Pill Counter — personal medication reminder & assistant
An experimental internal project by Chili Labs. Pill Counter app helps you track your medication, reminds you when to take it, and lets you explore available alternatives.
About the project
Pill Counter is a simple, bright, and privacy-focused app that helps users stay consistent with their routine. It includes a pill reminder with alarm, a vitamin and medication tracker, and a list of alternative medicines based on active ingredients. The idea was born from personal experience. We noticed how many expired medicines tend to accumulate at home and how difficult it can be to find the right medication — especially when you're abroad.
Project tasks
The initial research uncovered several real-world problems users face when dealing with everyday medication. These insights shaped the foundation of the Pill Counter app and defined the core product tasks.
Helping users avoid overpaying
Many people don’t realise they could be paying less for the same medicine. The Pill Counter app helps users find cheaper equivalents instantly.
Finding equivalents abroad
Drug names vary by country, making it confusing for travellers to find familiar medications. Pill Counter simplifies this with ingredient-based search.
Improving intake consistency
People often forget their daily doses. The app features a simple reminder system inspired by a 7-day pill box. Paired with medication alarms, it helps users stay on track with their routine.
How did we start?
The first idea was to build a barcode scanning feature. After deeper research, we realized that every pharmacy uses its own system, making this approach impractical. We searched for a universal ‘source of truth’ and discovered the FDA open database, containing over 750,000 registered drugs. This became the foundation of Pill Counter. We definded the target audience: people who often forget to take their medication, travelers or expats looking for alternative or generic drugs, users who want to save money and make informed health decisions. Project goals were to create a simple, reliable, and fully private app that helps users stay consistent with their medication — without sign-ups, ads, or sharing personal data.
Concept & UX Approach
Inspired by a classic 7-day pill organiser, the experience is built around the idea of a digital medication reminder.
Key UX Decisions:
Each day is a ‘capsule’ the user can open
Large, high-contrast components for seniors and accessibility
Minimal steps to add a pill or mark it taken
Everything reachable from the home screen
Streamlined flow: ‘no friction, no confusion’
Visual identity
Most health apps feel cold and clinical. We wanted something human, colorful, and full of life.
Key design principles:
Large, high-contrast elements for accessibility and seniors.
Bright and playful color palette to evoke energy and optimism.
Intuitive navigation — everything is reachable from the main screen.
A ‘streamlined experience’ — minimal effort, maximum clarity.
Key screens
Home – daily capsule view with reminders
Pill inventory – stored medicines with expiry and alerts
Database – lookup by active ingredient, find equivalents
Profile – manage personal info, purchases, notifications, preferences, and app settings
Development & Implementation
Working with the FDA data turned out to be the hardest part. The dataset was messy — outdated fields, duplicates, inconsistent formatting, and too much homeopathy cluttering search results. Firebase Realtime Database didn’t support advanced search or partial matches, so custom algorithms had to be built manually to clean and normalize the data.
Development challenges
Clean and normalize a massive, unstructured FDA database (750K+ items)
Filter out irrelevant or misleading homeopathic results (around 20% of the dataset)
Standardize naming conventions
Build custom search algorithms
Keep the user focused on what matters most — reminders and clarity, not unnecessary complexity
Privacy & GDPR
All user data is stored locally on the device.
The app doesn’t send anything to servers, doesn’t require registration, and fully complies with GDPR.
Marketing challenges
Promoting a medical app turned out to be more challenging than expected.
Ad platforms repeatedly blocked campaigns that included words like pill, medicine, or drug, automatically flagging them as restricted medical or even narcotic content.
As a result, the number of usable keywords became extremely limited, making organic growth the only viable strategy.
Design should feel human
‘Any product can look great — even a pill reminder. It should be clear, human, and pleasant to use. We tried it, and it was a fair experiment. Without experiments, nothing moves forward.’ — Vjacheslav Kreidikov, CEO of Chili Labs