Summoning
Help With Amazon’s Alexa, Google’s Home and Microsoft’s Cortana Devices….
© 2017 BOB SKIDMORE ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
BOB SKIDMORE
CORRESPONDENT
Last year I featured Amazon’s “ALEXA” a/k/a “ECHO” in
my March column. http://www.goo.gl/TFX7GF Since then many similar devices such as Google’s
“Home” and Microsoft’s “Cortana” have appeared in the market place. While all
these devices offer many neat features, none actually summon help. Amazon’s
“Echo Connect” will be available later this year in the U. S. A., UK and
Germany, as an optional, one-time, cost. Since it interfaces with your
landline, if you still have one, it could call 911 or other emergency service
by turning your ECHO device into a speakerphone that lets you make land-based
phone calls by just using your voice.
Ask My Buddy is an app that
is loaded into your ALEXA (ECHO), HOME or CORTANA device. It’s a free service, with
optional upgrades that connects a user to their personal alert network by voice
commands that are recognized by any of the three devices listed above. The free
version is designed for use by all registered users and is especially a
favorite of senior and mobility challenged individuals. It’s not a replacement for
calling 911, but rather a tool for those people trying to maintain their
independence, offering the security of knowing help is just a shout away.
Accidents do happen and in many cases summoning help can be a difficult thing
for anyone.
Ask My Buddy is the
brainchild of Pat and Sheryl Coggins. They recognized the need for a service
that would interact with these devices when emergency help is needed. In an
effort to make this available to the masses they offer it in a free version as
well as two enhanced ones. The FREE version gives you a 5 contact list and 10
combined alerts per month. For $3.66 per month you can have 120 alerts per
month, 5 additional contacts as well as a multi-lingual feature. Multi-lingual
alerts offered are German, Spanish, French, Swedish, Portuguese and Italian
with more under consideration. For $5 per month you qualify for all of the
above with up to 400 alerts per month in addition to even more upgrades. Both
versions allow you to ask your buddy for help by simply stating the request in
the following manner. I’m using Amazon’s “Alexa” for these examples, but you
would use HOME or CORTANA if that’s the device you have: “Alexa, ask my buddy
to send help” ~ This will send an alert to all of your pre-registered contacts
and tell them you are in need of help and that they should contact you. “Alexa,
ask my buddy to alert Bob” ~ an alert will be sent to your friend Bob who is on
your pre-registered list. When you initially set up your contact list you can
select how each contact is to be contacted be it text, email, by phone or any
combination of the three methods. International calls are possible.
(TIP: Notify your pre-registered contacts that
you’ve listed them on this service and explain how it works. It’s important to
advise them that an unknown number in West Palm Beach would be notifying them
so not to disregard or consider it a robo call or spam. The same would hold
true for email and text notifications. You would be well advised to ask each
contact to create an address book entry for the West Palm Beach ASK MY BUDDY
phone number, 561.231.5676, and text number, 888.734.0751, and label it something
like “Ask My Buddy Mom”. This way your
caller ID will clearly identify what’s up when an alert comes in. Please be
aware that these numbers can change in the event of an outage and that they do
not accept incoming calls. As previously explained, the notification method is
pre-determined by you in the initial contact set-up process.)
There is no question that this is a most needed service
for all of us, at little or no cost. Hats off to the Coggins’ family for
providing and maintaining a life-saving app. At present they are supporting a
user base of over 100,000, so your contributions by selecting the upgraded
versions would go a long way to supporting the service, which obviously has
some operating expenses for the Coggins.
Ask My Buddy is now also
available at the Alexa UK store.
GADGETEER’s RATING: ★★★★★
For more information go to:
Graphic
credits: Ask My Buddy
Bob
Skidmore is a freelance writer, who may be contacted at bob.thegadgeteer.skidmore@gmail.com, or followed at twitter.com/bskidmore for the latest gadget industry news. He does not represent,
or endorse any of the products he reviews and his opinions are solely his
points of view and not those of the manufacturer. The manufacturer generally
supplies products and press releases at no cost for the articles and no other
compensation is received. THE GADGETEER is highly selective as to products he
feels worthy of review so as not to waste the reader’s time, thus the reason
for many superior ratings.
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