We have a very techy family. Technology was always going to be a part of our efforts. However, we couldn’t just throw every bit of automation at the home, so we needed some ground rules.
It had to make our parents lives easier.
It had to be fully automated or have a minimal trigger.
No typing necessary to run.
Privacy considerations had to have the consent of all parties involved.
That means we had to test things. Ray and I both tried things at our homes first and we discussed with our parents before bringing things in. We tried to keep to a single ecosystem, in our case it was the Amazon system. Apple and Google were good but the Amazon integrations were something we could work with.
Amazons system has ‘routines’. You can designate a phrase to do an automated action. We only introduced phrases slowly, so as not to overwhelm the users.
The initial commands/alarms covered:
Time to take medication (both on the amazon devices and his Apple Watch)
Control a few lights in the house
Control thermostat
Start a music playlist (This was very Parkinson’s specific - more on this later)
Ray added the buttons and they were a godsend. They look to be discontinued at the moment but if you can get some, we recommend it. Dad was mobile much of the time so he could be in another room of the house without someone actively watching him. Ray purchased the echo buttons that looked like gameshow buzzers. They were in every room of the house. If you pressed one, an announcement went to all the amazon devices in the house ‘Help needed in [kitchen]\[bedroom]\[living room]’ . Very helpful.
We also keep him up to date on his Apple Watch. Later ones had a fall detection feature that proved a little helpful (until he learned to crumple softly). The watch also let him call us whenever or wherever he was. I received a couple calls while I was at work this way. We used the ‘unlock with phone’ feature because the buttons on the watch were too difficult. Small buttons were impossible as the disease progressed, also the touch screens stopped responding all the time (we think his skin was too dry).
I’ll continue more of this subject later.
-Rachel