“I have been given this product as part of a product review through the Chronic Illness Bloggers network. Although the product was a gift, all opinions in this review remain my own and I was in no way influenced by the company. “

This is the first product review I’ve ever done. I have to tell you that when I read about PillDrill, I was hoping I’d be picked to receive the product. Actually I was praying because I needed this system. http://Www.pilldrill.com

When the package arrived I was excited to open it. The PillDrill system comes will your WiFi scanning clock, pill scan boxes (Sunday-Saturday), scan tags and a mood cube.

Setting the system up was easy. It took a total of two minutes.

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Four steps, that’s it!!! That includes sync with your phone, a great feature. However, you do need to set up the phone. Although it wasn’t difficult, there aren’t instructions.  You need to decide what time of the day you want or need to take your pills. From there, you set up a window of time for the system to track your scanned pills.

The system is simple, the alarm goes off at the time you’ve chosen. You take the pill box and scan it on the right side of the clock. System beeps, pills tracked. Simple.

The reason I was so excited to try this system is because I take pills 3 times a day. I’ve always been good with my night pills because in that group is my Flexerol which helps me sleep at night. So unless I’m going out or I’m just not home, I very rarely forget. My morning medicine, this one I’m good with in my normal routine Monday-Friday about 95% of the time; the weekends, not so much. I’m just out of routine and I just forget. My middle of the day pills, I’m honestly horrible with. I’ve tried taking them out, so I see them,  but all that happens is they fall off the counter to be swallowed up by the undercarriage of my stove, chased or half consumed by a dog, or just wet from the sink and melted to the countertop. I’ve lost or ruined more pills than I probably consumed. I wanted, and needed, something that helped me remember.

The day the system came, I immediately set up my pills. The system comes with 2 rows, you can purchase additional rows if you would like. The first row has the Sunday-Saturday days with a 1, your second row has the Sunday-Saturday with a 2 on it so you don’t mistake night pills with your day pills. If your purchasing additional rows they’d come with a 3&4, 5&6, or 7&8 so you’ll never confuse pills. Once your pills are set in their appropriate box your set to go.  For the pills in the afternoon I take, I just attached scan tags, that came with the system, to the bottle. The tags get scanned, like the pill boxes, but are useful for pills you either can’t put into a pill box or an odd shaped bottle. For tracking purposes, those pills have to manually be put into the PillDrill app you’ve downloaded on your phone. For me my PillDrill app looks like this: The two afternoon manual pills are listed with pill 1 and pill 2.

Now let me tell you the features of the system:

The alarm. In the PillDrill app when you log onto it you will have to set things up, mainly when you take your pills. You choose the time to take your pills and you can even give a window of time to take the pills. The alarm will go off at the time the pill is due, instant reminder. You can modify the alarm from your phone or even turn off the sound altogether.

The phone notifications. This works great for when I’m not home. I recently went on vacation,  I turned the alarm off and brought the pill rows with me. I could have put the system in vacation mode, but I didn’t want to pause everything.  I wanted the alerts to come to my phone.  Like the alarm, the phone also gets the alert when a pill is due.  It was a great reminder to me even being away from home.  

The alarm light. I don’t like the alarm because my schedule changes so I don’t want an alarm going off at 7:00am when I don’t have to be up until 9 that day. Even on silent the clock will flash until you scan your pills. On those later sleep in days, which are normally the weekends and normally when I’d forget, first thing I see is the flashing clock, my instant reminder.

The mood cube. I like the idea of the cube and should probably utilize it more. It helps you track how your feeling on a particular day. For someone like me who suffers from multiple sclerosis it’s a great way to track bad days and good days. Although here I’d put one of the negative with the system. I wish there was a place to jot down personal notes at the end of the day. This would help make the mood cube more meaningful. Tracking two weeks ago a bad day with no other information doesn’t help me much. That’s why I don’t use it.

The system itself. It’s a small clock. Nothing too large or in the way. The system also lights up when it’s time for a pill. The boxes and the tags scan with ease. The numbers on the clock are large and easy to see. You also can adjust the brightness of the clock to suit your preference.

My overall opinion is I love this system. I can say, since I never have used any pill box before, love having my pills all ready set up for the week. I just scan my box, open it, take the pills and I’m done. It’s much easier than opening 8 different pill bottles every night. I love the reminders in my phone, the lights on the system and that they annoy me that I get up to take the afternoon pill. I have to say I haven’t been perfect but I’ve been 99% better. It’s right next to my coffee pot so I can’t miss the flash in the morning and I don’t think I’ve missed any of my morning pills. This system has definitely made a big difference for me in ease and convenience and I’ve loved it from the day I started using it.http://Www.pilldrill.com for more  information and ordering details.