Hi guys not sure where exactly to start but here is what’s going on. I have an old Pill Minder buy Hero Health that I had purchased out right. However after I discontinued service and had paid 1,000 for the device I find out it is locked to their service. The device has WiFi etc. It appears to be running a Texas Instrument Chip though I can’t exactly make out the model. I had to peel off the Retailer Sticker to find that out. It has connections for an X & Z stepper motor, a T stepper motor, and door. It has a basic LED Display browsable by a hardware button. My question is can anyone guide me as to where I might be able to go for resources on A) How to hack it so that I can use it without their service or them connected to it. I am willing to JTag or whatever is required.
OR This is preferred
B) Modify it so it becomes an alcohol dispenser for mixing cocktails.
As I said I purchased the unit a couple years ago, at the time I didn’t realize they would keep it locked to their service.
Finally then integrate it into HA
I am of no help, but I also have one of these and absolutely loathe paying the $30/month for their service and not even having it support the features I’d actually use (or being able to track whether or not I’ve taken my meds from my dashboard). Please keep us updated if you come up with a solution to this!
If it’s anything like the current device it’s probably useless without the internet-connected app. You’d have to write a complete software stack for it.
I’m going to give it a try I’m confident I can mod this for esphome and compile a yaml file please provide some features you are interested in.
Daily Pill Reminders sent to phone and another phone if pill dispense time is missed. Coordination with Callen-Lorde access via callen-lordepharmacy.com to order refills or text when refills are needed. What would be awesome sauce is if it could notify you the difference between a pill that needs to be taken with food and one that doesn’t. I don’t know if there is a way to incorporate dispensary of pills that are taken on an as need basis but I have a an Rx of doxyprep I take on an adhoc and would love to have that incorporated in. Also if there is a way to setup multiple users on one machine. I remember reading about someone who built one of these types of machines with an RPI. Perhaps if his coding is on GitHub it could be utilized. If you think it helpful I could look up the resource.
Did you ever make any headway?
I had the same idea awhile back and purchased a used unit.
It’s going to be hardware hacking. If you y’all wanna throw your hands in and help me I’m currently working on trying to hack it. The problem I’m running into is Arduino does not offer enough GPIO. Need to also get all of the U-shaped encoders working. I accident shorted a buck converter I think on the main motherboard. Since I’m no good at programming it’s not gonna be a software hack. Here’s what I’ve got done so far I can get the pill containers to move forward I can get the pill gripper or pill suction to move up and down in the whole entire pill arm to move backwards and forwards.
If you’re willing to help me Drop me a PM and I will reply with the Arduino sketch that I have so far ChatGPT is been a great help in writing most of the Arduino code.
Sorry for the late reply. I didn’t have my notification set up in here.
I am a software developer and I also am heavy into 3D printing (Klipper) which these Hero’s are basically using XYZ printing style logic using stepper motors.
I have two HERO’s as well that I bought from eBay and I also have a third that is a paid sub which is about to expire.
I will PM you my contact info (If I can figure out how to do it from this horrible UI). Any extra info you can provide will be helpful.
I found this project awhile back and was going to use it to maybe bootstrap this effort because the HERO hardware is much nicer:
i dont know that i’ll be of much help, but im also very interested in this. i’ve been trying to figure out how i could build something like this myself because i reeeeeally resent having to pay hero every month for something that doesn’t even support half the services i want.
i can offer some mediocre python skills and am happy to be a test user!
So what about replacing the motherboard with a RPI and getting the GPIO Extension board and using that as the mobo?