Frank Engelman: profile
Background
I graduated with a MSEE from California State Sacramento in 1974 and started working at a local ultrasound company that was acquired by GE Medical Systems in 1979. I spent the next 10 years working on medical ultrasound doing hardware design and software programming. When GE decide to move the operation back to their headquarters, I remained in Sacramento as a consultant to them and other companies.
In 1990 I joined Intel in Folsom, Ca as a software group test manager and then moved into their Windows Client IT group as a programmer. After several years, an Innovation Center Group was formed, and I worked on testing new products for home users and the elderly population.
When Intel and GE formed a partnership in CareInnovations, I assisted them on several projects
I retired from Intel in 2011 and have been pursing my dream of helping seniors and their family with suitable technology. I recently have expanded that into providing solutions for those with vison, hearing, and mobility difficulties.
Being 76 myself, I get to test a lot of the solutions on myself before recommending them to others. Along with my sister, a retired RN who lives in a retirement community, we get to deploy a lot of my solutions to the residents and family members.
My Articles & Research on Tech-enhanced Life
Smart Living Room Features for Older Adults
This article covers several smart living room features that author Frank Engelman has found useful for family members or friends — and that focus on challenges of particular relevance to people as they age.
This is part of our Smart Home Features for Older Adults series, in which we share specific recipes and kit lists for individual smart home features — organized on a room by room basis.
Smart Kitchen Features for Older Adults
This article covers several smart kitchen features that author Frank Engelman has found useful for family members or friends — and that focus on challenges of particular relevance to people as they age.
This is part of our Smart Home Features for Older Adults series, in which we share specific recipes and kit lists for individual smart home features — organized on a room by room basis.
Smart Bedroom Features for Older Adults
This article covers several smart bedroom features that author Frank Engelman has found useful for family members or friends — and that focus on challenges of particular relevance to people as they age.
This is part of our Smart Home Features for Older Adults series, in which we share specific recipes and kit lists for individual smart home features — organized on a room by room basis.
Smart Bathroom Features for Older Adults
This article covers several smart bathroom features that author Frank Engelman has found useful for family members or friends — and that focus on challenges of particular relevance to people as they age.
This is part of our Smart Home Features for Older Adults series, in which we share specific recipes and kit lists for individual smart home features — organized on a room by room basis.
Smart Home Kit Lists
As we explore various smart home solutions useful for "better aging", we get requests for some specific "kit lists" that contain a collection of the products needed to implement some of the DIY solutions found on this site.
This page is where we keep the lists of products for each of those "kits".
Alexa Questions & Answers
After writing several "How To" articles, relating to Alexa and related products, explorer Frank Engelman has been getting quite a few questions about things not covered in those articles. This page is to collect some of the common questions, together with detailed "how to" answers.
Alexa Care Hub: How To Advice
Amazon has a new feature in its Alexa artificial intelligence (AI) app called the Alexa Care Hub. It has the potential to help quite a lot in a situation where you are worried about, or caring for, someone who lives at a distance, and on whom you can not just "pop in" yourself — like your parent, or elderly relative, for example.
We are getting quite a few emails suggesting it is not at all easy to set up in certain real life situations. So we wrote this article to introduce you to what the Alexa Care Hub can do, and help you get it working successfully.
Dealing with a Wandering Loved One with Alzheimer’s
Before my wife passed away from Alzheimer’s, she went through a period of wandering outside the home that I could control with a few simple devices. I want to share what I did, and the solutions I used, in the hope they will be useful for others in the same situation I was in.
DIY Technology Solutions to Things Bothering My Aging Relatives
My relatives and their friends are in their 70's and 80's and 90's now, and I am finding they have some recurring "problems" that get in the way of life being as enjoyable as I think it should be. I have come up with a variety of DIY "Tech Solutions" to these problems that I have implemented for them. I hope they will be useful for you too.
How to Set Up an Amazon Fire TV Cube
Recently, a product called the Amazon Fire TV Cube has become available and I am finding it often helps me solve challenges I am working on on behalf my older friends. I have developed this "How to" guide to help other people like me set up a Fire TV Cube for their friends, relatives, or aging parents. I include instructions for how to enable various features I have needed for the solutions I have created for my friends and relatives.
Making TV Useful For My 94-yr-old Aunt
This is about how I took advantage of the ubiquity of TV in the lives of many older adults. By adding various smart integrations, I turned the TV from simply a source of background noise into a useful tool — that helps my 94-yr-old aunt accomplish all sorts of things she previously had trouble with.
How to Set Up Alexa Calling for a Loved One
Are you looking for a way to setup video chats with your loved one who lives independently or in a facility? This article tells you how to do that, using the Echo Show, without requiring your loved one to do any of the "setting up".
Co-authored Articles
Smart Home for Seniors: What, Why?
What is a "Smart Home for Seniors", we wondered? And how is it different from a normal smart home? And who would want one, and why? And, can you just get some specific smart home features relevant to you — in your current house? Or do you need a whole new house?
This article explores these questions.
Tablets with Simpler User Interfaces: Interview
After completing a comparative evaluation of products in the category we call "senior-friendly tablets", lead reviewer Frank Engelman was interviewed by Richard Caro, co-founder of Tech-enhanced Life.
Best Senior Tablet: How to Choose
This article is about a category of product marketed as senior tablets, or tablets for seniors. We explore which type of person would benefit from a senior tablet, rather than a more mainstream product like an iPad, and how to decide which is the best senior tablet for a specific life situation.