Built a free android eye drop reminder app for myself. Hope it helps others too
I have dry eye syndrome from long screen time, and my real problem was never the drops - it was remembering to use them. Alarms and sticky notes never stuck.
My wife is an ophthalmologist, so while building this I had someone to actually check my assumptions with - what matters for adherence, why bottle expiry dates get overlooked, why things like a 20-20-20 timer and warm compresses genuinely help.
It's a small side project - a handful of active users so far, slow growth mostly through Google Play search. Turns out posting in actual dry eye patient communities works a lot better than developer forums, which makes sense in hindsight.
Free, no ads, no data collection. Just sharing the story, happy to talk if anyone's curious or working on something similar.
Hope it ends up being useful for someone else too.
This is a great example of solving your own problem first.
Love that it’s free, no ads, no data collection — that trust matters a lot in health tools.
Thanks! Yeah, trust felt non-negotiable for something touching health data
I like that you built this to solve your own problem first. That usually leads to a much clearer understanding of what users actually need. It's also interesting that your biggest growth came from patient communities rather than developer communities; a good reminder that distribution works best when you're talking directly to the people with the problem. Wishing you the best with it!
thank you
The most underrated asset in this story is your wife. Distribution for health utilities rarely comes from app store search, it comes from clinicians recommending tools to patients, so a one-page handout ophthalmologists can hand to dry eye patients would probably outperform every forum post. I fund a telehealth company and the channel that works is always the one the patient already trusts.
Totally agree, that's probably the strongest channel by far. My wife would actually be a great fit for that kind of distribution, but honestly she's a bit shy about pushing something I made - need to work on that
That lesson about posting in actual patient communities instead of dev forums is so spot on. Devs love to talk tech, but real users just want their problem solved. Also, bottle expiry tracking is super smart—I always forget when I opened mine.
Thanks! Yeah, that's actually next on my list - planning to let users manually set when a bottle expires so the app can remind them before it goes bad.
Hi Pavel,
That's great. And you did a commendable job by adding no ads and data collection. More power to you.
thank you
This really resonates with me. I’m building a tool for teachers based on problems I had as a teacher, and I’m starting to realize the same thing — actual user communities probably matter much more than founder communities. Great reminder.
Yeah, good luck with the teachers project
Solving your own recurring problem is often the best starting point for a utility app, and the narrow focus is a strength here. The reminder and one-tap logging solve the core job without turning it into a bloated medication platform.
The real retention test is whether people still record their drops consistently after two or three weeks. Are you tracking missed-dose reduction or the time between a reminder and a logged dose? That would show whether the app is genuinely improving adherence rather than only attracting downloads.
Yeah, exactly - the app already tracks missed doses and shows daily/weekly adherence reports, so I can actually see if reminders are turning into consistent logging over time.
The insight about patient communities over developer forums is a good one building for a real problem sometimes means the audience isn't where builders naturally look. Free, no ads, no data collection is a rare combo these days too good on you for keeping it that way even as a side project
Thanks, really appreciate that!
Yeah, honestly the app itself was built like 3 months ago, purely for myself - I was the only user for most of that time. I just recently polished up the UI and decided to put it out there for everyone, hoping it might help someone else too.
That's honestly the best kind of product story built for a real personal need first, polish and sharing came after. Hope it finds the people who need it
All the best..i am sure it will be useful
thank you
The "patient communities beat developer forums" bit is such a good reminder —we all default to hanging out where other builders are, not where the actualusers are.
Which communities ended up working best for you?
Honestly, this app may be just as useful for developers like us who stare at screens all day to prevent eye strain
Ha, fair point — screen time is universal. Might be worth a small "for developers" landing page angle down the line.
This is amazing
thanks
"Built for myself" is the most honest positioning on PH today. But are you targeting patients with chronic conditions who need this daily, or casual users who tried drops once? The first group pays for reliability. The second deletes the app in a week. Your reminder frequency and notification strategy should look completely different for each
Good question, and honestly a fair distinction to draw.
Right now I'm mostly building for the second group - people who tried drops, forgot a few times, and are trying to actually build the habit. That's literally my own story: I started using this myself back in March, and what surprised me is that eye drops genuinely turned into a normal daily habit for me, not something I have to think about anymore. That's the core thing I want to help people get to.
It's also why the 20-20-20 timer is in there - a lot of my target users aren't patients at all, just office workers staring at screens all day, same as me.
For v2, I'm planning to lean more into the first group: more detailed eye condition tracking, PDF export for doctor visits, that kind of thing - which is where reliability and long-term chronic use really matter.
But honestly, my hope is it ends up useful for both.
“That’s a really strong place to start — and the fact you’ve lived the problem yourself shows.What’s interesting is you’re essentially building for two completely different psychological loops:
• Habit builders (your current users) → need low-friction, well-timed nudges
• Reliability seekers (future V2) → need trust, accuracy, and consistencyWhere it gets tricky is the transition between those two.We’ve seen in similar products that users who successfully build the habit don’t automatically convert into ‘power users’ — a lot of them plateau unless something explicitly reframes the product’s value (e.g. from ‘reminder tool’ → ‘health tracking system’).
I actually ran a few synthetic user simulations on a similar flow recently, and one of the biggest drop-offs was exactly at that transition point — people didn’t feel the need to “upgrade” their relationship with the product.Happy to run your current onboarding + retention flow through our simulations and show you where different user types disengage — usually surfaces a few non-obvious wins.
Either way, really like the direction you’re taking this.”
Yeah, now it's still very much a reminder with basic tracking tool, not a full health system yet. Appreciate you flagging it though, good thing to keep in mind for v2.
Thanks for the interest.