Echo & Alexa Forums

General Category => Alexa Across the Pond (Europe) => Topic started by: marktheman on March 18, 2018, 01:30:31 pm

Title: Elderly mother unable to use a phone - can Alexa help?
Post by: marktheman on March 18, 2018, 01:30:31 pm
If I buy two echo dots and put one in my house and the other in my parents' house (they have broadband), can my mother ask Alexa to call me without the need of having a smartphone? She's unable to use a phone but I think I can teach her to ask Alexa to call me. Thank you. Location UK.
Title: Re: Elderly mother unable to use a phone - can Alexa help?
Post by: celticfan1888 on March 20, 2018, 08:00:27 am
http://www.echotalk.org/index.php?topic=3441.0

echo connect with a slight hack via chrome

https://www.pocket-lint.com/smart-home/news/amazon/142408-what-is-amazon-echo-connect-and-how-does-it-make-calls

Title: Re: Elderly mother unable to use a phone - can Alexa help?
Post by: MartinB999 on March 21, 2018, 06:27:08 am
I did something similar with my Dad. He's in Yorkshire and I'm in Kent, has broadband and an old tablet. We downloaded the app onto his tablet and installed his Echo, registered it to him, so now he doesn't need to do anything except say "Echo call Martin" and it calls me. I can do the same my end saying "..... call Dad". We've had no issues so far and it's been about 3 months now. The voice connection is reasonable with the occasional drop out but I suppose that depends on BB speed etc.
Hope this helps.
Title: Re: Elderly mother unable to use a phone - can Alexa help?
Post by: HomeAuto123 on April 11, 2018, 03:41:26 pm
Just my opinion based on my experiance. I would not Risk it as Amazon Alexa is very flaky at the moment. It might work OK for weeks but when you need it most it could fail you. More importantly Since I had my Alexa I had increased issues with my broadband at times showing accessive traffic from Amazon to the extent my broadband was unavailble to me. If you google this you will see many people have had this issue. I also started to get cold calls from companies that i belive were based on my browsing history. Not saying that Amazon are involved but just a big coincidence that it started after I connected my Echo Dot. This can be extreamly stressfull for elderly people.

Thanks