Once upon a time my 80-something-year-old grandmother was living with us while waiting for her condo (which had been badly damaged during the 1994 Northridge earthquake) to be rebuilt. She was frail and fell a lot in our big house. My mom asked me to invent something that would alert her whenever my grandmother needed help, whether at home or away.
So I went to the hardware store and bought a garage door
opener and receiver. The tiny transmitter
was worn around the neck at all times like a pendant. I connected the receiver to a small
microprocessor and added a buzzer and a telephone modem.
When the transmitter was pressed, two things would happen:
- The very loud buzzer would sound, which my mom would be able to hear anywhere in the house.
- It would dial my mom’s pager (the forerunner to cell phones) and send the number “911 911” so when my mom was out of the house she would know to come back right away.
No pictures, unfortunately.
But the system was used until my grandmother died.
Her condo was finally restored years later, and my parents
let me live there rent-free for a few years until I got a dot.com job in Orange
County and had to abandon it.