WellWatch — eldercare check-ins on Ring

Inspiration

We noticed that many families worry about their elderly parents living alone and the inability to check in constantly. We wanted to create a solution that uses existing hardware to provide a safety net through automated interactions. This led us to bridge the gap between security and peace of mind.

What it does

WellWatch schedules regular check-ins via Ring devices to verify the well-being of seniors. It processes audio and motion cues to detect distress or a lack of activity. If no response is detected or distress is identified, the system triggers immediate alerts to designated caregivers.

How we built it

We built the core logic using Python on AWS Lambda to handle event-driven triggers. We used boto3 to interact with the Ring API and fetch necessary event data. Amazon Comprehend was utilized to analyze the sentiment and intent of voice responses to determine if the user is okay.

Challenges we ran into

We struggled with managing the latency between the Ring event and the Lambda execution time. We also had to refine our natural language processing prompts to distinguish between background noise and actual verbal responses. Balancing the sensitivity of the alert detection required multiple iterations of our logic.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We are proud of successfully integrating Amazon Comprehend with Ring events to create actionable insights. Our system successfully handled complex check-in scenarios with high accuracy. We successfully created a seamless workflow that feels natural for non-technical family members.

What we learned

We learned a lot about the nuances of natural language understanding in a healthcare context. We also gained deep insights into how to structure asynchronous workflows using AWS Lambda and boto3. Understanding the constraints of Ring device polling helped us optimize our data fetching.

What's next for WellWatch

We plan to expand the predictive analytics to detect changes in daily routines over time. We also want to integrate more robust dashboards for caregivers to view history of check-ins. Adding support for more Ring device types is our immediate priority.

Built With

• amazon-comprehend
• amazon-ring
• aws-lambda
• boto3
• eldercare
• wellwatch