My Week Begins

This Blog Post is rather technical and I am doing it for the benefit of a past co-worker who is setting up an echo show for his mom in her assisted living home, much like I have done for mine.

Having gone to bed at 5 PM Sunday and just got up Sunday night the grandfather clock just struck 12 midnight. (well the Alexa routine sounded through my Echo Show 10).

It all starts with my Mom's weekly calendar which is seen in the snapshot below. Everything is a repeat of last week and each day I will revise "that" Days agenda. But first notice the "twice" daily TBD (in pale red). These are the assisted living daily activities I need to update for this week.

First I need to recover the photo I took of the home's weekly activity calendar...

With the aid of "Snapseed"app... I rotate, fix perspective and crop the image. Notice week one, (3rd thru 7th). Each day at 10:30 AM and 2:00 PM needs to be plugged into my mom's calendar, replacing the TBD's. But first I also add this snapshot to my website so I have it for each of the upcoming following weeks.

Switching to the DAY view you notice the two RED events each end with "...in Activities Room"

Of all the events on this calendar to yet be updated tonight, the above which I just completed are the most important. THEY are the ONLY two with a reminder set. Because in mom's Alexa App I have linked her calendar to Alexa, these two events will pop up on her Echo Show 15 reminding her 5 minutes prior to the event, telling her what is about to happen "... in the Activities Room".

 (and the clock strikes 1 AM)

Each of the events are preceded with the subscription service being paid for to provide the service. Note that the GREEN entries are GOOGLE services (shared with mom's account via Google family Library plan)... and the yellow events are AMAZON services (shared with mom's account via Amazon Family Sharing plans).

Also note the light blues are Alexa Routines set to trigger Video calls to people (like me in Lisbon OH, my sister in NY and mom's sister in IN) ...also  "Show My Schedule" 10 min prior to key events

I could just leave last week's programming in place to repeat today, and sometimes I do with some things, but where is the fun in that?

So now I jump on YouTube and search for a 5 - 10 min funny clip of something to be her 7 am wake up video. I have found the following to add to her calendar along with the link to add to the calendar for others who may wish to view it also.

So now I EDIT the first event on Mom's calendar to the following.  Note I also record the duration (very bottom)

Because an Echo show 15 also doubles as a FireTV it can run the subscription services above and now I create the routine in the Alexa App (mom's account) to initiate the YouTube video at 7:00 AM on Monday morning... as seen here.

So I find a movie as close to BUT no longer that 1 hour 30 min so that it starts after lunch at 12:30 PM and end prior to her 2:00 PM activity. Found "Madam Yankelova's Fine Literature Club" at 1:28 ...perfect. The movie ends at 2:00 PM and notice I adjust the Music to start playing at that time and continues up till her 6:00 PM call to her sister Bonnie.

Notice this time I do not add a wait time as the NEXT routine at 2:00 PM to play music will initiate right at the end of the movie.