Amazon Echo and Alexa Together for parents

[Anonymous]

My mom had a fall a couple weeks ago that could have been a lot worse than it was. I think it would be good to have a voice activated Echo where she could call for help - either my brother or 911 depending on the situation. I saw you can hook up the Echo to your cell phone for outgoing calls. Has anyone done this?

I also looked into Alexa Together but I'm not sure they/we would use it enough to justify the monthly fee. It would be nice if they used it for scheduling and reminder for medication and stuff like that, but I think the reality is that they won't put appointments on the calendar in the first place, and that they'll turn the reminder off but then get distracted and not take medication anyway. Has anyone had real experience with Alexa Together?

I'm thinking an Amazon Show would be best so that they have a screen to interact with. We will create a new Amazon account that we all have access to rather than use their own email. I'm worried it will be too easy for them to buy junk... Any other thoughts or suggestions?

[Anonymous]

Does she live alone? and how old?

[Anonymous]

When my folks had a few falls, I considered those types of devices and the Apple watch too-but in the end, I went with medical alert devices.

My parents (one recently passed) have Bay Area Medical Alert, but there are others. There are some big buttons in 'danger' spots (the bathrooms, next to the bed) and they have a button to wear either as a pendant or on a watchband. A push of the button gets a live human who gets services needed and contacts me also.

Before Dad passed, we had a few experiences where this was really helpful-he fell, Mom was out and had phone on silent, I was at work, the service called the emt's and even gave them the garage code, saving the front door.

IMO, if they are at fall stage, they need the medical device and are past the Alexa stage.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: When my folks had a few falls, I considered those types of devices and the Apple watch too-but in the end, I went with medical alert devices.

My parents (one recently passed) have Bay Area Medical Alert, but there are others. There are some big buttons in 'danger' spots (the bathrooms, next to the bed) and they have a button to wear either as a pendant or on a watchband. A push of the button gets a live human who gets services needed and contacts me also.

Before Dad passed, we had a few experiences where this was really helpful-he fell, Mom was out and had phone on silent, I was at work, the service called the emt's and even gave them the garage code, saving the front door.

IMO, if they are at fall stage, they need the medical device and are past the Alexa stage.

Thanks for weighing in. Did you have any problems getting your parents to remember to wear the buttons? I thought the Alexa could be good because my mom could yell to it from anywhere (assuming she is conscious of course).

I considered an Apple Watch also for the automatic fall detection but once again it's only useful if they remember and want to wear it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: When my folks had a few falls, I considered those types of devices and the Apple watch too-but in the end, I went with medical alert devices.

My parents (one recently passed) have Bay Area Medical Alert, but there are others. There are some big buttons in 'danger' spots (the bathrooms, next to the bed) and they have a button to wear either as a pendant or on a watchband. A push of the button gets a live human who gets services needed and contacts me also.

Before Dad passed, we had a few experiences where this was really helpful-he fell, Mom was out and had phone on silent, I was at work, the service called the emt's and even gave them the garage code, saving the front door.

IMO, if they are at fall stage, they need the medical device and are past the Alexa stage.

Thanks for weighing in. Did you have any problems getting your parents to remember to wear the buttons? I thought the Alexa could be good because my mom could yell to it from anywhere (assuming she is conscious of course).

I considered an Apple Watch also for the automatic fall detection but once again it's only useful if they remember and want to wear it.

Yes, I did have to do a lot of reminding I ended up putting a reminder on my mother's bathroom mirror to put on their pendants, she had to do that for dad. I do see what you mean about the alexa, maybe you could have both? I guess for me I was always concerned that they would fall out of sound range of the Alexa, actually my dad did and his voice was not loud because of the Parkinson's so he wouldn't have been able to call it. But maybe you can have both.

I also liked the Apple watches but my mom doesn't wear a watch. I do have an aunt though and elderly Aunt who wears it and it keeps track of afib events for her!

[Anonymous]

The Echo Show is on sale so I just got one. Happy Mother's Day! We'll see how useful it really ends up being.

They have a small house so this will cover most of it, but I do like the idea of a button in their bathroom. Thanks for the suggestion!

[Anonymous]

Yes we did this for mom and it works great. My mom also has an Apple Watch which willl call 911 and text you if there is a hard fall. This worked so much better than the medical alert which was large and bulky and only notifies a company not you.