An automated personal pill dispenser has at least two chambers, each for holding a supply of pills. A feed mechanism is associated with each of the chambers and is operable selectively to feed an incremental number of pills from a respective one of the chambers. A programmable controller is coupled to control and operate the feed mechanism to dispense pills from the chambers. The controller has a timer, a memory and an input means. The controller is operable programmably, by the user and/or by remote input from a smart card, PDA or network, for example with access to data from a pharmacy including instructions and warnings. The programming presets at least one of a time and a number of pills to be dispensed from each of said chambers. The controller operates an alarm to alert the user and operates the feed mechanism to feed pills from the chambers at the preset time and number, also detecting the user's access to obtain the dispensed pills.