Private Smart Home for Elderly - Family

1

Evening,

Here because not sure what category this would fit. Small project of mine. Although I have home assistant myself and my aging grandmother 80+ wanting some smart home features but I was able to convince her to go local for security/custom purposes. I would support it. I work with enterprise equipment/networks/services and looking to relearn some skills in telemetry and automation over distance in tiny form.

This caught wind in the family due to growing concerns of dementia. She won’t concede to care or a retirement home and is still able bodied and working 40+ hours a week. She wants to work and live our her time. She also does not want the family showing up all the time or every day.

So I said well i’ll install some switches, door sensors etc. Make things smart but locally controlled but also flexible enough to pattern “signs of life” and send an message out to Family if there is a deviation or exception. I know the sounds morbid but my mother (her daughter) died last year of a fentanyl overdose 52, Grandma lives alone. Down the street of where it happened. She wont get a home alarm system or accept any scheduled professional help. In hindsight I wish i did the same for my mom…

If you felt so motivated to solve the same concern what would be some I/O that would be clever? Roomba? Ethically this could be argued against the founding principal of HA…but forgiveness vs permission. She also would not venture on her own for this. Not trying to spy or pry but using what i know in enterprise monitoring to bring the proactive monitoring in a similar way for good intentions.

So far I have:

Zwave
Door Sensor for front door
Dimmer for dinning room area
Smart TV already joined up (Samsung)
Dahua POE Turret on the driveway with local recording enabled (actual solved a crime with it)

Down the line, soon, to add a thermostat, leak detection (bathrooms), Gift a year of Nabu Casa when funds allow.

Add ons/ integrations: now
Adblocker
Tailscale
Zwave JS
NUT for UPS integration
SW defined “alarm”

Future:
Frigate google coral
Additional switches for security lights maybe a few more cameras (she asked for this)
WLED? Have a 2 foot christmas tree in white I use for notifications by color and pattern in my own home its wonderful. Out Door lights?
Glass Breaks?
Asterisk and a POE speaker? (telecom nerd here)
Mailbox Sensor?
Door Bell? (old house actually has an AC door bell on 24vac)

Not sure how I am going to tackle SMS and redundant WAN but I am thinking Zabbix or Twillio for SMS or Telnyx and USB modem (off the router) for backup WAN and notification.

So far I have written some actionable notifications to remind of her phone being charged and emails…turning the TV off at a certain time. Movie night automation. Giant remote basically. When get some more intentional automation built I plan to contribute them as templates, may someone can make use of it.

2

First of all… respect to your grandmother!

These are a few things I have implemented, which may spark ideas:

  • Alexa and motion sensor in every room

  • I use an emergency alert service called My SOS Family, which makes an automated phone call, sends an email and sends a SMS to a list of family contacts if there is a problem. (Not sure where you are, but there are lots of similar services). It’s designed for mobile phone, but there is a good Alexa skill, so the vulnerable person can simply call out.

  • There is no integration, but HA can trigger the skill on Alexa, so I am able to place “panic buttons” at floor level near possible fall points around the house (bathroom, stairs etc.).

  • I use the Bayesian integration on HA to monitor whether the house is occupied, based on about a dozen indicators - movement, obviously, but also device trackers for phone and keys (BLE tag on the keys), TV being on, etc. There’s an excellent post about how to do this here.

  • If the house appears to be occupied, but there has been no movement for 24 hours, an automation triggers the alert on Alexa.

  • For SMS messages, I use the Llamalab Automate integration to send a notification to an Android phone with the HA companion app installed. (The phone isn’t used for anything else - it sits permanently on charge.) The Llamalab Automate app on the phone forwards the notification as an SMS.

  • The Llamalab app on the phone also sends a SMS if the power goes off - good to know because all the rest will stop working.

Don’t overthink it, and make sure your grandmother is happy with all this. If nothing else, you’ll be round her place a lot, fixing stuff. :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes:

3

Good post/reply.

She is onboard with the most of it. I like the My SOS Family. Never heard of it, kinda a (SUPER LITE) version of Alert Media EAS which is more enterprise.

If the house appears to be occupied, but there has been no movement for 24 hours, an automation triggers the alert on Alexa.

This is a good idea. I was planning to add some Zwave motion for measuring occupancy. Thanks for the additional perspective.

4

Update.

Added a very simple automation for door closed over 24 hour period to SMS alert. Rather than use the GSM direct (more hardware) outlined here SMS notifications via GSM-modem - Home Assistant I used click send at ClickSend SMS - Home Assistant 10DLC registration is a PITA for non commercial user but it works like a champ. Cost is per message. Redacted automation below. It works well.

alias: Signs of Life Automation
description: ""
trigger:
  - platform: time
    at: "08:00:00"
condition:
  - type: is_not_open
    condition: device
    device_id: babecc0000000000000000000000000
    entity_id: 3b64600000000000000000000
    domain: binary_sensor
    for:
      hours: 24
      minutes: 0
      seconds: 0
action:
  - service: notify.clicksend
    data:
      message: >-
        Front door has not been opened in 24 hours. Typically this door is open
        at least once every 24 hours. Call NPANXX0000
mode: single
5

Have you considered using something that is potentially a little more flexible?

I’ve been using Zulip for my HA messaging platform. There’s a free private tier or you can self-host it.

What’s nice about using Zulip is that you can have an HA “bot” talk into various different streams and have all people involved have access to all of the messages easily. Message streams can even be marked as “completed” in case you need some sort of acknowledgement that the issue has been taken care of.

6

And maybe even something private with proper end2end encryption? We use signal for that task and it works a treat - including groups and even intents (can make “request” for camera snapshots/sensor values directly within signal).

7

Haven’t heard of Zulip. I like the product but I was more after the end result just being an SMS message. No additional flexiability was needed for the end result…ie mixed media threaded reply etc.

8

Private Proper end2end encryption?

Interesting use of signal. I like the directional ask for request for camera.

Currently I don’t plan to add any more data into the SMS message other than…bad thing may have happened please verify.

In that limited case I am either ok with that message being “insecure” or I do not know what i don’t know and there is something more at risk here.

9

Sounds legit.

We send directly the root cause of the alert and this will be send out to our family group. In the same group we organize the help/research if needed and also announce if the alert is handled. The request of a camera snapshot is a nice touch too - and that is available for all family members without any HA app or even knowledge about home assistant (most don’t have HA!)

For us it’s the easiest, fastest and most straight forward solution we found and it really minimizes the time to react which is something our elderiers very much appreciate.

10

Update to the thread. Have not added many other items but succesfully and reliably using the clicksend integration ClickSend SMS - Home Assistant . Works great once you get past the 10DLC/A2P requirement carriers have to complete. I could see some other uses for clicksend as well. Very easy bolt on.