Frequently asked questions

An app for organizing and coordinating the care of an older or dependent person. Instead of carrying it all in your head or on loose bits of paper, it brings together in one place the medication, the appointments, the tasks, the expenses, the notes and the turns.

And if several of you share the caring, whatever one person writes down the others see straight away, without having to ring each other to pass it on.

For anyone who cares for someone: family members who share the care between them, professional caregivers —a hired carer, a team that takes over from one another— and also one person on their own who wants to get better organized. You don’t have to be family and you don’t have to be several.

No. CarePilot is not a medical service and gives no clinical advice: it organizes day-to-day care, it doesn’t decide treatments. It helps you remember the pill or the appointment, but which pill and what it’s for is always the doctor’s decision.

On Android and on iPhone, with the same app and the same data: within one group some of you can be on one kind of phone and others on the other.

There is no version designed for a big screen: CarePilot is made for the phone, which is what you have on you when you’re caring for someone. Even so, it can be installed on Android tablets; the only thing is that the interface stretches to fill a screen bigger than the one it was designed for. On the iPad it appears in a phone-shaped window instead of filling the whole screen. For everyday use we recommend the phone.

Only the people in your group. The information travels end-to-end encrypted, so that neither CarePilot, nor Google, nor anyone outside can read what you write.

The case we’re asked about most is the photos you scan: for the artificial intelligence to read a prescription, that image does leave your phone —there is no other way— and that is why the scanner needs internet. But it is deleted as soon as it has pulled out the data, and it is never used to train anything. If you also decide to keep the photo, that copy is saved already encrypted.

On European servers, in line with the GDPR, the European data protection law. When it comes to the health information of the person you care for, that matters: it is one of the strictest sets of rules there is.

You install CarePilot on the new one, sign in, and the app asks you for your PIN to unlock your groups. As soon as you enter it, everything is back: routines, notes, expenses and documents.

You’re sure to have that PIN, because you choose it when you create your account: it is required, so everybody has been through it. And if you don’t remember it but you saved your backup code, that works too. The step by step is in Account and privacy.

There is almost always a way out, and it depends on whether several of you share the care or you are on your own:

1. If you saved your backup code, you get in with it and choose a new PIN along the way.
2. If there are other people in your group, ask someone with permission to invite for an invitation code: that code carries inside it the key that opens the group’s data. You enter it on the «Recover your data» screen itself, in the «Don’t have the PIN or the code?» section at the bottom, and you get your access back with the same role and the same permissions.
3. If you still have your old phone, open it and set a new PIN there.

There is only one case with no way back: being on your own in the group, without a backup code and without your old phone. Then nobody can open that data, not even us — and that is exactly what makes it private.

Yes, and the Free plan goes a long way:

• 1 group of your own, and being able to be invited to 1 more.
• 2 people per group.
• 10 medications, 10 appointments and 10 tasks.
• 10 notes and 3 documents.
• 14 days of history in view.
• 3 scans with the AI, to try it out.
• The expense tracking.

Plus and Pro raise those limits and add what Free doesn’t have: keeping the photos of receipts and documents, the weekly report, the expense analysis and seeing further back in the history. Compared side by side in Plans and subscriptions.

What a group can do depends on the plan of whoever organizes it, not on each member’s plan: it is enough for that person to pay and the rest of you enjoy their limits without paying anything. It works the other way round too, and that’s the part that throws people: if you buy a plan but join a group organized by somebody on Free, that group stays on Free, because your purchase doesn’t upgrade the plan of somebody else’s group.

What does depend on your own plan is your AI scans, how many groups you can organize, how many you can be invited to and the colour themes. So before paying, look at who organizes the group you’re interested in: it’s set out in full in Plans and subscriptions.

Nothing is lost: your groups, routines, notes, expenses and documents are all still there, complete.

The group goes into read-only mode if it falls outside the limits of the Free plan: you can go in and look everything up, history included, but you can’t add or change anything. The app tells you so with a red band, «Group in read-only mode», at the top of the screen.

There are two ways to sort it out: upgrading the plan again, or bringing the group within what Free allows. As soon as it is resolved, everything is editable again exactly as it was. It’s told in full in Plans and subscriptions.

It isn’t cancelled inside CarePilot: subscriptions are handled by the store you bought from. The shortcut is in Settings → My plan → «Manage subscription».

Cancelling doesn’t take your plan away straight away: you keep it until the period you had already paid for runs out, and only then do you go back to Free.

It usually happens after reinstalling the app or changing phones, and it is sorted out with one tap: Settings → My plan → «Restore purchases». The app asks the store what you have bought and gives you your plan back.

If even so it doesn’t show up, write to us from Settings → «Technical support».

In 6 languages: Spanish, English, German, French, Portuguese (Brazil) and Italian. You can change it whenever you like from Settings → Preferences → Language, and Settings is the last button in the bar at the bottom.

Yes. At the exact time, a notification arrives titled «Due at 09:00» with the names of whatever is due. And they don’t come one by one: if there are three pills at that time, you get a single notification with all three.

There are more alerts that you can switch on or off: when something goes past its time without being marked, the appointment reminders, when somebody passes you the turn and a weekly summary on Mondays. They are all in Settings → Notifications, explained in Routines.

It’s almost always the same cause: the phone has CarePilot’s notifications blocked, and that permission is separate from the switches inside the app. You put it right in Settings → Notifications, tapping the first row, which is the one that takes you to the system settings; what the screen looks like when that permission is missing is in Settings.

Bear in mind as well that with Do Not Disturb on, some alerts are silenced.

For the things that matter, yes. You can look up what you already have and write down new things: the app lets you know with a «No connection» message and syncs by itself when the coverage comes back.

What’s more, the reminders for the doses are scheduled by your own phone, so they go off even when you have no signal.

Two things do need internet: the AI scanner, because the photo has to go out to be read, and uploading the photos you attach, which wait for the connection to come back.

Yes, and it’s a good idea to do so if you really were the one who did it. The app warns you first, naming whoever is in charge —«María is caring right now. If you tick this, they will see it as done and may skip it»— but it doesn’t stop you.

If you go ahead, the mark is flagged as «off duty», so that whoever reads it knows it was put there by somebody who wasn’t present. It isn’t a telling-off: it’s useful information. It’s in Turns.

With an invitation code that you generate from Group, the button at the bottom. The other person enters that code on their phone and they’re in. Step by step, with screenshots, in Care groups.

Yes. You can belong to several groups at once —one for your mother and another for a neighbour you lend a hand to— and switch between them whenever you like. How many groups you can run at once is set by your plan: on Free it’s one of your own and one you’re invited to, and the paid plans raise that number. They are compared in Plans and subscriptions.

With the + button on the Today screen, the first one in the bar at the bottom. You can type it in by hand, as explained in Routines, or scan the prescription or the referral slip with the camera and let the artificial intelligence fill in the details.

The scanner is the quickest way and has a guide of its own, Scan with AI, with the steps set out separately for Android and for iPhone, because the scanner that opens belongs to the phone itself.

In Settings → Data & account → «Export my data». There you choose what to take with you: an easy-to-read PDF, a technical file with the same content, the images, or everything together in a single compressed file.

Asking for a copy of your information is a right that data protection law gives you, so there is nothing to justify and no email to send: you do it yourself from the app whenever you like. The step by step is in Account and privacy.

In Settings → Data & account, right at the bottom, on a red card under «Danger zone» —kept apart on purpose so that it doesn’t get pressed by accident. It doesn’t happen all at once: there is a 30-day window to cancel it if you change your mind.

Before you do it, bear in mind that it doesn’t only affect your data: the groups you organize are deleted completely, with their medications, appointments, notes and expenses, and they disappear for the other caregivers as well. From the groups where you are only invited, your entry goes and the rest carry on. If you organize a group that others need, tell them first.

And if one day you couldn’t even get into the app, there is another route in Settings → Legal Information → «How to delete my data». All the detail is in Account and privacy.

From Settings, scrolling right to the bottom, the «Technical support» button.

It opens your email with the message already written and with what we need in order to help you —your account, the app version and which phone you have— filled in for you. Nothing is sent until you press send, so you can read it through first and take out anything you would rather not tell us.

It depends on your role in each group, and it is worth knowing before you press anything.

• The groups you organize and share with somebody else are given a closing date, the same one as your account: thirty days. From that moment on, whoever cares alongside you sees a notice on Today and on Group telling them what day the group closes, so that they have time to get organized and to keep a copy of whatever they need.
• The groups where you are only invited are not closed and nobody there notices a thing: your entry goes and the people who stay carry on with the whole group.
• A group you organize on your own carries no notice, because there is nobody to warn: it is deleted along with your account once the thirty days are up.

The notice the other people see does not tell them that you asked to delete your account: it says that the group is closing and on what day. That you are leaving the app is your own business, and the date is all they need in order to know what to do.

It has been deleted, but with a date. If there are other people in the group, deleting it does not destroy it that very instant: it is announced and closes seven days later. During that week everybody sees the date in a notice, the person being cared for can go on being looked after, and whoever organizes the group has time to change their mind. When the day comes, the group disappears along with its routines, notes, expenses and documents, and that has no way back.

If you are on your own in the group, it is deleted there and then, because there is nobody to warn and nobody to say goodbye to.

In both cases the app asks you to type the name of the group before it accepts, so that it is not pressed by accident. And tapping the bin again during the countdown does not bring the date forward: the one that was announced is the one that counts, because the other people have made their arrangements around it.

Yes, as long as the date has not arrived, and it is whoever organizes the group who does it, from the notice itself: you open the Group screen and tap «Cancel the closure». The notice disappears by itself from everybody’s phone and the group goes back to working normally. The notice can be seen on Today as well, but there it only informs you; the button is on Group.

There is one case in which that button refuses, and the app explains it: when the group is closing because whoever organizes it asked to delete their account. That is not undone from the group, but by cancelling the account deletion, which withdraws the closure from all of their groups at once.

Bear in mind that asking to delete your account signs you out, so in order to cancel it you have to sign in again with your account: when you do, the app greets you with the notice and the «Cancel deletion» button.

Yes, and that is on purpose, because there is a real person who has to go on being cared for until the very last day. With the closure announced you can:

• Look everything up, history included.
• Mark medication and tasks as done.
• Pass the turn on and take it over.
• Go on receiving the reminders for the doses.
• Export your data, in order to keep a copy.
• Leave the group of your own accord, if you would rather not wait.

What is closed off is changing the content: you cannot create, edit or delete routines, appointments, tasks, notes, expenses or documents, you cannot invite anybody or join with a code, and you cannot change roles or permissions or remove anybody. That is why the notice is amber and not red: the group is not frozen, it is saying goodbye.

With Settings → Data & account → «Export my data», which works normally during the countdown. You choose what to take with you: an easy-to-read PDF, a technical file with the same content, or the two of them together in a compressed file.

There is one detail worth knowing before you count on it: the option of taking the images as well —the photos of the documents and of the receipts— only appears if you organize some group. If you are a Caregiver or an Observer in all of your groups, the export will give you the text of the documents but not their photos. If you need any of them, open it in the app and save it on your phone before the date, or ask whoever organizes the group for it.

And do it before the day arrives. When the group closes, its content really is deleted, and from then on there is nothing to export and no way of getting it back: neither you nor we can open what no longer exists. Bear in mind as well that you can only export once a day, so do not leave it until the last moment. The step by step is in Account and privacy.

They lose access to that group there and then, its photos and documents included, and their phone stops giving them the reminders for that group’s doses.

What does not happen is as important as what does: they are not signed out of the app and they do not lose their other groups. If they care for two people in two different groups, the second one carries on exactly the same.

And they find out about it, they do not discover it by absence: a card with the name of the group appears telling them that they are no longer part of it. What they wrote down while they were taking part stays in the group for the people who go on caring.

If it was a mistake and you want them back, it is put right by passing them a new invitation code. Two warnings: only whoever organizes the group can remove somebody, and it cannot be done while the group has a closing date announced, just as codes cannot be issued for a group that is going to close.

With a card inside the app that says what has happened and which group it is about: that you have been removed, or that the group has closed. It comes up on Today, and it appears with the app open, without you having to close it and come back in. If that was your only group, you see it on the welcome screen just the same, instead of finding a «How do we start?» as though you had never used the app. You close it with «Got it».

It is not one of those phone alerts that sound on the lock screen: it is a card that waits inside the app until you read it.

It can happen that the card does not say which group it was. That occurs when that phone does not have the key to that group —after reinstalling the app without recovering your data, for example—, because the name travels encrypted just like everything else. In that case the text explains it instead of leaving a gap.

Your account and your other groups are not touched.

No. The doses you ticked off, the notes, the expenses and the appointments stay in the group, and they go on being recorded under your name so that whoever reads the history knows who wrote down each thing. Deleting it would harm the people who go on caring: that history describes the person being cared for, not you.

What you do lose is the access. So if you want to keep a copy of what is in the group, export it before you leave, from Settings → Data & account → «Export my data».

The whole group closing is a different matter: then its content is deleted for everybody, you included.

They go with the group, and they meet the same fate as the rest of its content:

• While the countdown is running they can be seen and opened normally, but none can be added and none can be changed.
• When the group closes, its images are deleted along with it, just like the routines, the notes and the expenses.
• If you are removed from a group, you can no longer open its photos there and then, not even the ones you uploaded yourself.

If there is a prescription, a report or a receipt that you need to keep, save it beforehand. The export does include the images, but it only offers that option to whoever organizes some group; if that is not your case, open them one by one in the app and save them on your phone.