How a Retired Engineer Uses DIY Tech to Help Older Adults Age at Home | The AgeTech Podcast S4E27 with Frank Engelman

Keren Etkin: So your, your focus group they just, they get their questions answered and they

don’t provide feedback if it worked or not.

Is that correct?

Frank Engelman: Right. Yeah, so that’s, so that’s one of the problems I have. You get, I get a lot better feedback on the tech websites like Reddit, you know, get a lot of feedback there, get a lot of ideas there too.

One of the things that’s helped, that’s helped me a lot too is chat.

GPT

has been great providing do it yourself kinda solutions. They’re not always right, but it helps me get a different set of input by asking, you know, well, what’s out there that does this? And they’ll come up with some things. And so I found that helps. It also helps me with, coding too, because I I write iPhone apps too.

Keren Etkin: Brilliant.

So I wonder, first of all, what caused

you to create your own apps? I assume it was like an unmet need that you

encountered.

Frank Engelman: Yeah, a lot of the things I do are just using specific settings that people don’t know about that are buried under , accessibility, or shortcuts, you know, apple shortcuts. But there’s some things you can’t do. Like I was working on this one where. This person wanted a way to, when they’re out of the room and their iPhone gets a, a phone call, when they come back in the room, they want a light to be flashing, a physical light.

Okay. Well, with shortcuts you can’t, you can’t trigger off of that. But I can, if I write a app, and so I wrote that app where I can trigger off of it.

Keren Etkin: That’s brilliant. And then again, you use like an off the shelf, I assume, what is a volume sensor and an off the shelf

smart light

to make it work

Frank Engelman: Yeah. I use a smart light now the volume sensor, the app I wrote for the phone can actually detect it ringing. I. Okay, so it doesn’t have to listen. It actually APIs where it can know it’s ringing, and so I use that to trigger the smart light,

Keren Etkin: Brilliant. thing that I did also did not know about, but I learned through your blog is that iPhones can

actually detect specific sounds like the doorbell ringing and flash the lights,

Frank Engelman: Yeah, I’ve done, I’ve done that one for a person who needed that, you know, if they’re deaf. I also did one using sounds to record, how many times a day you cough. You know, if you’re worried about So

Keren Etkin: wow

Frank Engelman: it’s got a lot of capabilities. It’s a little flaky though, I’ll say.

It doesn’t always work.

Which is which, which is what I’m te so I don’t, for example, the sound detection one that I’m working on now for notifications, I’m, I’m gonna test it for a co for a couple more weeks to be sure it works. You know, it’s gotta be, it can’t fail a lot, you know what I mean? It could fail once in a while, but.

So that’s what I focus on, is I actually use this stuff myself too.

Keren Etkin: So what is the most underrated tool or app that

you have found and you would you wish more people would

know about or use?

Frank Engelman: I’d say look in the accessibility settings of your iPhone or iPad, that’s, that’s important. There’s a lot of hidden gems in there. And the other one is look into shortcuts, because you can do a lot with those. But you can make, you know, when I said you can’t make, you can’t make your phone speak. apple will only only allow the iPhone to speak notifications when, when it’s locked, but you can.

Make, messages and incoming emails speak using shortcuts, which is a way around that limitation. So there’s a lot that you can do with that. So if you look, when I think about my articles, a lot of them are based on that settings in using shortcuts or specialty apps that I and others have written to do things.

Keren Etkin: That’s awesome. I wonder you mentioned it on your, on your blog that you try to also find

solutions that work without wifi or even an

internet connection. what are some examples

Frank Engelman: tough one.

Keren Etkin: solutions that, that don’t do that.

’cause ev almost everything requires a wifi these

days

Frank Engelman: It does,

and the vendors could do a better job of this because there are.

Bluetooth smart plugs that you can use, that you can set ’em up with Bluetooth, but they can actually operate on Bluetooth. But the problem is the vendor also expected there to be wifi there for their app to work. So it makes a little tough.

I have found several standalone things like I’ve got. Motion sensors that can talk to a smart bulb without any wifi. You know, they’re just direct. connection through R through rf, and I’ve done buttons too. there’s even one that has a turn knob that you can adjust the brightness. So I do a lot of that kind of thing where I’m trying to think of the person who doesn’t have anything, you know, and, and my new focus is going to be on, I just have a iPhone.

That’s all I have. I don’t want any, I don’t want any other device. Apple with their home app, they want you to have a Apple TV or a home, A home pod mini, but you can do a lot with just your iPhone and shortcuts. And so I’m gonna show how you can do some limited smart home controls with just that.

Keren Etkin: Smart Home controls with just an

iPhone.

Frank Engelman: Yeah.

Keren Etkin: Wow.

So, we, I mean, you do need at least smart plugs or smart

light

bulbs

in

smart

Frank Engelman: Well, yeah, well, of course. Yeah, whatever you wanna,

excuse me. Turn on like a smart bulb

or a smart plug. Right. So the trick is that if you’ve ever looked at, apple shortcuts, if you’ve ever looked into actions, a lot of the vendors like TP Link and others will actually have a shortcut action for their devices.

Which is something that not a lot of people know about. It’s sort of a hidden feature. with a iPhone that you can turn on a TP or Casa Smart plug, you know,

Keren Etkin: So is there, did, is there anything that you tried to do but you simply couldn’t find easy enough solution using existing off the shelf product? I mean, are there any types of challenges that you were asked to solve?

That you able to, and you’d say, okay,

we can’t do this today, current technology doesn’t allow it.

Frank Engelman: I’d say because of, you know,

yeah, exactly. Because when you work with Apple, they’re, they’re very big into security, and so when I did this one for the. flashing a light when a phone call comes in. Well, I’d like to be able to, they, they wanna know the difference between, is it from one of my contacts or is it not, you know, just a general thing.

So you could change the light color. I can’t find APIs to do that. another one is they wanna differentiate between it rang and it left a voicemail. I can’t do that either. You know? So these, so these are the things the vendor has to solve, you know, that I don’t have access to.

Keren Etkin: So if we

have

anyone

from Apple watching us…

Frank Engelman: And there’s a lot of things I wish they would,

there’s, there’s a lot of things I wish they do too. You know, they have, they have this, they have this accessibility group and they have special settings for things, but the problem is on, on their general apps like mail. They have tiny little icons that my 80, that my 98-year-old aunt cannot see.

And, and they make ’em like a light blue, you know, and she has to take a magnifying glass and that kind of thing. And, and they need just a setting. I want accessibility mode. The clo the closest thing they came out with. assistive access, which I don’t know if you’ve seen my, you’ve seen my article on this.

It turns a smartphone into just, it’s got like maybe four to six big icons on there that you can tap on to, to make it like, almost like a old flip phone, which is big icons. Well, they didn’t do all the apps, like they didn’t do mail for example yet, you know, so hopefully they’ll do that.

Keren Etkin: I think that’s one area in which Android actually is better because you can just download like a big button

launcher from the,

the app store, the Google

store, and you’re done

Yeah,

Frank Engelman: but I’ve chosen to go with Apple and Amazon here. ’cause I.

That seems to be what most of the people I, I talk to want, you know, so.

Keren Etkin: so

what are your favorite DIY solutions that you came up with

that are most useful or more, more, most fun to use?

Frank Engelman: I’d say the lighting, when it’s a reminder to do something, the speaking, the reminders and. Having to, press a button to say, I did it. You know, so, and then you can, I have, family that checks on these, you know, I have other accounts so I can see what it looks like from the, from the other side too, so, so I can track how they’re doing.

things like guided lighting at night when, when you get outta bed to light the pathway to the bathroom and turn on the lights in the bathroom at a, at a lesser level at night, so, so that you don’t get blinded. So those are probably the things I use the most too myself. So.

Keren Etkin: that is brilliant. I love the guided path. I wonder, I’m sure that some people watching us are wondering about the affordability of setting your entire home with smart lights and getting all these Alexa devices, which I assume you have multiple Alexa devices and getting an iPhone and

getting iPads and the Apple Watch, what is some

advice that you

have

for

Frank Engelman: Yeah.

Keren Etkin: who want to get to make their home smart?

They, they are reading through your

blog. They’re inspired, they wanna do it, but they’re not gonna spend

thousands of dollars on it

right now

Frank Engelman: right

Sure.

Well, if they already have an iPhone, they got a good start. So I would say what they might wanna do with that is look at, the way I have a turning on smart lights, you know, I would start with lights like, for example. you, you, could do, you know, like your outside porch light or whatever. It’s nice to have that automated so you don’t leave it on or you forget to turn it on and all that. So you could do that simple kind of automation just with, shortcuts and personal automation on your smartphone. So I would start with that kinda lighting. I’d start with, um. any other time, time of day lighting, when you put on the bed, the bedroom lights, when it’s time to encourage you to go to bed.

So that kind of thing. If you wanna do any more than that, like you want motion sensing lightings or contact closures, then you need to get something like a. Apple TV or, or a, or a HomePod Mini where you can write, more complex automations. And I think you’ve given me an idea here. I think I wanna more write an article just starting fresh.

What’s the simplest thing that I can do, to have some smart home features?

Keren Etkin: Yeah

Frank Engelman: of course we get more talking texts there. I don’t know if you heard that one, but, what was I saying? Oh, you can speak to shortcuts too. So if you say the name of the shortcut, if it’ll operate, you know, if you do one of these smart home lights or smart plug, you can say its name and it’ll turn it on.

Keren Etkin: So

Frank Engelman: there’s a lot you can do.

So I think I’m gonna write a getting started article here. Thank you for the idea.

Keren Etkin: is the basic thing people

need? Because they need,

they need

some

device to set everything up and maybe a device that can speak and

some lights.

So

what

is the most affordable way to get started?

Frank Engelman: Yeah, well you where your phone can speak for sure.

Keren Etkin: So that was, actually my last question Before we wrap up, is there anything that we didn’t talk about that you would like to add? Any call to action to our

viewers or listeners?

Frank Engelman: Well, you know what I wish there was out there is, you know, I look at all the, at the work that AARP has done with helping tech startups, you know, they’re doing all, they do a lot of handholding even, right? But what they don’t seem to do is promote. Something like what I’m doing to tell people how to do it themselves.

Not just how to this product that’ll come down the line help, help, help and develop that. But here’s what you can do today yourself, or you can you can do for your mom. I wish they would do that. Like one, like one I’m working on now. I don’t know if many people know about this, but you know, with an Apple calendar, if your mom had one.

You. She, she can share that with you and you can from your side, add things to her calendar. Or see what she’s put on there. And what’s nice is you see it on your calendar and then you know, oh, I gotta take her to the doctor today. You know, there’s things like that. My next step is making it speak for her to kind of remind her and, you know, say it several times and make her confirm it, you know, so.

I just wish there was something out there that would promote this more than me trying to do it like I’m doing here. That they would take these ideas or start their own group of ideas, but have this focus for family members who wanna help their their elder.

Keren Etkin: Brilliant. That is a, that is a great call to action. And yeah, I, I just more people knew that they. Could actually do a lot of this stuff relatively easily and that, like you said, there’s so much hidden under the accessibility features that people could really use on a daily basis, but they just have no idea.

That it exists. So thank you so much for for creating your blog and your channel to tell people about it and, and explain to people how to do it. I learned a lot of

new stuff from watching your channel and from reading your blog, so thank you for

that.

Frank Engelman: Thank you.

Keren Etkin: and Thank you.

for joining me on the show today, Frank.

It was an absolute pleasure chatting with you.