How to check on an elderly parent from far away
You want to check on an elderly parent from far away. You live hours away, maybe in another state, and your mom or dad lives alone. You call, and when you get an answer you feel better for a while. Then the call ends and the worrying starts again. Here's how families handle the distance.
Find a few people who live close by
Being far away matters most when something goes wrong and nobody nearby knows about it.
- Find one person who lives close. It could be a neighbor, a friend from church or a relative across town. Ask if you can call them when you can't get an answer.
- Keep the important numbers in one place, like the doctor's, the neighbor's and a nearby friend's.
- Agree on a plan: who goes over if nobody answers, and how soon.
A daily check-in instead of a daily call
A daily call works until the day nobody picks up, and then you have no way to tell what's going on.
With Lanturne, the person you look after taps I'm OK on a Wear OS smartwatch once a day, and you see it on your phone, wherever you are.
Make the nearby person your emergency contact
If you don't answer an alert, your emergency contact gets it too. The person who lives close is the obvious choice, since they can get there while you're still on the road.
What else you get an alert for
The watch connects to our servers directly, so your phone can be in another state or another country. Here's every alert you can get, and what happens when one comes in.
Getting started
Here's which watch and phone you need, and what it costs.