Hydration Reminder

A lightweight background app for Windows that, every 2 hours (configurable):

• Pops up a small animated "pouring water" window
• Reads a voice reminder out loud (offline text-to-speech, no internet needed)
• Auto-closes itself after 20 seconds (configurable) so it never lingers
• Periodically checks the time of day and adjusts your screen brightness on a schedule

Note: This project is now part of HealthBuddy, a comprehensive wellness suite. See HealthBuddy for the latest development and integration with other health-focused features.

One thing worth knowing up front

This app is designed to be an ordinary, well-behaved Windows program: it shows up in Task Manager as pythonw.exe and you can close it there, no different from any other app. I intentionally didn't build in anything that resists being closed — that kind of anti-kill behavior is a hallmark of malware, and a reminder tool that fights you to stay open would be a worse experience anyway.

If what you actually want is "I don't want to forget it's off," the included register_autostart.ps1 script does that the right way: it registers a Windows Task Scheduler entry that relaunches the app automatically each time you log in. You stay in control — view, disable, or delete it anytime in Task Scheduler.

Setup

1. Install Python 3.9+ from python.org if you don't have it (check "Add to PATH" during install).

2. Open a terminal in this folder and install dependencies:

   pip install -r requirements.txt
   

3. Run it:

   python main.py
   

   This shows a console window with logs (useful the first time, so you can see brightness/voice errors if any). Once you're happy, run it silently with:

   pythonw main.py
   

   (no console window; look for it in Task Manager > Details as pythonw.exe)

4. Test it immediately without waiting 2 hours: right-click the tray icon (small blue circle near your clock) and choose "Drink reminder now (test)".

Auto-start at login (optional)

Open PowerShell as Administrator, cd into this folder, then run:

.\register_autostart.ps1

To remove it later:

Unregister-ScheduledTask -TaskName "HydrationReminder" -Confirm:$false

Configuration

A config.json file is created next to main.py on first run. Edit it and restart the app to change settings:

Key	Meaning	Default
interval_hours	Hours between reminders	2
popup_duration_sec	Seconds before the popup auto-closes	20
voice_enabled	Speak the reminder aloud	true
voice_rate	Speech speed (words/min)	170
brightness_auto	Enable/disable brightness adjustment	true
brightness_day / brightness_evening / brightness_night	Target brightness % for each period	100 / 60 / 30
day_start / evening_start / night_start	Times (24h HH:MM) each period begins	07:00 / 19:00 / 23:00
brightness_check_minutes	How often to re-check/apply brightness	15

About the brightness feature

Windows doesn't give regular desktop apps access to an ambient light sensor reading, so this uses a time-of-day schedule instead (the same approach Night Light and f.lux use) rather than reacting to actual room light. It works reliably on most laptop built-in displays. External monitors need DDC/CI support, which varies by monitor/cable — if adjustment fails, the app logs a message and simply skips it rather than erroring out.

Quitting

• Right-click the tray icon → "Quit Hydration Reminder" (clean shutdown), or
• Task Manager → find pythonw.exe → End Task, or
• If running via python main.py in a terminal, just press Ctrl+C.

Files

• main.py — entry point
• app.py — scheduling/orchestration
• animation.py — the popup + water animation
• voice.py — offline text-to-speech
• brightness.py — schedule-based brightness adjustment
• tray_icon.py — system tray icon (test/quit)
• config.py — settings load/save
• config.json — your settings (created on first run)
• register_autostart.ps1 — optional Task Scheduler auto-start