Hi y’all,

I have an elderly lady living next door and she doesn’t really seem to have anyone checking on her (I have never seen anyone coming to hers) apart from me and my partner every once in a while (usually she will pop by asking if we need anything and vice versa).

I’m a little bit paranoid about what would happen if she fell/collapsed in her apartment and couldn’t call for help. It doesn’t help that there is a dog living with her (I’m not gonna paint the picture, but I’m sure you heard the stories…).

I want to suggest to her to have some sort of SOS button that she could carry around the flat and, if something happens, she could press it to call for help.

I found this on aliexpress but it has it’s own proprietary android app that I don’t think would work on my GrapheneOS phone. Local, non-aliexpress options are pretty expensive and/or are subscription based.

Do you know of any alternative that wouldn’t break a bank and would have more open source friendly system in place?

EDIT: I was thinking about a cheap wireless door bell (she would have the button - door bell would be in our flat). The problem is when we are away from home.

Perhaps a door bell with simple phone push notifications (my partner has a regular android phone so she could receive those)? Any product suggestions?

  • @Shepy@feddit.ukEnglish
    2•9 months ago

    I have a number of these buttons about the house

    SNZB-01 https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/304860775879?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-127632-2357-0&ssspo=fzhcellmt0u&sssrc=2047675&ssuid=hddZAAubQsK&var=603868193820&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY

    I have a RasPi running https://www.zigbee2mqtt.io/

    I have one of these flashed as hub / bridge https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/203668277433?var=504097716478

    Then just some python connecting to the mqtt and responding which I’d be happy to provide a copy of if you decide to go down that route, just let me know. Could have it sending a pushover notification or something along those lines quite easily

    • CoachDomOP
      3•9 months ago

      That is really cool, but too techy for me. I need something plug and play.

      But thank you so much for this suggestion and code offer!

    • Maeve
      2•9 months ago

      Hi that’s very interesting to me as I just had a scare with a neighbor about a half mile away. We’re rural and he has a government-provided phone and his brother has wifi, but the company has blacked out wifi calling and he must be outside to get wifi anyway. I don’t have a car and am not super technical, but I do have friends who can help if I need it, just trying to figure out if a cantenna would be workable. He also has a cheap tablet that’s wifi capable so any suggestions would be appreciated. Tyia

      • @Shepy@feddit.ukEnglish
        2•9 months ago

        I wouldnt trust a cantenna or anything like that for wellbing of someone, there’s just too many variables even down to atmospheric pressure which is going to affect wifi signal with something like that. That said, if you can put a rasberry pi at his house, maybe in the house but on the nearest wall to the access point / router, then something like this might be workable