Hampshire Council trailing the use of Amazon Echo for Independent Living.

Usually I am all for technology helping us, however after an evening of power cuts yesterday, on and off every 10 minutes, I wonder how easily the Echo, WiFi etc would be reset each time? Ours wasn’t too bad, but we did get error messages each time the power came back on.

I feel that Hampshire County Council idea to have the Amazon Echo speakers installed in people's homes to aid independent living is an excellent trial program. We have two of the Echo speakers installed in our home along with a Google Home speaker which operates in a similar manner to the Echo.

We have installed WiFi lighting throughout the house which operates under voice control through the speakers or via an app on our smartphones. The Google Home speaker can also operate our smart TV(s) by voice, turning them on or off and casting films or programs to those sets on command.

By example to the above, a voice command of " play (whatever) film on the lounge TV from Netflix" will turn on that TV if necessary and then commence the selected film without any further action being necessary. The speakers can also read audio books, set alarms and reminders, and record shopping lists and send those lists to your selected supermarket chain for delivery if required.

The Google Home speaker can also ring any person on your smartphone contact list and the conversation can be then carried out without any personal access being required to the linked phone at all

As regards WiFi failure, then both apple iPhones and Google Android phones have the ability to become routers in their own right by turning on what is known as the "hot spot" feature via their network carrier therefore keeping the speakers online. Rechargeable battery packs can be purchased for both Google Home and Amazon Echo speakers that will keep them powered for at least four hours should there be a failure in the main power supply.

In the above, it can be seen that the speakers can be an enormous aid to people with mobility problems and an aid to loneliness by their ability to tell jokes and play games with anyone who cares to engage in such as they have very natural sounding voices.

I would also feel that for very elderly or vulnerable people the speakers could easily be setup to monitor a home for contact sound, and if no such sound is heard over a set period the speaker would contact the Social or emergency services to attend the property.

Certainly for my wife who is awaiting hip surgery the speakers are a great aid. However, as we have one of the smaller Echo dots installed in our bedroom we find its greatest blessing as being when we climb into bed at the end of the day one of us only has to say "Alexa all lights off" and the lights slowly dim and extinguish all over the house. No more going round all the rooms turning everything off individually, oh joy.

Grandad as I said it’s a good idea, we have a rubbish telephone signal and have to walk down the lane to get a signal, or drive out of our village, so anything like this trial wouldn’t work for us in a power outage. I do think though that some tech savvy set up guys will have to be around for quite a while to sort out technical difficulties.
It’s all great when it works.

Hi Situpstraight.
I would agree that the setup of either the Google Home or the Amazon Echo speakers is certainly not straightforward. However, having had experience of both versions I have found that "once up and running" very few problems occur as they just sit there waiting for the opening command of "hey Google" or "Alexa" followed by the instruction of what you want it to do.

Therefore, my feeling would be that even with persons that have little or no IT experience, teaching the basic voice commands to operate the device should be an easy straight forward tuition experience for almost all having them installed.

In regard to areas with poor broadband speeds then 5mgps will run both Google and Amazon speakers as no graphics are involved. In the case of having to use a mobile network connection, then 3g should also suffice.

However, as the Hampshire County Council home speaker installation is in a trial phase then I would feel that at this point in time only property's with good broadband and LTE connectivity is being considered for use in the trial.

My wife and I live in a small town on the Bristol Channel coast of North Somerset. Only two years ago our broadband speeds were no better than 5-7mbps at peak times. In that, improvements have been rolling out quickly across North Somerset as is the case in many other areas of the country and speeds of 140mbps throughout the day is now standard in the majority of households. Again, as with many parts of the UK 4G LTE connection is now standard across the majority of North Somerset with EE now promising 5G speeds in the early part of next year.

As stated the trials will in all probability only be carried out in areas of good broadband and LTE connectivity and other means of support will have to be provided where that is not the case. The foregoing is the situation now for persons requiring social services support on a daily basis, but the addition of Amazon and Google speakers in suitable properties would without doubt I feel greatly improve communication and help alleviate loneliness for many.

Sufficient support for the elderly and vulnerable in our society is critical at a time of huge pressure on those providing social services for the most needy in our society. In that, innovation may prove to be hugely beneficial in maintaining that support into the future.

Grandad

"Sufficient support for the elderly and vulnerable in our society is critical at a time of huge pressure on those providing social services for the most needy in our society. In that, innovation may prove to be hugely beneficial in maintaining that support into the future."
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Very true. I genuinely think the mental stimulation and feeling of having at least a little independence can only be a good thing.

Good for the loved ones / carers to be able to have a little respite time for themselves or go about the day to day business of shopping etc. with a tad more piece of mind knowing they are easily contactable.