Ask Slashdot: Bulletproof Video Conferencing For Alzheimers Home?

Milo_Mindbender writes I'm trying to find a bulletproof near zero maintenance video conferencing client for shared use in an Alzheimers living facility. It's used so the patients can regularly see their relatives who are often out of town. Most everything I've tried on PC or Mac requires tweeks/updates from time to time to keep it working, not good in a place where there are no computer savvy people. It looks like most of the low cost dedicated boxes have died out too. The ideal setup will be turnkey with little-to-no maintenance and if possible support auto-answering calls from approved users. It needs to be compatible with video conferencing apps the relatives can easily get on phone/tablet/pc such as Skype, Facetime, Hangouts...etc. Any suggestions?

Comments

example of "dork" thinking ruining tech

[globaljustin]

Splab, thank you.

Thank you for giving us an a *perfect* example, in the wild, of *exactly* how techies answer questions condescendingly & with making big assumptions, but most importantly, demonstrating you have a high level of technical knowledge, but not ***ACTUALLY FIXING THE PROBLEM***

People like you have been making tech obnoxious for decades, and it needs to stop. /. bear witness:

OP says no maintenance at the Alzheimers home, my suggestion needs no intervention **on the Alzheimer homes part** once it's up and running.

If OP wants something that requires **absolutely no setup, no software, no hardware and magic internet rainbows, then he is shit out of luck**. But that's not how I read the request.

It is perfect. All the elements are there. This kind of response typifies interactions between people with tech problems and those who claim to be able to fix them.

First, obviously OP was asking about **low maintenence for everyone** not just one subset. This is the language voodoo. Conjuring a dichotomy of meaning where there is none.

2nd, we see the dork/troll complete the circle by insinuating that OP was ("obviously!") being unreasonable thinking they could get something at required **absolutely** no maintenence...for that he's, of course, "shit out of luck"

But OP didn't as for "absolutely no maintenence"...but for the dork/troll that doesn't matter. This whole thing was a way for parent to demonstrate superiority by dropping some jargon & then making the original person out to be dumb for ever asking the question.

***WE MUST STOP DOING THIS FOREVER***

It's ruining our industry, and our work life quality. People hate a person who (having demonstrated their technical knowledge by dropping jargon) wastes their time.

When people need help, it's wrong to use that as an opportunity to make yourself look smarter. It only makes everything worse, and it causes the other person to hate you and tech in general.

Just stop. Forever. The whole routine...let's just end it...