My aunt (77) is quite frail and lives alone. She recently had a fall and didn’t have a way to call for help. Eventually a neighbor checked up on her but that was two hours later and she went to the hospital for a few days.
I live multiple states away, and my parents who live a few towns over don’t really have the capacity to keep an eye on her (and honestly they’re burned out with her and are getting older themselves).
She’s a private person, and pretty sensitive about her health issues. I don’t really feel comfortable suggesting something like a camera, and she’s too forgetful to always wear an apple watch or some other wearable that can detect falls. I'm not sure what the best way to avoid this happening again is.
I found a smart hub/system call Nomo that seemed interesting; they say that they can do fall detection without wearables or a camera, but trying it out myself I’m really not impressed and think I'll return it. They send you a hub, some sensors, tags, and you can set up one of the tags as a wearable pendant. It should be able to send me a notification and alert a call center as needed. Supposedly you should be able to get fall detection just from the wall sensors but when I tried to fall (multiple times) right in front of the sensor it didn’t pick it up. I will say that with the pendant on, it worked fine when I tested; it triggered an alert for me and a call to their call center, but I don’t really trust that she’d wear it. It also looks like it has a camera so I don’t totally trust their privacy claims.
I’m starting to think about what I’ll be doing for my parents as well; they're actually older than she is but in great shape so less urgent.
Should I just push a wearable? Do I just need to bite the bullet and have a harder conversation about privacy vs her safety?