Meet the Other Phone. Protection built in.

Meet the Other Phone.
Protection built in.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Geeky stuff

Does anyone have an Alexa?

6 replies

EmmaGrundyForPM · 03/07/2020 09:00

We are thinking of getting an Alexa for my parents in law but not sure if it does what we need it for.

PiL are 88 and 93. Very frail and pretty much housebound. They have carers twice a day plus cleaner who also shops for them. FiL has dementia and cant remember how to use the phone or the radio. MiL is cognitively ok but has very poor sight and finds operating the radio and phone difficult. She is also very stubborn and has refused to let us buy a big button phone.

They love listening to classical.music and also radio programmes like Gardeners Question Time. They dont use any tech like laptops, tablets or mobile phones but they do have WIFI.

I was wondering about buying an Alexa for them and then they could ask it to play radio programmes but am not sure if that is possible. If MIL asked it to play Gardeners Question Time would it do that? Also, can you use it to phone people? I cant see how that would work - can it only phone people who also have an Alexa?

I have tried looking this up on Amazon but couldnt work out whether it will respond to simple commands or if you need to be more explicit.

OP posts:
Coronacurls · 03/07/2020 09:29

An Alexa would play the radio and can phone people. Do either of them have a mobile? On the alexa app you can easily set it so it doesn't record your conversations - if they are concerned about privacy.

DominaShantotto · 03/07/2020 09:37

My techno-muppet mother managed to work out how to persecute us with Neil Diamond songs within 2 minutes of coming to my house (and this is the woman who still has cassette tapes in her car... with no cassette player).

You can say Alexa play Radio 4 and she'll waffle a bit about linking to the BBC app or something and then play it.

ElizabethMainwaring · 03/07/2020 09:42

They are wonderful.
Get an echo show rather than a dot if you can afford it. They are on offer for sixty quid at the moment.

EmmaGrundyForPM · 03/07/2020 13:50

@Coronacurls

An Alexa would play the radio and can phone people. Do either of them have a mobile? On the alexa app you can easily set it so it doesn't record your conversations - if they are concerned about privacy.
No, neither of them have a mobile phone. Which is why I can't work out how they could use Alexa to phone us.

Dh and I have mobiles but no signal where we live. So all our calls from home have to be via landline.

OP posts:
Francesthemute · 03/07/2020 13:53

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

EmmaGrundyForPM · 03/07/2020 16:02

Thank you. I've looked at The Show but it's a bit of a gamble if MiL can actually see the screen well enough. I guess we could try.

OP posts:
New posts on this thread. Refresh page