My Dad Keeps Calling Me at a Bad Time

My Dad Keeps Calling Me at a Bad Time

My dad lives in a different time zone and never seems to remember my work schedule. He is trying to call me for just a chat, but really gets confused about me being three hours later.

Kitchen and Night Safety for Father-in-law: Smarthome Experiments

Smarthome safe examples

  I wanted to deploy some smarthome solutions to help my father-in-law who has some physical and cognitive decline.   I started with a kitchen safety solution (stove timer), and a night safety solution (lighting). This article explains what I did and why, and how you can do it too.     My Life Situation: … Read more

Instant Remote Music Playing

Here is another solution that keeps your Alexa account and that of your parents separate, but still allows you to start music in the house / room of a person with dementia when you want.

Remote Control for the Smoke Alarm

If you, or your remote loved one, is capable of handling a mobile phone app under stressful conditions, some smoke alarm providers such as Nest allow you to use the app to silence it.

IF… you can find your phone, unlock it, and open the app all during this stressful time.

Want to Silence the Smoke Alarm After it Goes Off

Want to Silence the Smoke Alarm After it Goes Off

Smoke alarms are a wonderful security device, and we never expect to hear them, except when smoke or carbon monoxide (CO) is detected.

However, everyone I have talked to has had at least one incident when they double toasted the toast or fried something that made too much smoke… and the smoke alarm went off!

Normally that’s a good thing to know it’s working, BUT when you have resolved the problem and it’s still blaring (85 dB) at you for minutes it’s very annoying.