A loud alarm for when I forget to take my insulin

1

Help! I’ve tried a few apps and they don’t seem to do what I want.

Here’s what I want: a todo app that - every day - makes a really loud noise if I haven’t taken my overnight insulin. I need to take it between 8pm and 9pm and I want it to go off only if I haven’t marked the task as complete.

This is a bit different to a reminder because I don’t want it to remind me to do the action, I want it to shout out if I haven’t done the action.

I used to have a phone alarm that played a loud song at 9. That was good except I couldn’t turn off the alarm for today, but still leave it on so it repeated tomorrow.

I currently use things but it only makes a quiet alarm sound.

Here’s what I want: every night I take my insulin, mark the task as complete, and it doesn’t ever remind me unless I’ve not taken my insulin by 9pm. And then it does it the next day.

2

Can’t help with the task manager but I have alarms that go off every day. It’s set to repeat daily or on weekdays. When today’s goes off it hit stop on the screen. That resets it and it repeats the next day. You can do the same thing on the Apple Watch.

3

Have you tried the app called Due? It reminds you at a time and keeps reminding you every few minutes with another notification if you didn’t say you’d done the task. I don’t use it any more but I used to. Dave and Katie recommend it all the time.

Not sure if you can customise the sounds it makes. Apps don’t get a lot of flexibility for making long or loud sounds while they’re in the background unless they’re constantly playing music.

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4

iOS 12 brings a new notification type: criticalAlert:

Critical alerts ignore the mute switch and Do Not Disturb; the system plays a critical alert’s sound regardless of the device’s mute or Do Not Disturb settings. You can specify a custom sound and volume.
Critical alerts require a special entitlement issued by Apple.

It is reserved for emergencies like Health or Home Automation, so someone might be able to build a special reminder in September.

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5

Hmmm??? My first thought here was: How is this magic app supposed to know that you did NOT do the action? You will have to open an app (task manager or reminders or alarms or …) and check off something either in advance of the alert or after the alert.

OK. So you agree that you have to open something in either case.

I use the app Alarmed on my iPhone to remind me of my morning and evening medicine routines, and use it on my iPad to give a 5 min pre-warning to the end of certain scheduled events.

Any app that does what you outlined in your post is only as good as your diligence to use it. We don’t (yet) have an app that will tie you down and feed you your medicine. :slight_smile:

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JJW

6

Try DUE it will bug you until you tell it to move on

7

I’ve have tried Due for this, but it didn’t work (for me, in this case) for 2 reasons:

  • 1 the alarm wasn’t loud enough or long enough (compared to the built-in iOS alarm) and I often wouldn’t hear it.
  • I don’t really want to be reminded to jab my insulin, I want to be reminded if I haven’t.

Thanks though!

8

Thanks! I wasn’t actually looking for a magic app that updated itself, though that would be soooooo coool. One day, perhaps!

9

I didn’t realise there was a limitation on the sounds like that. Good to know.

I wonder if there are alarm apps I could use.

If only the built in clock alarm had a “turn off for today” option which didn’t delete the recurring alarm.

10

I guess there’s another factor here. I used the built in alarms for a while, but then I (and my family, especially my wife) got really annoyed when the alarm went off even though I’d taken my insulin.

If there was a way to dismiss a recurring alarm, for today’s instance, without turning off the alarm for tomorrow I’d be very happy.

11

This can be done in the app Alarmed.

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JJW

12

Thank you. That’s exactly what I’m looking for.

13

I have no experience with it, but I remember seeing a product called Sense Mother. It’s basically a hub for sensors around your house you can program to do things. If you attached a motion sensor to your insulin and programmed it to make an alarm on a speaker in your house if you haven’t picked it up by a certain time of day it would be a fully automated system for what you want.