Dawa Samjho — I built my parents an offline app that explains their medicines in Hindi
This is a submission for the Hacktoberfest Weekend Challenge: Build for a Friend My parents take several medicines every day. Every strip is printed in tiny English text, and every prescription is in a doctor's handwriting. So I often get the same question, usually with a strip held up close to the light: "यह गोली किसलिए है?" — "What is this tablet for?" It's a simple question, and they shouldn't…
Dawa Samjho is an app created by the author to help their parents understand the medicines they take on a daily basis. The app reads photos of medicine strips or prescriptions and explains each medicine in simple Hindi or English, following the instructions provided by the doctor. The app prioritizes privacy, as all processing occurs on the user's own laptop and never sends sensitive medical data to external servers.
It runs entirely offline, using Gemma, an open-weight model running locally through Ollama, ensuring that the user's health data remains private. The app is designed to be user-friendly, with large text, big buttons, and all labels in both Hindi and English. It provides clear instructions on what the medicine is for, when to take it, and general precautions.
If the app cannot read the prescription clearly, it will prompt the user to consult a doctor or pharmacist instead of making up information. The app was built with the aim of providing a helpful tool for people who struggle with reading doctor's handwriting or understanding English brand names. The code is open-source, allowing others to contribute and improve upon it.
Written by urgent.news from Dev.to's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.