How reminders work
DoseAlert's reminders are flexible: one medication can fire a quiet ping at its scheduled time, a louder alarm a few minutes later, and a caregiver alert if you still haven't responded.
The escalating reminder chain
Each medication can have up to four reminders per dose. They fire one after another until you respond with Taken, Later, Skip, or Not sure. Respond to any of them and the rest are automatically cancelled.
A typical setup looks like this:
- Level 1 fires at the scheduled time. Usually a gentle reminder with sound.
- Level 2 fires 15 minutes later if you haven't responded. Often louder.
- Level 3 fires 30 minutes after the scheduled time. A loud dose alarm.
- Level 4 (optional) fires later still and can alert a caregiver.
You set the delay and style for each level when you add or edit a medication. You can turn any level off if you don't want an escalation.
The four sound styles
| Quiet | No sound, no vibration. Good for medications where you just want a visual reminder and don't want to disturb anyone. |
|---|---|
| Vibrate only | Vibration, no sound. Good for public or quiet environments. |
| Reminder with sound | The standard notification sound plus vibration. Good for most daily medications. |
| Dose alarm | A loud alarm that keeps ringing and stays on screen until you respond. Use for critical medications you cannot miss. |
Each style uses your phone's built-in notification sounds — DoseAlert does not bundle custom audio, so reminders sound familiar.
Critical priority
When you mark a medication as Critical priority (heart, seizure, asthma rescue, insulin, and so on), DoseAlert treats its reminders differently:
- All reminders use the dose alarm channel regardless of what you picked.
- The screen wakes up when the reminder fires.
- Quiet hours do not silence these reminders (unless you turn off the "critical meds always fire" switch).
- The reminder stays on screen until you tap a button — it doesn't dismiss itself.
Quiet hours
Set a quiet window (for example, 10 PM to 7 AM) and any non-critical reminder that falls inside it will go silent — no sound, no vibration — instead of disturbing you. The reminder still appears on screen so you can tap it when you wake up, and the dose is still tracked. See Quiet hours.
Test your reminders
Before a real dose reminder needs to fire, send yourself a test to confirm everything is configured correctly.
- Open Settings > Sounds.
- Tap any of the four styles (Quiet, Vibrate only, Reminder with sound, Dose alarm).
- Lock your phone and wait 5 seconds.
If the test reminder doesn't fire, something in your phone's settings is blocking notifications. See Reminders are not firing.
Group reminders
If you've grouped medications together, only one reminder fires for the whole group at the group's scheduled time — not one per medication. The reminder shows the group name (e.g. "🌅 Morning stack") and a count of how many medications are due. Tap All taken to log everything at once. See Groups.
The "Remind me later" button
When you tap Later on a reminder, DoseAlert opens a bottom sheet with quick defer options:
- Quiet (no sound): 15 minutes, 30 minutes, or 60 minutes
- Noisy (alarm): 15 minutes, 30 minutes, or 60 minutes
- Custom time: pick any time later today
The reminder chain rebuilds from the new time. If the deferred time lands inside your quiet hours window, even a "noisy" defer goes silent.
What happens if I ignore a reminder entirely?
Once the whole escalation chain plays out and you haven't responded, the reminder stops nagging you but stays visible. The dose is not logged — you'll see it in the Pill Tracker as a missed dose. If you paired with a caregiver and set a missed-dose alert for that medication, the caregiver's phone will get a push alert.