iPhone widgets
Medication widgets for your Home Screen
The best medication app is the one you don't have to open. Your next dose, on the Home Screen, with a Take button.
Every extra tap between remembering and logging is a chance to lose the thread — you see the notification while your hands are full, resolve to log it later, and later never arrives. Widgets remove the app from the loop entirely. Kounts Dose puts your next dose, your progress through today, and how much supply is left on the Home Screen or Lock Screen, and the Home Screen widget has a working Take button, so confirming a dose is a single tap on a glance you were already having.
How it works
Next dose
The single most useful thing to have on a Home Screen: what's due next, when, and an interactive Take button to log it on the spot. No app launch, no navigation, no losing your place in whatever you were doing.
Today
Your whole day at a glance — what's been taken, what's still outstanding, grouped the way the Today screen groups it. This is the widget that answers “have I done my morning tablets?” without you unlocking anything.
Supply gauge
How many days of a medicine you have left, as a gauge. Put it next to the calendar you already check and running low stops being a surprise you discover at the bottom of a bottle.
Lock Screen accessories
Compact versions for the Lock Screen, so your next dose sits beside the time. A glance at a phone you picked up for something else is the cheapest reminder there is.
A Live Activity while a dose is due
When a dose comes due, a Lock Screen card and a Dynamic Island presence show the medicine, the amount and the time, with a Take button that stays put until you action it — one card at a time, so four medicines at 8am don't become four stacked cards. Free at every tier, widget or no widget.
Control Center, the Action Button and Siri
For the times a widget isn't where your thumb is: a Control Center control logs the next dose, the Action Button can be pointed at the same thing, and “log my dose” works out loud. They pick the dose you meant — a forgotten 8am beats a due 1pm, and tonight's 8pm is never logged by accident.
The details that matter
Interactive, not decorative
The Take button on the Home Screen widget uses App Intents, so the dose is logged from the widget itself — the app doesn't jump to the foreground and interrupt you. Tap, see it confirm, carry on.
Kept fresh without draining anything
Dose writes a small snapshot to a shared app group whenever your data changes, and the widget reads that instead of recomputing your schedule. Logging a dose deliberately doesn't rebuild the widget on the tap path — the work is coalesced off it, so the tap stays instant.
Adding one takes about ten seconds
Touch and hold an empty part of the Home Screen until the icons wiggle, tap Edit then Add Widget (the “+” at the top left on older iOS), search for Kounts Dose, swipe to the size you want and tap Add Widget. For the Lock Screen, touch and hold the Lock Screen, tap Customise, choose the accessory slot and pick Dose from the list. If you look after more than one person, each widget can be set to one of them or left on everyone.
Shows what you choose to show
Your medicine names are yours; if you'd rather a widget on a shared kitchen counter didn't spell out a prescription, name the medicine accordingly. Widget content is redacted appropriately when the screen is locked.
What this costs
Widgets are part of the one-time Dose Plus unlock ($9.99, or $1.99/month if you prefer). The free tier covers one medicine with reminders, logging and critical alarms.
Questions, answered
Is there a medication reminder widget for iPhone?
Yes — Kounts Dose offers Home Screen widgets (Next dose, Today, and a supply gauge) plus Lock Screen accessories. Apple's built-in Health app does not provide a dedicated medications widget, which is one of the more common reasons people add a separate app.
Can I log a dose straight from the widget?
Yes. The Next dose widget has an interactive Take button that logs the dose in place, without opening the app. You can also act from the notification itself with Take, Snooze and Skip.
Do widgets need the paid version?
Yes, widgets are part of the one-time $9.99 Dose Plus unlock. Reminders, one-tap logging, history and critical alarms all work on the free tier with one medicine.
Will the widget show my medication name on my Lock Screen?
Widget content is redacted when appropriate on a locked device, and you control the name of every medicine — so you can label something discreetly if a glanceable widget is going to be seen by other people.
How do I add the medication widget to my Home Screen?
Touch and hold an empty area of the Home Screen until the icons wiggle, tap Edit and then Add Widget, search for Kounts Dose, swipe between the sizes and tap Add Widget. Drag it where you want it and tap Done. For the Lock Screen, touch and hold the Lock Screen, tap Customise, tap an accessory slot and choose Dose. The app has to have been opened at least once, with a medicine added, before there's anything for a widget to show.
Is there a medication widget for the Apple Watch?
Not from Kounts Dose — there is no Watch app as of version 1.2.1, so no complications either. If logging from your wrist is the deciding feature, Apple's own Health app supports it and is free, and MyTherapy has a Watch app. We'd rather tell you that than have you buy for a feature that isn't there.
My widget looks out of date — what do I do?
iOS decides when a widget redraws, so it can lag a little behind by design. Dose writes a fresh snapshot every time your data changes, and opening the app then returning to the Home Screen forces the point. If a widget stays stale, removing and re-adding it rebuilds it from scratch. A dose logged from the widget itself always registers immediately, even if the tile takes a moment to catch up.
Can I have a widget for each medicine, or for each person?
You can add as many widgets as you like and configure them separately — touch and hold a widget and tap Edit Widget to change what it shows. Since version 1.2 that includes which person's medicines it covers, if you keep a list for someone you look after as well as your own.
Take the calm way.
A private, beautifully simple way to stay on top of your medication — and never run out.
See also: Alarms that ring on Silent · vs Apple Health Medications · Why this matters with ADHD