I’m wondering if anyone is aware of a tool that could work as an internet connected dementia clock - that is displaying the time, time of day, date, and the ability to update the display remotely with reminders, notes, and messages.
I have an old iPad kicking around, which could save us from purchasing something like this.
Thanks in advance!
I don’t know of anything built for that purpose but you could use home assistant dashboards to pull it off pretty easily if you already have an instance set up.
I would prefer something that functions both on and off line. A home assistant dashboard will be useless while you, for example, reboot the server. You would want something that stores all it needs locally and gets pushes from a server. Though I don’t know what that would be …
As the importance of a system increases your attention to stability must also increase.
Edit: you probably want something that is locked down as well so that the user doesn’t accidently click to a different screen or exit the app.
I’m going to just advise you to consider the nature here and if you really want to self host. Unless you really think you’ve put enough effort in to make sure your running HA and are prepared to support.
Consider when you may need this most, in an emergency where you ain’t going to be troubleshooting with a family members health on the line.
IMO, I have zero interest in that level of responsibility.
Similar to atzanteol’s reply, I appreciate the thoughtfulness you put in to this. Our use case is luckily not so severe as needing reminders for important tasks (medication, eating, etc)… yet. A dumb clock would almost meet our needs, save for the desire to leave notes about our interactions (remembering when we last talked/saw each other is the major stressor).
Not the advice you’re looking for but I wouldn’t do this… I have a lot of experience with servers and software development and I wouldn’t do it. The amount of effort to make and support a robust system like this is bigger than running a Jellyfin server for friends.
The client needs to be super user friendly and robust. It should work even when the server is unavailable. And you’ll need to be on the hook for support. The server would need high availability as well for people adding reminders and schedules. Those are expensive requirements both in terms of money and time. Redundancy isn’t cheap.
If these things aren’t true the users won’t trust the system and/or won’t use it. Or a dementia patient could become confused. Maybe they skip medication or double-take it because a reminder wasn’t shown? Think through your failure modes carefully.
I appreciate the thoughtfulness. I’m not dead set on self hosting - I figured that the relatively simple functionality might already exist in some tools. The client side of the solution would involve no interaction which is why I considered the self hosting route. If the server goes down, as long is it continues to display the time/date/last know notes/messages without any intervention then it would meet our needs. A dashboard tool that runs some elements independently and queries a server for updates on occasion.
I did find MagicMirror, which looks like it could be set up with an SBC connected to a monitor. I haven’t yet had time to dig in to its workings to see if would meet the offline/online requirements.
I also found calendarclock.app which, while not self hosted, is purpose built for this scenario and would allow the recycling of existing hardware.
So long as you understand and accept the risks - that’s your call. Glad you’re thinking things through.
That calendarclock looks promising actually. One of the things I was going to suggest was some sort of “client monitoring” to ensure that the screen has been updated so that it doesn’t display old events which would be very confusing to somebody struggling with a sense of time. And their admin app seems to provide you with a “last updated” time which you could check to see if it’s working. Hopefully there could be some alarms/notifications if it hasn’t updated recently?
Either way - I hope the person you intend this for is doing well. As well as those caregiving.
You really don’t need a server for this functionality. You could handle everything locally with a bit of python and use an s3 connection or something to set changes remotely. It should be an extremely simple project.
It’s not like he’s developing a product that needs to meet FDA regulations or support hundreds of or something.
Any reason to have it be self hosted, or really Internet connected? I can think of a few reasons, but I’m curious your use case.
I know they make $15-20 standalone units that are just what you’re looking for, but not Internet connected at all.
The desire to have it internet connected comes from my wanting to leave notes on the screen. Currently, the major cause of anxiety/stress for the family remember is not remembering when we had last interacted. Leaving a kind of “journal” of our most recent interaction by phone/in person/etc may be helpful for reducing that anxiety.
I don’t use it for dementia but just as aregular reminder for myself but it shows the same things you mention hike Date, time todays calendar but also weather andl other things which are 9000 to know. And I also use HomeAssistant for it.
