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The original was posted on /r/homeassistant by /u/ElevationMediaLLC on 2025-07-31 04:02:12+00:00.
Hi r/HomeAssistant !
This video is something that I've been working on for over 12 months, shortly after my elderly mother who lives alone lost her balance for a moment one day last summer and took a fall in her home. She wasn't injured, there was no need to get her to a hospital - but it really got me thinking. I had just returned from an international business trip mere hours before, and so she was able to get a hold of us - but part of me worried about what if I'd been in the air when it happened, or still on my business trip which was +12 time zones ahead? So I started planning what I would do with Home Assistant to help "keep an eye on her" 24x7 as best I could, but without being intrusive about it.
Note -- we did also get her a proper "Life Alert" kind of system and she has a pendant ... but that's not guaranteed to catch every scenario one can think of. And yes, we have had the talk about assisted living, but ... she doesn't want to go, and I get it. So I want to empower her to be as safe as possible. And I've documented what I've done for her in this video (because now I am having to build a second system for my elderly father who lives in a different state, and also is fiercely independent and proud and doesn't want help).
I'm not a rockstar YouTuber (yet?) so go easy on the production quality :) but if this is helpful for anyone you know I hope you'll share it. In a nutshell, for HA gurus - I have simple sensors that are basically invisible to Mom's day-to-day living, and activation of each one kicks off countdown timer(s) with the intention that the timers should never run down to zero. If they run down to zero, I get a critical alert on my phone which will bust through sleep mode, vibrate only, etc.