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Will Echo Dot help a technologically-challenged 89-year-old woman with her kindle?

rickandcindy23

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This is a strange question but I need to know if the Echo Dot will help my mother-in-law. Can you ask it to find the page you were reading? Can you get it to help figure out what is going on with your Kindle? I think it would be nice for her to keep her calendar because she never remembers her flights and asks me constantly, "When are we going to Kauai again?" If she could ask the Echo Dot, that would be great. I give her an itinerary, and she doesn't write it down anywhere. If I could tell Alexa her itinerary, she could ask Alexa and not feel silly for asking me.

She is so bad at her Kindle Paperwhite, she even forgets the name of the book she is reading and cannot get back to it, once she navigates away. It's a nightmare to get back to that spot. And she starts books and reads awhile and then loses where she was and starts a new book. A lot of books are partly read.

She cannot buy anything from her Kindle, so I buy her books. She reads about two books per week, about 8 during a two-week vacation with us. She knows what she wants to read because she goes to the bookstore and sees the new books by her favorite authors and writes them down to buy, then she calls me, I log into her Amazon Prime account and order her books.

Today, she had a screen telling her that if she resets her device, all of her information would be lost, but she cannot figure out how to back out of that page. She asked me to help, but I don't have a Paperwhite. I have a Fire. So she told me to buy her a Kindle Fire because she cannot use the Paperwhite any longer because it's too confusing and difficult to use.

I would go and help her, but we are not able to hop in the car and drive to/from her house 40 miles round trip, at the drop of a hat.

I ordered her a Kindle Fire 7" tablet for $49.99 and a cover, so now she can have the Fire she has always wanted. It supposedly has some Alexa capability. I am anxious to see what it will do for her. Is anyone familiar with this Kindle, and is it going to be the same as the Echo Dot?

We leave for San Antonio on Saturday, and the Fire will arrive on Sunday (odd for a package to arrive on Sunday).
 

Phydeaux

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My advice - simplify.

She shows signs of memory loss and cognitive impairment, would you agree?

She's 89. IMHO, she needs less electronics, not more. Was the Kindle her idea or yours?

Give her the gift of your time.
 

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Give her the gift of your time.

I couldn't agree more with this in principle. In reality, I understand that giving time can be difficult.

Depending on the financial position she, you, and your SO's siblings are in, there are things you can do to get her some help. A part time companion (not medical caretaker) that comes over for a couple hours every once in awhile to help her square her things away wouldn't be that expensive. There are volunteer organizations that support homebound elderly with acts ranging from dropping off a meal to having someone over and just give them some company, etc.

My mother lived 1000 miles from me, my wife's lives in central Russia. Being able to drive 40 miles to help them organize once or twice a week would be a great luxury for us. I understand that you probably already do that, but the ideas mentioned above could augment your support of her.
 

rickandcindy23

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Her idea, and she is very independent. She keeps telling me she wants a Kindle Fire because her friends have those and don't have the same problems. I told her she has a tablet, and it's the same thing. She plays games on her tablet and kind of knows how to navigate it. She has the Kindle app, so I told her to read her tablet for a while.

She needs to be able to navigate the stuff she has, but I thought the Alexa might help her.
 

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Why not set up a calendar for her online, where you can put all her dates and reminders for her, and put a link on her tablet, so she can easily find it and review it. And then set up reminders that will automatically pop up on her phone or tablet.
 

rickandcindy23

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Why not set up a calendar for her online, where you can put all her dates and reminders for her, and put a link on her tablet, so she can easily find it and review it. And then set up reminders that will automatically pop up on her phone or tablet.

I am unsure of how to do that.:p
 

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I don't think the Dot will help. The Kindle Fire- maybe. On resetting her Paperwhite: I don't think she'll lose any of HER data, because all of that is held on the Amazon Cloud. tell her to simply hold the power button until it totally shuts down- maybe a minute or two. It seems like a long time. Then restart it and all her stuff should be right where she left it. I have to do that on my Fire HD8 from time-to-time. Like yesterday after it had stopped retrieving my email on the 15th. Now, for her- the Fire will have to be charged just about every day if she uses it much (it's battery is good for about 10-12 hours) where the Paperwhite will go a month off the charger. Lots of 90 year-olds use technology just fine, but might be a little slower to pick up the nuances. They might not see every little 'button' or highlighted link on a page even if it's just a different model of a familiar device.

In the end, Cindy, you might have to bite the bullet and spend some quality time with her. That would go a long way toward her understanding the technology, and you understand your Mother-in-Law.

Peace!

Jim
 

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I am unsure of how to do that.:p

If she has a PC running Win10, just click that little round circle at the bottom of the screen, (or the Start Menu) and when the microphone appears, just ask Cortana to set it up for you. It's easy.
 

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She has money and can afford whatever, but she is not going to hire help. I know she won't do it. She does her laundry on Mondays;s cleans her little house on Wednesdays; goes to painting on Tuesdays (she is quite an artist and can do Mickey as well as any commercial artist); gets her nails done on Thursdays; and gets her hair done on Fridays. Saturdays, she goes to the Elks Lodge for shuffleboard. Sundays, she goes to the Elks to watch football or just hang around. She is a busy lady with her routine.

I have no routine like she has. I do laundry whenever, clean the house a little at a time, and I don't have any regular appointments. She amazes me. She drives well, even drives a little over-confidently (fast and brakes hard).

We talk to her every morning between 8:30 and 9:00. We don't want to find out she was laying at the bottom of the basement stairs for three days (this happened to our son-in-law's grandma). She won't wear her life alert necklace thing, even though she pays for the service. She is stubborn. So we call her, but I was also thinking the Echo would call 911, if she had an emergency (or alert us).
 

rickandcindy23

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If she has a PC running Win10, just click that little round circle at the bottom of the screen, (or the Start Menu) and when the microphone appears, just ask Cortana to set it up for you. It's easy.

She has a tablet, not a PC. She would never know how to use a PC. She can barely use her tablet. My father-in-law was the go-to computer guy for the fire department when they set up the technology. He was a genius at computers, self taught and the envy of all of the old guys on the DFD. But she had no interest in computers, and he had no patience to teach her.

By the way, this is Rick's stepmom, and her son is in New Mexico and very ill currently. He will die soon, we think. Sadly.

Anyway, my father-in-law had so little patience, he never taught Rick's mom to drive. Rick taught her to drive in 1980. She was 56. He also didn't teach Rick to drive and made Rick pay for driving school.
 

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I use google docs when I want to share info online with someone (and there are lots of other similar options.)

https://www.google.com/docs/about/

You can set it up so you both can edit it (probably not a good idea) or so the other party can add notes, but not edit info., or so the other party can only view.

You can put a link on her tablet after it's set up, and add info. at your end. Then to get her in the habit of looking at it every day, when you have your daily phone call - look at it together.
 

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My mother is in a very similar place as your MIL. My advice, do not get her more technology. It will be a new skill for her to learn and will only confuse her more , not help her.
I think going back to traditional books is probably the best approach.

My mother used to read on her Kindle all of the time, but we stopped that a few years ago and returned to giving her actual books.
 

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I don't believe Cindy is really looking for books - I think she is looking for organizational tools. Her MIL already has a tablet with the Nook App.
 

rickandcindy23

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Yes, Denise is right. Mom had an old Kindle, one of the first ones, and she had no problems with it and read her books just fine. She saw mine when we were at Shearwater and she bought one and had it sent to Shearwater. This was about 9 years ago.

She did have a piece of paper taped to the inside back of the cover with all of the books she read, so I could take those out of view of the list she still needed to read. She couldn't take the books she read off of it, but she didn't lose her place much.

The Paperwhite is different and more technical. She hates it. She told me she threw it on the lawn this past summer, when it wouldn't work, and it didn't break. She was hoping it would break. She broke her first Kindle last year, when it fell on its face while we were at Hono Koa. She was laying it down and reaching for something else, but she missed the table, and there it went. It fell flat on its face. She was very upset and of course she thought she lost her books. I loaded the Kindle app to her tablet, so she would have something to read, and we ordered Paperwhite and had it sent to Hono Koa. I showed her how to use it. She seemed to be doing fine. That was last March. It's touchy, that's for sure. The old one was not touchy. She has long, long fingernails. She forgets how to change the font and such, and I told her she cannot break it, and now she is in a screen she doesn't recognize.

I downloaded the user guide for her Paperwhite to my Kindle, and I am hoping to find the screen she sees, so I can help her from here.

Rick goes to her house every week and does chores. She has a honey-do list. Tomorrow he is installing under-cabinet lights, so he can look at it tomorrow, but I am babysitting for our granddaughter tomorrow. I cannot take her to Mom's because mom has a lot of breakable and fascinating doo-dahs all over her tables in her living room. Rae will surely break something.

So Echo won't help her with her schedule, if we put things on the schedule ourselves? What about emergencies, where she cannot get to a phone?
 

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The Echo Dot (Alexa) can work with Google Calendar. You can set up a single calendar that both you and your mother can share. If you add something to the calendar then your mother can be told by Alexa what's in her calendar, including what you added. Plus mom can use Alexa to add items to the calendar as well so you know what she's doing. Go to Amazon Echo Dot help to find out how to set up the Dot to "see" the shared calendar. Go to Google calendar to see how to set up a shared calendar. Heck, you can even link the calendar to your smartphone so you ave the data while on the go.
 

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The Paperwhite is different and more technical. She hates it. She told me she threw it on the lawn this past summer, when it wouldn't work, and it didn't break. She was hoping it would break.

OMG I would love this lady!
 

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If you are going to get a Kindle Fire, I would suggest getting a Kindle Fire HD because then she can contact "MayDay" with the press of a button and a Tech Support Person would appear on the screen to help and also be able to perform certain tasks independently. This would be very helpful for your MIL.

Richard
 

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I feel your pain. My mom is 93 and is quite active with technology, but she still needs lots of help. A few weeks ago, she called me and told me she had a virus on her laptop. I asked her how she knew, and she said she was stuck on a page that advised her to call Microsoft and have them help her get rid of it. Punchline is that she was on the Chromebook I'd bought her.........:doh:

Anyhow, I agree with Richard. Get her a Kindle with which she can use the MayDay feature. I don't have any first hand experience, but if it works as advertised, it should take some pressure off you to be her tech support.
 

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First of all, Rickandcindy, I think you both deserve a great big pat on the back for doing all you do.:cheer: This new tech stuff is very confusing to many of us. I am 73 and am confused about everything I know it can do but I cant. My partner is very good with it and helps me all the time. Then, I forget what she tells me. You youngins have lived and grown up with this stuff but I bet I can thread an old film projector better and faster than you.:whooopie:As we age, we learn things but soon forget what we have learned about tech stuff. It is a new world. I can still balance my checkbook to the penny!
 
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