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Technology enables us to care for our elderly parents remotely. With nifty tools like Amazon’s Alexa, you can regain your peace of mind while attending to a parent who lives semi- or entirely independently. There are many different i’s to dot and t’s to cross as you pursue this endeavor, which is a good problem to have if you ask me.
There are several ways you can use Alexa to assist your elderly parent in your physical absence, including drop-ins, reminders, controlling smart home devices, and Ask My Buddy. This help ranges from providing your parents with critical assistance to giving them little (but crucial) quality of life improvements.
In this article, I’ll show you the many ways you can harness the power of Alexa to act as a companion for your elderly parents. We’ll also learn how to integrate those features into their home for maximum convenience and usefulness. Let’s get right into it!
1. Alexa Drop-In Feature
Have you ever wished you could teleport into your elderly parents’ home to see how they’re doing? Amazon had this desire in mind when they designed their Drop-In functionality.
Using an Amazon Echo device, you can instantly video or voice call another Echo device. You’ll need to add your contact to those that can call your parent’s Echo. This vital barrier of entry makes it impossible for fraudsters or other bad actors to reach your parents.
You may wonder why you need to invest in another video conferencing tool when phones, tablets, and laptops are readily available.
Dropping in has several advantages over these conventional gadgets. These include:
- The immediacy of connection on Amazon’s Echo is unmatched. There’s no waiting time between a device ringing and your parents answering the call. This springy process can come in handy during emergencies or if your elderly parent cannot pick up calls for some reason.
- Dropping in is an ingenious elderly monitoring system while also acting as some form of an intercom device. If your parent has a cognitive impairment that makes ringing sounds unpleasant or confusing, or if they have limited mobility, you can still easily check in on them.
- The elderly aren’t the most tech-savvy, but Echo devices bridge this technological gap by allowing you to reach them with little input on their part. They don’t need to adjust the screen or set up their video and microphone. All these helping hands make it considerably easier to communicate with them.
- The video quality while using the Drop In feature is considerably superior to that of services like Facetime or WhatsApp. Echo device screens also offer a wide viewing area, so several family members are visible as you drop in.
Amazon gives a helpful guide on setting up this functionality on their website. Here are a few ways to optimize your Drop-In experience that aren’t commonly known:
- Dropping in is primarily an Echo-to-echo affair, but other family members can still reach your parents instantly if you greenlight their Amazon account email on your parent’s Echo.
- You and your parents can prompt and end a Drop-In with your voice. Say, “Alexa, drop in to (recipient),” when you want to get started, and, “Alexa, hang up,” when you’re done with the call.
2. Controlling Smart Home Devices
Alexa’s status as a smart assistant would be questionable if it couldn’t collaborate with the smart devices in our homes. Fortunately for you and your elderly parents, there are numerous ways Alexa can make handling home appliances and devices more effortless than ever.
Here are just a few of the smart devices you can install into your parent’s home and control remotely using Alexa:
- Smart thermostat
- Roomba vacuum cleaner
- Smart light bulbs
- Smart TVs and sound systems
- Door locks
- Home security systems
- Smart window blinds
By doing the heavy lifting while using these devices, Alexa is arguably an indispensable helper for elderly parents who want to live independently.
3. Alexa Guard
One of the main concerns caregivers have for elderly parents is the ever-looming risk of burglaries.
Unfortunately, senior citizens make up most of the victims of criminals seeking economic gain. Considering that they’re increasingly vulnerable to burglaries when living independently, we’re justified to be concerned about their physical security.
Alexa again comes to the rescue with a feature known as Alexa Guard. This smart assistant will keep an eye on indications of foul play in your parent’s home, such as breaking glass. It’ll send you a notification, and you can check in with them to see if everything is fine.
Alexa Guard can also alert the established contacts when a smoke alarm goes off in your parent’s residence. You’re then empowered to look into the situation and contact emergency services if necessary.
For best results, place the detecting Echo devices close to spots you’d want to keep an eye on, such as next to windows and under carbon monoxide alarms.
Setting up this crucial functionality is super straightforward.
You can also instruct Alexa Guard to turn the lights on and off regularly, keeping burglars off your parent’s property.
Cleverly, Alexa Guard can also emit sounds giving the impression that more people are home than just your elderly parent. There’s a wide array of sounds to choose from that correspond to every room in a house. For instance, it can make it sound like someone is doing the dishes.
It can even mimic the sound of a guard dog!
Even better, Alexa Guard is easy to set up, start, and stop. Have a look at the steps here.
The burglar deterrent is most effective when there’s no one at home. However, it can also prove instrumental as your parent is working on their vegetable garden, for example, and you’d like to protect the main house.
4. Ask My Buddy
Few Alexa-aided features can get those in need out of sticky situations as effectively as Ask My Buddy does.
Here’s how it works. Say your elderly parent trips and falls and is temporarily rendered immobile. With no way to pick up their device of choice and call you or 911, they may be in that dangerous pickle for a while before getting the support they need.
Sounds scary, right? Fortunately, they can prompt Alexa to reach out to Ask My Buddy and execute the following functions:
- Reach an established contact via text, phone call, and email
- Prompt Buddy Assist to call first responders to your parent’s residence.
That last point might have taken you aback. Why can’t Alexa call 911 directly?
At least in the US, the FCC requires emergency alerts from a phone. This way, 911 responders can retrieve a callback number and the location of the emergency. While Amazon can choose to implement this functionality, all we currently have are intermediaries like Ask My Buddy.
Alexa, as well as every other smart assistant, doesn’t count as a phone. So Ask My Buddy will have to contact their team of dedicated emergency responders, who will then direct the necessary agency to your parent’s home.
This service is only available to Ask My Buddy’s Premium and Ultimate subscribers. For more information, check out my article detailing the efficacy of using Alexa as a medical alert for elders. Can You Use Alexa as a Medical Alert for Elders?
5. Setting Up Reminders, Alarms, and Timers
If your parent has a mild cognitive impairment, Alexa can be a useful tool to remind them of important times, such as when to take their medication, when a doctor’s appointment is scheduled, and when to take their meals.
Alexa can also remind them of more mundane dates, like special family events and garbage collection days.
You can set these reminders up on your elderly parent’s Echo so they’re never behind on any important date. The Alexa app on mobile devices also supports reminders.
In both cases, you may set the reminder as a pop-up notification or for Alexa to read them out loud. I’d recommend the latter for urgent reminders, like ones reminding them about medication.
If your parent wishes to wake up at a particular time or time the cake that’s in the oven, they can simply ask Alexa to be their timekeeper.
6. Establishing Routines
Alexa routines are a great way to harmonize skills you wish to use together. Routines work on an if-then timetable. For example, you can have Alexa turn off all the smart bulbs in your parent’s residence when they say goodnight.
There are numerous routines you can synchronize on your parent’s Alexa. Amazon dives into the ins and outs of routines here.
7. Staying Up-to-Date on the News
Your parent may wonder if it’s a good day to take their dog for a walk. Or maybe they’re diehard football fans, and there was a pivotal game last night.
As soon as they wake up, they can ask their handy smart assistant for all the news, weather updates, and sports highlights they missed while asleep.
Alexa reduces the hustle of manually scrolling through the endless news stories on offer. You can select the news Alexa reads to your elderly parents by customizing their interests. More on that on Amazon’s site.
8. Using Alexa To Help Find and Identify Items
Elderly individuals with visual impairments might have finished fetching their groceries but aren’t sure where to place the supplies. Alexa’s Show and Tell can swoop in to help if caregivers are unavailable.
Your parents will place the item they want to identify in front of an Echo show’s camera and ask, “Alexa, what am I holding?” or “Alexa, what’s in my hand?” Alexa will instantaneously search its vast product databases and let them know the answer.
At the time of writing this article, Show and Tell only work for products whose labels clearly display their names. Still, this tool is invaluable for helping elderly individuals with visual impairments regain some of their autonomy.
Let’s explore another scenario where your parents have misplaced their phone or tablet. Once they say, “Alexa, find my phone,” the smart assistant will call the phone. Your elderly parent will therefore be able to follow the ring and be reunited with the mobile device.
9. A Hands-Free Sound System and Remote Control
We’ve all been there. You’ve cozied yourself on the couch, ready for a relaxing movie night. Suddenly, you realize the remote control is out of your reach, far from the couch. This inconvenience can be especially significant for our elderly parents.
Not to fear. Alexa is here! Your parents can use Alexa as a substitute for the remote control, given that the smart TV and Alexa are linked. Smart sound devices can also be controlled with voice commands to Alexa.
10. Alexa Entertainment Selection
Speaking of cozy movie nights, did you know that Alexa is simultaneously an excellent DJ and movie selector?
Certainly, your parents would be in the driver’s seat choosing what they wish to watch and listen to, but Alexa simplifies the whole process by making it hands-free.
For instance, your parents can ask Alexa to play a certain song on their streaming service of choice. They can also ask for specific playlists, artists, or albums. Like a genie in a bottle, Alexa will be there to play their requested tunes.
This ability extends to movies, where they can ask Alexa to show films by specific actors or genres. Again, Alexa will do the hard work so that your elderly parent can focus on their entertainment.
To best enjoy these services, your parents should have an Echo device to sync with the preferences established on their Amazon account. Nevertheless, as long as they’ve got the Alexa app installed on a gadget, Alexa will be happy to do the music or movie browsing for them.
And if your parents love audiobooks, Alexa has them covered on that front, too. Here’s how to help your parents achieve this intuitive entertainment selection.
11. Alexa’s Contribution to Your Parent’s Sleep
If your parents have trouble sleeping, they can ask Alexa to play healing sounds like rain and wind chimes. These soothing looping sounds should help your parents drift off in no time.
Alexa is also synced to sleep and meditation apps like Calm and Headspace, which have specialized strategies to help them sleep and meditate.
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