[Closed] Technology for family organisation

paper calendar with nice pictures on
pen.

some things don't need to be complex.

We use google calendars and drive for most of our organisation and find it really good in terms of ease of sharing, etc. Especially if wanting to check something while at work, etc.

Funnily enough, I had been thinking of something similar with a cheap tablet.

To expand on that, a tablet in every room that were linked together by wireless would be handy, or if they were small enough to go in your pocket that would be better as you could take them in to the garden.

Google now is available on cheap tablets, which is a plus - not sure if Cortana will be.

Oh, and if you are going to post to say 'use a pen and paper what's wrong with you kids to day back when all this was fields blablabla' don't bother. We know, ok?

Tablet?
You need a [url= https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/jibo-the-world-s-first-family-robot ]Jibo[/url] to keep at the top of the geek pile.

[img] [/img]

First visitor to Molgrips' to go... "OK Google"

like the idea - but found we don't really need HAL on the wall - as all have phones/chromebooks/ipads anyways and setting a calendar widget on home takes care of it.. Google is mostly great for managing and sharing the calendars (somehow it always seems to suffer a few foibles).

So the tablet or pc on wall kind of became redundant - except perhaps as something like a TV(!) cos it was all in the cloud (SKynet!) anyhow

Biggest issue I find is garaging all these devices and chargers..

I really like the idea of integrated gadgetsscreens-- but now think creating a hutch/garage/shelf with power etc. in a handy spot is a more durable solution (the gadgets chnage so much faster then the decor/kitchen unites etc?)..

OK Google: get my coat!

My wife often doesn't have her phone, and you have to get it out and look at it. The point about wall mounted is that it's always there and you can notice what's on it even if you weren't thinking about what you had to do. It would remind you without you having to pro-actively check.

There's a spot on our wall where we put the calendar and clock that's perfect for this, right by the breakfast table.

Online calendar or clrota.com. Meant for staff rotas but would be perfect for a family to know who is where.

I would love an e-ink wall calendar that would show our shared Google calendar on it. I'm surprised you can't get such a thing, but I've never seen any. Using a tablet seems a bit wasteful - it only needs to update infrequently, possibly just once a day.

I've seen a few hacked e-readers that have been turned into wall calendars, but I will never get round to making one myself!

You need a Jibo to keep at the top of the geek pile.

Looks like a smarter version of Nabaztag. I did have one, but it was pretty useless....

[url= https://farm1.staticflickr.com/81/246859341_a871e5a9d8_z.jp g" target="_blank">https://farm1.staticflickr.com/81/246859341_a871e5a9d8_z.jp g"/> [/img][/url][url= https://flic.kr/p/nPdFx ]My new 'pet'[/url] by [url= https://www.flickr.com/people/75003318@N00/ ]brf[/url], on Flickr

Looks like a smarter version of Nabaztag. I did have one, but it was pretty useless....

molgrips - Member
My wife often doesn't have her phone, and you have to get it out and look at it. The point about wall mounted is that it's always there and you can notice what's on it even if you weren't thinking about what you had to do. It would remind you without you having to pro-actively check.

So would you have it permanently connected to power? And set the screen to be permanently on?
How would it remind you? Bleeps? You would still have to look at the screen, wouldn't you?

Would it not be simpler to just use something like Google Calendar on the devices you already have? They can remind you of all this family organisation wherever you are, rather than if you are passing the device in the kitchen....

My wife often doesn't have her phone

What is it with women and their inability to either carry their phone with them, or answer it when they do?

.. or plug it in to the bedside charger each night so it always has charge...

And set the screen to be permanently on?

Well this is a drawback. Ideally you'd want a motion sensor or something to wake it up when you enter the room. It would sit beneath (or instead of) the clock so would be entirely visible. There's a difference between seeing it in plain view on the wall and having to remember to actually check to see what's going on in the day. For me there is at least.

I've been thinking about this too. It would appear our pen and paper calendar is the Gospel in our house. If it's not on there it ain't happening. That's not really very helpful if I'm away with work and need to see what commitments I have at home so the idea of a shared and sync'd electronic calendar sounds ace. If it used e-ink it could be always on and batteries should last ages.

Let me know when you find something inexpensive that does this Molgrips

Hmm.. seems some people are trying to attach e-ink displays to Raspberry Pis

Ah, women and phones.....?

"Why are you late back from your ride?"

"Because I wasted 30 minutes trying to ring and text you to say that I needed a lift as the rear mech had snapped off, and had to walk 3 miles home in the pissing rain as you never answered"

"Oh, I thought I'd heard tbe phone going off..." 🙄

Sounds like a nice idea, but yeah I'd definitely be wanting a large, colour, low/zero power passively-lit e-Ink display, rather than a small tablet screen blazing away on the wall.

I think that's a good few years off yet.

In the meantime the missus and I organise ourselves by shared Google Calendars and To-Do lists on our iPhones and iPad, so there is usually one or more devices near at hand with our hectic social life on it*

* (i.e. kids parties, kids classes, kids activities, kids days out, etc 🙂 )

Take a look at Cozi - [url= http://www.cozi.com/ ]http://www.cozi.com/[/url]

Runs on multiple platforms, bigger in the US than it is here. They were recently bought by Time Inc. so pretty stable as a service.

You can link existing calendars into the shared one too, so you don't have to switch from one you've already got.

+1 for Cozi from someone who works away from home and used to struggle to add things to 'the calendar on fridge' from afar.

[quote=dazh ]My wife often doesn't have her phone
What is it with women and their inability to either carry their phone with them, or answer it when they do?

I suffer this with mrs B, 🙄

"texted you this am, no reply so I called you in pm, rang and went to voicemail and let a message did you get it?"

No

"Have you checked your phone?"

Its in my bag on silent or off* delete as necessary

"Why?" <sigh>

The e-ink things sounds better

Can you get a tablet to never turn off/ go to sleep. If you could then it a power drain

With these things in the end its the human bit that's the issue. Do people look at it. Will you be able to read it without walking upto it, I'm thinking text size.

Back of the fridge would seem the place to mount it

[quote=ampthill ]
Back of the fridge would seem the place to mount it

Certainly wont see it there then. 😉

A few years back, I looked in depth at a calendaring solution that both myself (Android) and my OH (iThings) could use collaboratively.

I tried many solutions, and the answer in the end was using Google Calendar as the glue. We both have Google accounts with personal calendars, and a shared calendar on one of the accounts (mine IIRC, largely irrelevant which anyway) which we both have access to.

It's natively supported on Android, obvs, and I use the Pure Grid Calendar widget to view it. What my better half does I'm not sure I'm afraid, it may be natively supported now? I use [url= http://www.fieldstonsoftware.com/software/gsyncit3/ ]gSyncit[/url] to synch my personal calendar, which is largely work stuff, with Outlook at work (at the time the official sync toy was A Bit Crap, never had cause to revisit it after I bought gSyncit).

I don't currently have a 'fridge tablet' but if I did it'd trivial to sync with the calendars and have a display; Pure has a lockscreen widget, and I'm sure there's others. I've toyed with the idea of Clubcard Vouchering a Hudl for kitchen duties before now, would be handy for recipes. O2 used to do something called a 'Joggler' or something similar which looked ideal, though I doubt that's still available.

Maybe i meant fridge door. No idea what I was on

I have seen many threads where it is claimed that it "wins the internet", sorry fellas but this one loses the internet. 😉

The software is sorted. WP8 does exactly what we want, and presumably W8 too. Only issue is as mentioned, the power consumption. Could do with a way to make it wake on motion or sound. Apparently there are Android apps for this.

Could maybe manage with timed wake for the mornings then manual at other times.