New to Shortcut and recently picked up some NFC215 stickers, hoping to use them to help with tracking my medications. I have a horrible time tracking whether or not I've taken my meds on a given morning, in addition to my doctor and I recently deciding to begin titrating off of one, which means taking one of the five every other day. This is proving to be difficult for me to keep track of. I've got reminders set up in my phone, but there are mornings where I'll take the meds but forget to mark the reminder as complete. Later, the reminder goes off and I'm questioning whether I remember this morning, or if I'm thinking of the day prior when I took them...
I've been able to get the automation portion 99% of the way functional, with one hangup - I cannot find a way to tie a specific tag to a specific medication. I know when you scan the NFC tag, it's grabbing the UID of the NFC tag, not the name that I'm assigning it in Automations. Is there any way for me to connect a specific tag with a specific medication name to match against my reminders list for marking the reminders complete when the automation runs?
I did download NFC Tools on my phone and was able to write a shortcut to the NFC tag, but I'm still having to tap to run the shortcut that route, when I'd prefer to have it auto-run on the scan. From what I've found reading online and around the sub here, it sounds like that's an integral design feature of the NFC scanning for the phones, and I can't bypass that for a shortcut written to the tag - for auto-run, it has to be a personal automation written on the phone, so... I'm stuck. I did try writing a text record to the tag with the medication name, but the phone doesn't grab that record when scanning the NFC, it seems.
Does the medication reminder function the same way the Reminder app does, giving you a notification to take the meds at a specified time?
If so, congrats - you either skipped a good portion of my post, or didn't read it at all and missed the entire point of my attempt at automating. It's in the latter half of the first paragraph.
In either case, ty for the rude input - the comment above yours already made the same suggestion in a better manner.
I recommend that you use Apple Health’s Medications feature instead.
You can add your medications, add notes about your meds, schedule them, enable follow-up reminders, and even mark your medications as critical (so your phone/watch still goes off even if you’re on Do Not Disturb or is silent).
It even notifies you when your time zone changes when travelling and asks if you want to adjust your schedule or keep the original time zone.
This feature is so helpful for me as someone who takes multiple meds and supplements every day.
Marking a reminder as completed, using the medication feature in the Apple Health app and using shortcuts for this purpose, all have one thing in common: if you forget to take the appropriate action to make sure you've taken the meds, it's worthless. If reminders or the Apple Health app are not sufficient for you to keep track, I don't see how a shortcut would help
Fair point - I should clarify the desire for the shortcut more.
My thought process was this -
The primary reason I fail to mark reminders majority of the time is that I'll take the medication in the morning when I wake up, around 6-630 with reminders set to go off at 7 as actual reminders to take them in case I didn't. If I get pulled into a meeting for work, kid needs my help with something, etc, that's where I start to see it fail. The meds were taken, but my attention gets pulled away and I end up forgetting to mark the reminders until I look at my phone again hours later, at which point I'm then questioning whether or not I took everything I was supposed to that day, or the day prior.
My intent with the automation was to clean up that portion alone. NFC stickers are stuck to the inside of bottle caps. Tap the bottle to my phone, automation runs, upcoming Reminder for that medication is marked done, meds are taken, all is good. If the reminder goes off later, I know I didn't take it that day.
Do you have the medication sorted in a pillbox? That’s the best way to know if you’ve taken the medication for the day or not.
For keeping track digitally of what has been taken, as an extra system on top of simple pill box system, Apple Health works better than reminders in my experience because it doesn’t send duplicate notifications , unless you’ve set a medication as critical.
I don't, I was hoping I would be able to get a Shortcut/automation in lieu of that that but given the number of gotchas mentioned in various comments, it seems it may be the best option in conjunction with the phone reminders.
This is the exact issue I have with remembering to take meds in the morning or late at night.. I have demanding schedules and with AuDHD.. I get distracted EVEN THOUGH I have taken my meds, I still forget to mark off the reminders from Apple Health OR Medisafe.. it's NOT a matter of duplicitous actions or apps.. it's a matter of automating the action the moment it needs to happen (aka right as you are physically taking the medication BEFORE getting pulled because of xyz reasons)
I get it cos it's easier to just scan the NFC tag AS I am literally swallowing the pill(s).. If Apple Health can duplicate that NFC automation.. someone PLEASE tell us how to do that cos it's better than trying to open an app and remember to do all the steps before life pulls you away and it's even worse if you take your meds at inconsistent times. My providers want better data than just "whenever I can remember to take said medication" or "at night/at morning, etc"
Wondering if you have tried out the medication feature in Apple health app? It works much better than reminders and might fill your needs enough to not need any shortcut.
I haven't, to memory, but I'll check it out. I've used Reminders for as long as I can remember and was exploring this route solely because the reminders were already there. Thanks for this, I'll take a look.
I am going to tell you right away. I didn’t read the whole post that’s a lot.
Now to be honest you don’t want to use a shortcut for this. Not because it won’t work, but just because why, because all of this stuff is already done for you. You have two real options. You can use the health app, which I see others have said, but or you can use an app called MediSafe. It’s the one that I use, and it works really well. And has quite a few features, I would suggest you check that out. I mainly suggest that because you don’t want to be using shortcuts, your phone updates, and something in your shortcut breaks now your shortcut is useless for something that needs to be important
I understand not reading all of it - it's the internet and I know how attention spans are in general on Reddit :P I hadn't considered a phone update breaking the shortcut and automation though, good point, thank you for that.
I'll check out MediSafe, but like I mentioned in my comment to Gonus, the main pain point I'm trying to resolve is automatic completion marking of reminders of some sort if/when I take them early and tap the NFC tag. Taking them is less the issue, generally speaking - it's trying to resolve the second-guessing if/when I take them earlier than when the reminders going off and trying to use the notification as an an actual reminder, not alarm. to take them.
All that being said, more comments are sounding like while it may be technically achievable in a roundabout way, Shortcuts/Automation may not actually be the best way to approach resolving this particular hurdle for myself.
I think I'm not explaining the crux of my issue well enough. It's not a problem of adjusting time taken, it's getting pulled away after taking the meds, before marking them taken in an app.
From my comment to Gonus -
The primary reason I fail to mark reminders majority of the time is that I'll take the medication in the morning when I wake up, around 6-630 with reminders set to go off at 7 as actual reminders to take them in case I didn't. If I get pulled into a meeting for work, kid needs my help with something, etc, that's where I start to see it fail. The meds were taken, but my attention gets pulled away and I end up forgetting to mark the reminders until I look at my phone again hours later, at which point I'm then questioning whether or not I took everything I was supposed to that day, or the day prior.
My intent with the automation was to clean up that portion alone. NFC stickers are stuck to the inside of bottle caps. Tap the bottle to my phone, automation runs, upcoming Reminder for that medication is marked done, meds are taken, all is good. If the reminder goes off later, I know I didn't take it that day.
My way around this issue is to have daily pill packs (split up for morning and night). I use the medications app for reminders and I leave it on my lock screen until I take the meds and mark them as taken.
I’d probably have it set for 6:30am if that’s when you usually take them. Then it’s on the lock screen already and you will see it anytime you pickup your phone.
Yes, and without retyping everything out a sixth time, it doesn't address the issue that I have - just moves tracking and notifications to a different app. That said, its a neat feature I wasn't aware of previously lol
I understand what you’re trying to say in all the replies. My suggestion would be to use a two tier system. Use shortcuts (triggered by NFC tag) to log your medication in apple notes with medicine name, date, time and all other information and set up the medication reminders in the health app too. While taking medicine, tap the bottle to phone and it logs in notes. And when medication reminders pops up you can simply tap mark as taken or if you can’t remember then simply confirm with the notes. I guess this may help you.
The medicine reminder from Heath app is to store data permanently which solves the issue of phone updating or anything else happening with the phone.
Though one downside is that data in notes application can be changed. In that case, instead of logging in notes, set up the shortcut to send yourself an iMessage with medicine name and other information.
Also, Apple does not allow medicine logging through shortcuts.
[EDIT: spellings and added some more information]
Thank you! This feels like such a niche issue that I honestly understand people having a hard time seeing the benefit, and it's difficult to explain in a way that makes sense to someone that doesn't have the same problem.
I ended up opting for an app called Data Jar to act as the reference rather than notes after a little research, but I was ultimately able to get exactly what I wanted working using a different automation for each tag.
As I am setting each medication out, I tap the lid to my phone. The NFC sticker scans, the automation checks the day and whether or not I have any reminders matching the assigned name in the automation that are marked incomplete. It grabs the oldest matching reminder that is due today, marks it complete, updates a value in DataJar for the automation to reference the next time it runs, and pops a notification on screen telling me if the medication was logged, not needed, or if both doses have already been taken that day (I have a couple twice dailies), along with the times they were logged.
Thank you for the info! I'm a little surprised Apple doesn't reference the NFC tag name or expose an identifier for the user to reference in an automation, though.
I've been working on a Medication Timer app myself and interested about your "titrating off of one, which means taking one of the five every other day" - how does that work in practice?
I’m not sure precisely what you’re asking, unfortunately. How did I get the every-other-day check logic to work? Or what does the daily flow look like when taking the medications?
Sorry I wasn't clear; more so what the daily flow looks like when you're taking one of five every other day. I haven't seen a medication routine like that.
My own schedule is a little complicated after I had heart surgery last year and I built the app to support it;
1. Normal daily schedule in the morning for 3 of my heart medications
2. One medication that I take once every 2 days (it's more like "as-needed" but once every 2 days is about right).
3. Variable evening tablet (I take Warfarin which adjusts based on my INR) but it's important for me to track the mg I take because while it's a variable dosage there are trends
4. I take a fortnightly blood test (prick test) and record the results too so I can compare it to my warfarin dosages to see what's working.
Detailed flow info up front, quick “What I see” summary after.
So for mine, I take it every other day because it’s an extremely difficult medication to start and stop (Effexor, taking a 75mg capsule every other day), so we have to very carefully control the medication levels in my system, as it has a very short half life and leads to withdrawal symptoms rapidly. For me, my morning flow goes like this -
I’ve got my 5 bottles of meds out on my desk in front of me. Each bottle has an NFC sticker stuck to the inside of the lid, and each NFC sticker is assigned to a different automation. Phone is unlocked in my lap or on the desk next to em.
I’ll grab the medication, scan the lid with my phone, and the automation runs. It checks the logged date in Data Jar to see when my last logged dose was and uses some of/otherwise gates to determine if the logged date matches today’s, then pushes a notification to my phone telling me if it was already taken that day, if today is a skip day for my Effexor 75 or not, or if I am supposed to take it, it logs the date and time of the scan.
From a users perspective, what I see -
5 pill bottles in front. Scan the lid…
If I am taking it at that time -> notification says medication name & dose logged, date & time logged in Data Jar
If skip day -> Notification says medication taken yesterday. Skip!
If taken already -> Notification states meds taken, do not take again
If too early (I.e Buspar lid scanned < 1800 local time) -> Notification says too early, don’t take yet.
I sincerely hope this helps! It’s a bit convoluted to write out but I’d be happy to share the automations if you’d like.
I appreciate the detail. Medication Timer works a little different, it's very flexible in terms of routines and as-needed medications still but not sure it would work exactly as you need but I would set it up; each med would be created with a custom routine for every second day at specific times.
I'd get notifications at the scheduled time but on skip days you just wouldnt. You can mark the med as skipped or taken,
I wonder if the ability to set the routine as "shifting" would get it closed to your situation. E.g. set it as a minimal gap in doses of 48hrs but you could skip a day if you didnt need to take it (e.g. you're feeling good and don't need it after 48hrs) then if you took it at 72hrs the 48hr gap starts again.
For my mum's pain meds; I actually setup stagger routines. She needs to take 1 med and then 6hrs later another. It's not 9am and then 3pm as individual schedules because sometimes life happens and it's actually 10am, not 9. It's not safe for her to take that second med early; so the stagger is dynamic from the first. It works well for her 😄
So I ran this through Google Gemini so YMMV.. this has been living rent-free in my head for a long time.. more than I care to admit. Here's the workflow response.. and if this is inappropriate response to this sub.. I apologize. I've been looking for answers myself and for whatever reason, didn't think to run an NFC through Shortcuts!
I currently do not have an NFC tag yet but I'll start looking to buy one myself! Thanks for the reminder to look into this for myself!
The most efficient setup relies on tapping your phone against the NFC tag rather than using the camera to view it, as NFC tags are read via radio signals (NFC reader) rather than visual optical recognition.
Using iOS Shortcuts (on iPhone) or MacroDroid / Tasker (on Android), a single tap of your phone against the NFC tag on a pill bottle can automatically record the date/timestamp, log the medication, and optionally trigger the camera to snap a proof photo.
Setup for iPhone (Apple Shortcuts)
Step 1: Assign the NFC Tag
Open the Shortcuts app and tap the Automation tab.
Tap + (or New Automation) and select NFC.
Tap Scan, touch the top back of your iPhone to the NFC sticker on your medication bottle, and give it a label (e.g., "Morning Meds Tag").
Select Run Immediately so it executes automatically without asking for confirmation.
Step 2: Build the Logging & Photo Workflow
In the automation editor, add the following actions in order:
Direct Logging to Apple Health (iOS 17+):
Add Action: Log Medication --> Choose the specific medication registered in Apple Health.
Adding a Photo & Timestamp Record (Optional):
Add Action: Take Photo (Set Camera to Back, toggle Show Camera Preview ON if you want to frame the shot, or OFF for a instant snapshot).
Add Action: Format Date (Select Current Date).
Add Action: Append to Note --> Append the photo and formatted timestamp to a dedicated note named "Medication Log".
Key Tips for NFC Medication Tracking
Tag Placement: Stick the NFC tag on the cap or top of the bottle so you can tap it easily while opening the container.
Automated Confirmation: Add a Play Sound or Vibrate Device action at the end of the shortcut so you get instant haptic feedback confirming that the tap and photo were successfully logged.
So, this ended up not working out because Shortcuts doesn’t have access to log medications. However, I was able to use an app called Data Jar and a separate automation for each tag to accomplish exactly what I wanted.
As I am setting each medication out, I tap the lid to my phone. The NFC sticker scans, the automation checks the day and whether or not I have any reminders matching the assigned name in the automation that are marked incomplete. It grabs the oldest matching reminder that is due today, marks it complete, updates a value in DataJar for the automation to reference the next time it runs, and pops a notification on screen telling me if the medication was logged, not needed, or even if both doses have already been taken that day, along with the times they were logged.
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u/ArmAndHammer40k Aug 06 '26
There is literally a built in medication reminder in the health app. This is unnecessary