Telecare is there an internet based system?

[ericmark]

The council are fitting something they call telecare which is an upgrade to the carelink installed but it is only for a limited time to see what is needed.

The system can be bought but it's very expensive and telephone based which means simply knocking a telephone off the rest could stop it working. The idea is it is less intrusive than using something like a pet cam sensors show if door is opened or if my mother is sitting on a chair or bed but stops short of taking pictures.

I will still likely use a pet cam in living room so I can talk to her and see she is OK but clearly not suitable for the bedroom.

Using broadband would be far better the main point is using the phone will not disable the system. Likely it will need some box which then displays the info like any good scada system with a PLC. But the idea of getting a PLC and writing a scada program is all well and good until it goes wrong and all my old PLC's need a 9 pin serial port on PC which is now rather rare.

So any ideas?

 

[bernardgreen]

A properly designed system will have the telephone interface as the first item on the incoming line. If there is a need for it to dial out then it takes control of the line by disconnecting all telephones. It then ensures the loop is open circuit ( = phones on hook ) for any existing call to drop out. It then loops the line and dials out.

 

[ericmark]

A properly designed system.

Clearly not properly designed. Yes the 4 cordless phones go through the carelink box but the other phones which are hard wired throughout the house are in parallel with the carelink not in series.

My house does have the option for series as wired for fax machine use where when the fax machine answered it would auto disconnect all other phones. However unless wired for fax then it would need the installers to alter the standard extension system used in most houses. To do this would mean unplugging the bottom of the BT master socket and removing any slave sockets. These would then need plugging into the carelink box. This means in practical terms the carelink box needs to be at the BT master socket but the microphone and speaker is built into the base unit so having to go into the hallway to talk to the monitoring station does not really work.

There are three rooms where my mother transfers from wheel chair to some other item really there should be extension speakers and microphones in each of the three rooms but that would be sensible so they will not do it. Even if when they can't hear her they were to ring the phone rather than just use the main unit it would help. But no I have to travel to her house only to find her sleeping in bed.

 

[bernardgreen]

The Carelink base unit does not have to be next to the Master Socket. A two pair cable is installed between the Master socket and the CareLink box. One pair takes the incoming AB pair from the Master socket to the CareLink box ( Line ) and the other pair takes it back the Master soccket for distribution to telephone. Then if the CareLink requires the phone it disconnects the return on the second pair and takes over the line.

 

[ericmark]

Clearly the ideal but also clear after talking to the only lady the council has trained to install these units that she simply plugs in to handy socket and does not wire in any extensions.

They could easy use a mobile sim card or use internet for the link. They use existing phone so they require user to have phone line installed so they could also require user to have internet installed or pay for sim card.

Sim card likely best as unit could use land line when available and just use sim when land line not available.

But when upgraded to telecare I will need internet to view when my mother is so if required one end why not other end?

I have sat at my sons house when his works calls and watched him use scada to view what is going on and try talking the operators through fixing the problem without physically going into work. My daughter had to phone my son in law before I could switch off power as he using home PC at work. Today this is quite common it's not rocket science.

But I am no IT expert and setting up old Win98 PC to talk to another PC so I could operate it remotely worked with free software but when I went to XP this stopped working. If using a standard package or system help is available but use some odd system and one is on ones own. This is why I don't use linex it works well but getting help is hard.

So I want to install something which is relativity common so any problems I am likely to find help. Hence why pet cam seems good. As it stands best option is door contacts and PIR's working a set of LED's which I can see with the pet cam. I am sure there is a better system?