their pill bottle..I think a simple alarm clock would do the trick better than this over-engineered pill bottle..but what do I know, maybe I'm missing the point of this thing.
@jalapeno
I agree. You could just as easily set an alarm on your cell phone.
@jalapeno
Sometimes you're in the middle of something when the alarm goes off, so you shut off the alarm and then forget to take the pill later. This thing has multiple ways to detect whether you've taken your pill and also has multiple ways to nag you to make sure you take it. For your daily vitamin, it is definitely over-engineered. But there are plenty of people whose lives depend on pills they have to take every day and I would wager they don't consider this over-engineered at all.
@tonicboy I see what you mean, but people like that also have multiple pill bottles, so if I take 6 different pills I would have to buy 6 of these special caps..seems a bit silly. My grandpa has to take like 12 pills a day..he has had a stroke, and he never forgets to take his pills..go figure.
you really know you're old when you're excited on products like this.
This seems like a solution in need of a problem.
I take beta blockers, every day, and I will for the rest of my life. Forgetting to take one could potentially kill me. (Once you start taking beta blockers, your heart compensates over time, so if you suddenly stop taking them, your heart goes haywire.) So it's really important that I not miss a day; I'm exactly the kind of person a device like this seems to be for.
(At the same time, it's really important that I not take two pills in one day by mistake, because that could lower my blood pressure to the point that I pass out.)
The thing is, this dilemma is solved by a simple $2 pill box. I have a box that has seven compartments - one for each day - that I load up on Sundays and keep in my bag that I take with me to work. I see it every day and it's impossible for me to either forget to take a pill or forget whether or not I have already.
I definitely would not trust something that's relying on a cell phone network to tell me to take my pills. Sometimes the best solution for a problem like this is low-tech and cheap.
@badasscat AT&T's cellphone network :)...ZING!
@juanvaldez That was pretty good, Juan. And to badasscat, I agree with you.
Further, I can't see these being at all cost-effective. Do you buy the cap and just swap it from med to med? Some people take 10-20 meds per day, do they need a cap for each bottle? Can the caps talk to each other to generate a list of meds instead of sending 15 text messages?
@badasscat
The problem is that you've taken the way YOU may or may not use the device/solution and the way YOU do things to conclude that this does not solve a problem for ANYONE else.
Egocentric much? There are a lot of other people out there that take different pills, from the mundane seasonal allergy to the kind of important birth control to the very important medication, such as yours. And those people vary in age and ability. Those "other" people and cases are more than you can probably imagine - and so I believe that while this device may not do YOU any good, it's bound to help at least one of those other millions of people.
@badasscat:
The problem I see is...does this make any noise? I'm sorry, but if a person can't remember to take their meds, I'm not going to trust a tiny little LED to remind them to either. I can see old people everywhere just staring at their pill bottles until the light comes on so they know to take it. Shove this in a bag or keep it in a different room, and you still don't know to take it.
"Good Morning, and thank you for flying Midwest Express. At this time the captain has turned on the seatbelt sign so please buckle your seatbelt and make sure it is tightened snugly around your waist and hips. Also at this time please turn off your Cell phones, laptops, portable music players and Medicine bottles as we can not have these turned on during take-off. We will let you know when you can turn them back on."
@aaronaaron good one
I Cannot physically eat. This product is practically useless to me. Unless they include a direct to stomach conversion tube kit. Adobe Wan Kenobi will pay for what he did to me.
Really? This whole article and not one link to the Colbert Clip? http://vimeo.com/10351159
@glittler
Beat me to it. Pretty funny stuff, too.
@volite I had actually heard that bit once on the radio before seeing it on the Report last night and both times I thought this was a joke
Has anyone seen Glowcaps on the Colbert report. http://vimeo.com/10351159 LOL
@ChrisEngr 3 min too late :( FTL
did this article forget the /sarcasm tag?
The best line they could come up with is "It glows to remind you"?
Aw, damnit. This will only lead to tears of sadness as the Darwin Awards sees fewer nominees.
Hmm. Bring's a new meaning to the term "Dead Zone's"
"As simple as it looks"? Say what? If you're that far gone that you can't remember when to take your meds, what makes them think that person can set this up to give them a call?
Let's just hope you don't put the cap on the wrong medicine bottle...
If your needing a reminder to take a pill that you actually need, your probably taking the wrong pill
This might just solve our Medicare issues ... as huge swaths of boomers are killed when some script kiddy hacks the system and all of the sudden "it's time for grandpa to take his medicine again!"
Is it me or is AT&T loading up their net work with subscriber for data? They better be building out the BEST fucking 4g network ever. Cause I love my iPhone but AT&T is raping me monthly and service isn't getting better. Shit Ipads, photo frames, pill bottles all this revenue. Better be put to a good plce and not the BOSSES pockets.
@Gavin M
oh yeah and let's not forget the dog collars.
@Gavin M
couldnt agree more, when is at&t gonna bust?
If it can connect to the internet, they should have it phones its own refill automatically to the pharmacy. I mean what's the point connecting to the net? Reminder? I can simply look at the bottle itself to know if I'm almost out of pill or not, no need for the cap to harass me.
You are the funniest man alive lord vader.