One thing that I couldn't understand from the website: how is this triggered?
This sounds useful, but I also want an automated way to distribute the information when needed. Maybe a dead man's switch of sorts?
For example, suppose I'm a single adult, and I set this all up. Then I go for a hike and disappear forever. How can the trigger of distribution happen?
In our earliest versions we experimented with a dead mans switch, but feedback was that folks would forget to reply to the monthly keep alive and we'd risk triggering too many false alarms. So we opted for picking trusted family members who you grant ongoing read only access. That way in an emergency, they already have the access they need to act.
We're 100% open to the idea of a dead man's switch, just want to find a way to avoid triggering too many false alarms. Any ideas on how to do that?
Optional feature, off by default, customizable time interval, and a warning about false alarms?
Even with that you'd likely still trigger false alarms regularly, though they would be the responsibility of the user. Not sure whether it would be a worthwhile tradeoff overall.
Maybe an optional app? Send the keepalive email and alert the trusted family members when the app stops pinging back.
This would at least indicate that the phone is turned off or lost signal. All of this should be configurable by the user including thresholds before alert, reply timeout, etc.
I think expecting a ping from the app every 24h is a sensible default.
a hundred dollars a year for this?? What does the service even do with that money? I pay this for 20 years so you can share a google doc upon my demise?
This sounds useful, but I also want an automated way to distribute the information when needed. Maybe a dead man's switch of sorts?
For example, suppose I'm a single adult, and I set this all up. Then I go for a hike and disappear forever. How can the trigger of distribution happen?
We're 100% open to the idea of a dead man's switch, just want to find a way to avoid triggering too many false alarms. Any ideas on how to do that?
Even with that you'd likely still trigger false alarms regularly, though they would be the responsibility of the user. Not sure whether it would be a worthwhile tradeoff overall.
This would at least indicate that the phone is turned off or lost signal. All of this should be configurable by the user including thresholds before alert, reply timeout, etc.
I think expecting a ping from the app every 24h is a sensible default.
I must be missing something.