Safety Checks?

Configuration
1

So I wasn’t sure where to put this, but I used to work in an apartment community and we would do welfare checks on residents that haven’t been seen by their job, or family in a minute to make sure they were ok (thankfully it wasn’t often, and thankfully I never saw anything I didn’t want to see).

So it got me thinking about this using home assistant, but more so also when you aren’t home for let’s say 36+ hours, are you ok? Should I set it the house on vacation mode?

Is there a way that if it sends an actionable notification, and you do NOT respond in let’s say an hour, or 6 or etc, that it sends your last known location (if your away from home, or if your home some other info like the last time you left the house, this would be days without leaving kinda thing) that it alerts a family member and suggests you check on them?

I think this could be great in a few different ways, but I wasn’t sure how to implement something like this, since I wasn’t sure if there was a timeout feature on the notifications (or if there was a better way).

Anyway, just a thought that occurred to me, let me know what you all think, and if there is a way to actually make this a thing.

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it would be a bit complex but not real hard to do as long as you have reliable presence/location sensors.

you could set input_datetimes for the times the presence/location sensor detected “everything ok” (whatever your criteria is for that) and then set an automation to trigger your welfare check notifications at the “now = input_datetime + some_number_of_seconds” (86400 seconds in a day).

I use Twilio for automated phone calls/text messages sent from within HA itself. it’s reasonably cheap and seems reliable from the few tests I’ve run with it.

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Is there a function that if there is no response to the text notification in X time to do this/that?

Since if something isn’t right, that person wouldn’t be responding. If it’s all good, they would of course hit yes, fine, vacation etc.

So how would you do that? I dont mind being creative (I am still learning the scripting side so this will be a journey/challenge) but how to handle no response is what I am missing on how to do.

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I meant to hit reply with my last message. Sorry.

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not that I know of. it’s just a standard phone call or text just like any other.

it would be up to the person to respond or not then up to the person who was supposed to get the response if they take any action.

I’m not sure what action HA could take beyond that notification anyway.

you did.

the forum doesn’t show the little “reply” thing in the top right corner if you reply to the last post in the thread. It’s gotten me before too.

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See that’s the issue I am hoping to solve, how to know if something is wrong, there would in theory be no click on an action from an actionable notification, or a reply to a text message/twilio/telegram etc. It’s something that I feel could be a benefit to someone out there, that hasn’t thought of this as a way to keep someone safe.

idk, call me crazy, but I think it’s a neat idea.

Glad I’m not the only one!

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But I don’t discount the idea of using HA to make to check for “signs of life”.

I’m just saying that the part where you want HA to take some action when someone doesn’t reply to a text or phone call is not really needed and I wouldn’t know what it would do anyway.

If you are concerned that you might not know that the text or call was made then you could have HA also send you a notification in the same automation that there was a phone call/text made and you would then know that you should be expecting a response. If that response doesn’t come then you need to be the one to take the appropriate action.

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Waiting for the response to an actionable notification is done with a wait_for_trigger which does have an optional timeout.

Not sure how familiar you are with actionable notifications, so here’s a blueprint that I worked on that could be modified to suit your needs with the above-mentioned timeout.

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Would I use Home Assistant to monitor a critical task like a person’s well-being?

Only after implementing a boatload of fail-safe, fault-tolerant measures to mitigate outages and minimize false-positives/negatives. Otherwise, no.

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If it was only used as a “just in case because no one ever knows might happen to even a healthy person” situation then it would be fine.

But if you knew that someone was actually at risk because of known risk factors then I agree.

I think things got a bit confused here.

the OP was about sending a notification to someone outside of your own household which is monitored by HA. presumably that person wouldn’t have a way for them to interact with your HA and respond to a notification within HA itself.

Like in the apartment complex situation someone had to “notice” that someone else wasn’t in a “normal” condition (hasn’t been seen, etc) and someone outside the household would check on them.

In this case HA would do the “noticing” and contact someone to check on you.

When I added that last bit above about notifying you if a call was made so you could expect a response I changed the assumption that the person being contacted is outside of the monitored household and not linked in to the monitored persons HA environment.

in one situation you are being monitored by HA. In the other you are the one HA is calling about the monitored person.

…And me reading the above again I’m not sure that I have done anything to minimize the confusion tho. :laughing:

So, yes, if both parties are within the same HA environment and can both send and receive notifications, etc from HA then a wait_for_trigger from a response to an actionable notification would work.

But if the contacted party is outside the HA environment then there’s not much that can be done if the monitored person doesn’t reply to a call back check-in aside from someone going to physically check on that person.

I use a similar system right now.

My wife stays home alone quite a bit when I’m at work and she was concerned about what she could do if something happened and she couldn’t get to her phone to call someone (911, one of the family, etc).

So I set up my Amazon Echo speakers to listen for a key phrase (Alexa, I need help) which sets off a routine that will have HA call and text everyone in our family (me, my wife, our kids) using Twilio to say that someone at our house needs help and then they can take appropriate action (come over, call 911 on our behalf, etc).

Is it like calling 911 ourselves? No. But it is a backup in case the situation is such that a real 911 call can’t be made. I have recently learned that Twilio can actually make direct 911 calls but I haven’t figured out how to do it yet or if the local emergency services would actually respond to a robo-call. :man_shrugging:

But if no one answers the call or sees the text then there isn’t much HA can do about it.

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Maybe this thread is interesting for you: Dead man's switch

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Fair point. I think we were just answering different levels of the question. Is it in the realm of possibility? Yes. Is it applicable to something like an apartment complex? No. At least not without getting creative, like setting up a REST API, sending a link with a POST request to the person, and checking if they clicked it with a REST sensor after some amount of time. Again, within the realm of possibility, sure. Realistic and reliable, probably not…

I think I’d prefer a buffer between an automation and a 911 call :laughing:

This is probably another instance of an interesting thought experiment, but not necessarily something that anyone would want to implement at the moment:

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I’m torn on the subject but I think I agree. Which is why I haven’t really pursued it yet.

So far tho I’ve had my call system in place for several months and I haven’t had any false positives yet. So I’m fairly confident it would be OK. But you never know.

OTOH, what would be worse - a false positive 911 call (as long as it only happened once) or an actual emergency with no way to call 911?

Like I said…I’m torn.

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14

To each their own, but for a healthy individual I think the probability and consequences of a false “911” call probably outweigh the benefit of the small advantage you’d get in a real emergency.

I’d end up setting the delay/refresh interval long enough that if I hadn’t managed to get help through some other means, I’m probably dead anyway, in which case what’s the rush.

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yup…still torn… :wink:

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If in doubt take the action that requires less effort. :smiley:

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18

exactly. which is why I haven’t done any more with it. :laughing:

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I understand 100%

This is a budding/brewing idea, I don’t know who all could use this, maybe someone that is depressed and wants a back up life line in case something happens, maybe you live alone, and hell anything can happen when you live alone, this acts as a safety net.

Not in its current brainstorming system would I even think to put this into implementation as a single life line.

This is why I want ideas and chat about it, I want to know if this is something doable, and then branch out from there. Maybe there are new integrations that could be added. Only way to make something new is to brainstorm, and we have some amazing minds here.

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Exactly! This is the boss that hasn’t seen you in a few days and not answering your phone calling to have you checked on (and that legit happened once, it was over a week, thankfully the guy just went on a bender, when he opened the door, you heard the pile of cans shifting lol)

Agreed, in it’s current state I wouldn’t want it calling 911, if AI in Alexa for your example could learn sounds, example I hope it never happens, glass breaking, mixed with time/motion sensors, then maybe. That is just an example, maybe even Alexa hears an unknown voice. Either way, what you have now is what I am thinking to start, till we can branch this out (if there is enough traction, I am not a programming wiz anymore, I used to dabble, but I am sure not in the position to write a whole integration for something lol)

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I’ll check it out, thanks!