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Ask HN: Most interesting tech you built for just yourself?

1901 points l2silver | 11 comments | 27 Apr 23 15:04 UTC | HN request time: 0.892s | source | bottom

Maybe you've created your own AR program for wearables that shows the definition of a word when you highlight it IRL, or you've built a personal calendar app for your family to display on a monitor in the kitchen. Whatever it is, I'd love to hear it.
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pigcat ◴[29 Apr 23 02:54 UTC] No.35749579[source]▶
My grandmother has dementia. About twice a day, she calls my parents every 5 minutes, forgetting that she just hung up. The calls are always the same: "You live there now. Yes you have money. We came to visit you yesterday." This can go on for an hour or so.

My parents are incredibly patient, but after a couple of these calls, they'll just leave the phone to ring. The soundtrack of the phone constantly ringing in the house, and the guilt associated with not picking up, is unbearable.

My brother and I built a system where her calls get re-routed to a rotation of relatives to answer her calls, to spread the load. After a call with her, each person gets a 2 hour break (customizable). If no one is available to answer, or if everyone is on break, she gets a voicemail that my dad recorded that explains that we love her, that she lives there, all the usual stuff.

It's working beautifully.

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1. nashashmi ◴[29 Apr 23 02:58 UTC] No.35749603[source]▶
How did you do this
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2. Justin_K ◴[29 Apr 23 04:06 UTC] No.35749935[source]▶
Probably twilio
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3. culi ◴[29 Apr 23 06:04 UTC] No.35750446[source]▶
how can you use Twilio to reroute a call to your phone number?
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4. thawab ◴[29 Apr 23 06:29 UTC] No.35750557[source]▶
on android you can use tasker to automate this: http://tasker.wikidot.com/call-forwarding . I think IOS has a shortcut that does the same.
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5. Scoundreller ◴[29 Apr 23 06:45 UTC] No.35750641{3}[source]▶
Either route all calls from that callerid to your twilio number, port your own phone number to twilio and route all other calls to your new number, or what I would do: replace my mom's phone with an ATA and setup a dialplan for how to route calls to the child's number.
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6. oneplane ◴[29 Apr 23 13:45 UTC] No.35752807[source]▶
There are many ways to do this. Asterisk and a rented VoIP line, a hosted PBX service you just rent and transfer your line to, a 'Web 2.0' variation of the same (like Twilio), or even a programmable desk phone.
7. macNchz ◴[29 Apr 23 14:35 UTC] No.35753244{3}[source]▶
Many phone providers actually offer what they call “Selective Call Forwarding”, which allow you to set up a limited number of basic routing rules to forward calls coming from specific numbers.
8. pigcat ◴[29 Apr 23 16:44 UTC] No.35754572[source]▶
We use a custom twilio number, some rerouting logic (which is easily configured in twilio), and an api endpoint to determine the next relative that will answer. There is also a minimal frontend to configure things like who is on the roster, their break times, a place to upload a recording, and see call logs.

These are the steps we took:

1. Get a twilio number

2. All incoming phone calls to the home phone are redirected to that twilio number [1]

3. If incoming number == grandma, request from an api endpoint the next relative to dial. Redirect her call to them.

4. If no one is available, play the voice mail

5. If incoming number != grandma, redirect the call to dad's mobile number [2]

[1] A child comment by macNchz noted correctly about "Selective Call Forwarding". This would have simplified the process and we could have skipped step 5, but our telephone provider did not offer it.

[2] Note that this is a bit of a compromise in the setup. The home phone never rings anymore and all non-grandma calls go to dad's cell. But they were happy to accept this.

9. pigcat ◴[29 Apr 23 16:45 UTC] No.35754578[source]▶
In our case it was a landline, but yeah something like this would work if it was mobile!
10. pigcat ◴[29 Apr 23 16:51 UTC] No.35754638{4}[source]▶
Yep, that's pretty much spot on :D

I never knew about ATA's! I think would have solved things a little more elegantly. Thanks!

11. jskopek ◴[29 Apr 23 16:58 UTC] No.35754704{3}[source]▶
pigcat's brother here :)

In our case, my grandmother always calls my parents home phone number. The phone provider only offers simple call forwarding, so we route all calls to the home phone over to a Twilio number. We have a very simple Twilio Studio flow that routes calls from my grandmother's phone number to the call handler script we created, and all other calls are routed to my dad's cell phone number: https://share.cleanshot.com/ywwhzJ8H

We are a little lucky in that we can forward calls from our landline to a cell phone. If your relative is calling you directly on your cell phone, your carrier would need to offer selective forwarding for this strategy to work