A cap for the bottle you already have
The pill cap that texts your sister.
It is Thursday, 8 p.m. A bottle sits on a kitchen windowsill. It has not been opened today. In another city, a phone buzzes once.
That is the entire product. Oakum is a cap. It screws onto the amber pharmacy bottle you already own, in place of the white lid. You pick a time and one person. If the cap has not turned by that time, it sends that person one text. It knows whether the lid moved, and it holds no opinion on anything else.
Here is the evening from the cap's side.
What happens at 8 p.m.
Most reminders go to the person who forgot. At that moment, that person is not looking at their phone. Ours goes to someone who is.
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No light, no sound. At rest, the cap looks exactly like a cap. 7:59 p.m.
The cap waits.
It has been counting since you set the time. It counts nothing else. One minute, approaching.
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The ring, lit. You will see this most nights. Your sister will see nothing, which is the plan. 8:00 p.m.
The lid turns, or it does not.
If it turns, the ring lights for ten seconds and the cap's day is over. If not, it allows twenty more minutes, because people watch the news.
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The whole message, 39 characters. We tested longer ones. People read this one. 8:20 p.m.
One text, to one person.
If the lid has not moved, the cap sends the message on this screen to the one number you chose. It did its job. Now your sister does hers.
The text is the whole product. The leaflet in the box is the whole company. Here it is.
Instructions for use
Reprinted from the box, unabridged. 307 words.
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Intended use
The Oakum cap is intended to notice whether a bottle has been opened by a chosen time and, if it has not, to send one text message to one chosen person. This is the complete list of intended uses.
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Who it is for
Anyone who takes something from a bottle on a schedule, and one person who would like to know. In our order records that person is a sister 61 percent of the time, a daughter 22 percent, and once, a landlord.
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Contraindications
Do not use with a sister who does not pick up. The cap sends one message and does not send a sterner one. If your person leaves texts unread for days, choose a different person. Not suitable for bottles opened many times a day for unrelated reasons, such as mints.
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Setup in three steps
- Unscrew the pharmacy lid. Screw on the Oakum cap.
- Turn the cap three full turns until the ring blinks. Text the code inside the cap to the number on the card, with the time you want and your person's number. We text them once to ask if they want the job.
- When they reply YES, the ring blinks twice and the cap is on duty. There is no app, because we could not think of anything to put in it.
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Battery
One CR2032 coin cell, fitted at the factory. Fourteen months at one check per day, measured as fourteen months and six days in a drawer at 70 degrees. When 30 days remain, the cap texts your person, not you. To replace it, turn the top ring a quarter turn counterclockwise.
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Cleaning
Wipe with a damp cloth. Do not submerge. Do not put it through the dishwasher. The cap is sealed to the standard of a kitchen timer: it will survive a splash and resent a soak.
What it does not do, in four honest lines
There is a wrist device that tracks 41 things about your body and, at the end of the day, tells you to sleep more. We admire the engineering. We did not build it.
It does not know what is in the bottle. No label reading, no pill counting, no weighing. A jar of buttons gets the same attention as anything else.
It does not measure your body. No pulse, no steps, no sleep, no temperature. It has no idea you exist until the lid turns.
It does not talk to you. No chime, no voice, no notification on your own phone. The one person it talks to is the one you chose, on the one night it has something to say.
It does not connect to anything else. No dashboard, no weekly report, no streak. You cannot share your lid history with friends. We asked around. Nobody wanted to.
It knows whether a lid turned, and roughly when. That is the whole résumé.
Which brings us back to the windowsill.
A Thursday in Sacramento, and a phone in Denver
Gail's bottle lives on the kitchen windowsill, between a jade plant and a jar of pens, because that is where she sees it while the kettle boils. Her son Tom is in Minneapolis. Her daughter Ruth is in Denver. For six years the arrangement was that one of them would call at 8:15 and ask.
Gail is 74 and ran a house for fifty years. A nightly question about whether you did the thing you always do is not really a question. It is a review.
Tom bought the cap in February. He set the number to Ruth's phone, because Ruth picks up. Most evenings the ring lights at ten to eight and nothing else happens anywhere. Ruth's phone stays dark. Tom's never rings at all.
On a Thursday in March, the news ran long and eight o'clock went past. At 8:20, Ruth's phone buzzed once in Denver. She called. It took eleven seconds. Then they talked about the news.
Gail has had four calls this year that began with the bottle, instead of about 240. The other evenings, nobody was anybody's alarm clock. That was the product. The cap is how we shipped it.
There is one sentence about the cap we are required to print. We would print it anyway.
Not a medical device. We would print it even if nobody made us.
Oakum is not a medical device. It does not diagnose, treat, cure, prevent or monitor any condition, and it makes no claim about your health or anyone else's.
Companies in our aisle print that sentence in six-point type under the barcode, where the eye slides off. We print it on the front of the box in the same size as our name. It is the most accurate description of the product we have.
The cap never touches you. It touches a bottle. Everything it knows, it knows about a lid, and a lid is outside the body, which turns out to be a restful place to do business. The 41-thing industry works on the other side of that line, where everything is a measurement and every measurement is an insight.
The sentence is not a disclaimer. It is the specification.
Six questions people ask before they order
Will it fit my bottle?
If it is the amber pharmacy bottle with the white lid, yes. The cap takes the standard pharmacy thread in the 13 to 40 dram sizes. Blister packs, no. Organizers with seven little doors, no. We will say so before you pay.
What if I open the bottle and take nothing?
Then the cap believes you. It sees a lid, not a pill. A machine that sees pills is the size of a filing cabinet, costs more than a car, and will not sit on a windowsill.
What if the person with the bottle does not want to be watched?
We agree with them. The cap tells one person one thing, once, and keeps no record. The nightly phone call was the surveillance. This replaces it with a lid.
What does the text say, exactly?
Mom's bottle wasn't opened by 8. Oakum. Swap Mom for whatever name you gave the bottle at setup. The longest one we have ever sent was 57 characters, for a bottle registered as Grandmother Josephine.
Does it need Wi-Fi or an app?
Neither. The cap carries the kind of small radio that gas meters use to report in. After the first fourteen months, a fresh battery and another year of messages arrive together in an envelope, for 24 dollars.
What does it cost?
89 dollars, which covers the cap, the battery and the first fourteen months of messages. We are not after a monthly relationship with you. The cap is after a nightly relationship with a lid.
One cap, on the windowsill by Thursday.
Gail's bottle is still on the sill in Sacramento, between the jade plant and the pens. Since February the cap has turned with it 236 evenings and stayed still on four. Ruth has heard from us four times. We consider that a close relationship.
Order today and the cap posts tomorrow, battery in, leaflet folded, sentence on the front. If your sister does not pick up, choose someone who does. The cap will wait.