Smart Pill Box for the Blind Using Internet of Things

Abstract

According to the World Health Organization (WHO) the estimated number of people visually impaired in the world is 285 million. 82% of the blind are 50 years and older. These visually challenged people also suffer from several chronic diseases which require regular medication. It is difficult for the visually challenged people to take their medication correctly and at the right time without the assistance of a caretaker. In the absence of the caretaker who is withheld for unavoidable reasons, these blind patients are put into the situation of skipping their pills which is risky. In order to resolve this issue, we have developed a prototype which deals with the smart pill system focused for the blind where the visually impaired people are intimated to take their pills on time via a recorded voice input which guides the person to take the correct tablet. There does exist smart pill boxes which remind the intake of pills via text on the LCD but since here the application is for the blind, an APR voice module is installed to give the commands in voice format. The pill system uses Arduino mega 2560 microcontroller and the coding is performed on Arduino IDE software using C language. The system features embedded sensors in each compartment that transmits detected signals to a server using the IOT module whenever the user is taking the pills, so that the pill status can be monitored by the care taker.