e-pill MedTime Pro with Clear Lid

The device is a pretty good solution for people who can’t remember which pills to take when. It provides all the options that are likely to be needed for typical home use. Pills are dispensed according to a flexible schedule that must be configured in the device. The removable pill trays come with paper templates that allow easy use for standard schedules like morning, afternoon and evening. For non-standard schedules a blank template is available. Programming the device is a pretty technical task and is best given to a “techie”—i.e., someone with good technical aptitude. Because of the nature of the device it’s unlikely that the person taking the pills would be competent to do the programming themselves. If they could, they wouldn’t need the dispenser. For someone who is familiar with configuring software or electronic devices the menus are logical and there are lots of options to provide flexibility. However, it’s important to pay close attention and take care when setting things up. Entering the wrong date or time or forgetting to reset when refilling can mess up the entire dispensing schedule. It can take some digging to find special options but the thin manual is pretty complete and straightforward. One example of needing a special option that I encountered has to do with the ability to set a start time & date for dispensing pills. One time I was replenishing the pill tray during the early afternoon when a question arose in my mind. The replenished tray was intended to start the next morning. (The tray has compartments labeled morning, afternoon and evening.) However, there was still a need to provide pills for the same evening (at a time after I would have left the patient’s home). I browsed the manual until I found the delayed start option. With that, I set the start time for the next morning. The dispenser would then ignore the normal evening dispensing time (until the program started running the next day). This does allow proper synchronization of the machine with the patient’s schedule—but it leaves unsolved the problem of how to provide the evening pills on the day of refilling. (I don’t live with my patient.) This means that those evening pills have to be provided in some other way along with a reminder to take them at the appropriate time. Related to this is the question of what happens when the pill-taker is not at home for a scheduled dose. I think there may be ways in the machine to extend the pill availability time window. If that doesn’t suffice then, again, the pills will have to be provided another way. There may also be potential issues with the pill-taker being confused or asleep or distracted when pills are dispensed. If the person programming the device is not present when pills are being dispensed the programmer will have to depend on the patient for feedback about what is or is not working. Again, with a forgetful or confused patient this information could be unreliable. But assuming the patient’s needs are appropriate to the device it can work quite well. I only observed one clear problem with the machine itself. That is the fact that pills can get stuck. This happened several times in my experience with a small gel type pill. This particular pill has a tendency to get lodged in a corner of the pill compartment. See the photos. The photo showing the view of the tray shows a small pill remaining at the end of a week. The detail photo shows a pill lodged in the compartment from which the pills are dispensed. It’s a bit hard to see—the pill is the bright spot being illuminated by the camera’s flash. Without the flash—as the patient would see it—it’s even harder to spot. As a first line of defense the user must take care to turn the device over fully when collecting the dispensed pills. After gathering the pills it’s necessary to then check closely to see if any pills remain inside the unit.

The key and the lock feature I’ve had no problem with. But it takes an act of God to get the lid to open. I have to use a knife to push the button in. Wish that part was easier once it was unlocked.

Using this device with someone who takes a controlled substance for pain (with the understanding that the manufacturer recommends the next level up for these types of meds) but the cost of the next “level” up made this one more attractive to try. It definitely could be broken into if the person wanted to get more meds bad enough but it would ruin the device. Just enough of a deterrent in our situation to keep the person in line. In terms of the device itself it has some nice features like the ability to allow the dose to dispense during a range of time instead of “on time” only which is helpful when sleeping in, the ability to turn off the sound alert when it’s time to dispense (which is very loud), and it comes with different trays for larger or smaller pills. There is some sort of log/record on the device and you can enter the # of doses you set up so it can count down, but we haven’t used those features. Easy to program - was ready to go in less than 10 mins at least using the basic features. Instructions are well written and easy to follow. Came with 2 keys.

Not worth the price!

I got for an elderly friend who had some problems keeping med schedules straight. Programming is a little challenging but only needs doing once. I called customer service once with a question and response was excellent. Well worth the money for my friend. Now has 9 days of proper dispensing. Been using about 6 months without a problem. Have recommended to his doctor and home nurse for other patients.

An excellent choice for a person unable to recall whether meds were taken or not. Prevents accidental double-dosing. Lock is only suitable for people incapable of forcing the case open. Otherwise, look at the stronger lock on the metal-jacketed version.

The stress of taking my pain meds are over, we set it once a week and every 6 hours it beeps and i get my meds on time every time Great product TY

It did not work properly and I never received the refund for returning it.The refund was never credited to my account