Does this sound familiar?
You are not bad with technology. Technology is bad at explaining itself.
The update changed everything
Your phone updated overnight and now nothing is where it was. The button you use every day has moved, and you are nervous to touch anything in case it gets worse.
Is this a scam?
A pop-up says your computer is infected. An email says your account is locked. A caller says they are from Medicare. Working out which ones are real should not be your job alone.
It was set up once, then left
A grandchild set it all up at Thanksgiving. It worked for a while. Now nobody remembers the password, and you do not want to be a bother.
What we help with
If it plugs in, charges up or asks for a password, it is probably something we can help with.
Phones and tablets
iPhone, iPad and Android. Bigger text, a tidier home screen, sending photos, and getting comfortable with the handful of apps you actually use.
Computers and email
Getting email working and keeping it working, printing, sorting out passwords, and making the computer stop doing whatever it is doing.
Staying safe from scams
Checking a suspicious email, text or call with you, turning on protection that does not get in your way, and helping with the right next steps if something has already gone wrong.
Video calls with family
FaceTime, Zoom and the rest, set up so that a call with the grandchildren is one tap rather than a puzzle.
TV, streaming and smart speakers
The remote with too many buttons, the streaming apps, and an Alexa or Google speaker that is genuinely useful instead of just another thing to figure out.
Check in on a screen
An Echo Show on the kitchen counter, set up so family can drop in for a face-to-face hello without anybody having to press anything, and so she can call you back with a word. Set up together, with who may drop in decided by her.
Home security and cameras
SimpliSafe alarms, video doorbells and cameras: chosen, fitted and set up so the alerts go to the right phones, and so nobody is locked out of their own front door by a gadget.
Health technology
The FreeStyle Libre 3 and other health devices: the app, the phone it runs on, the readings, and making sure the right people find out when it matters.
Built around your Libre 3
The FreeStyle Libre 3 is a remarkable sensor. Its alerts, though, live on a phone — and a phone can be on silent, in another room, or out of battery.
We build on top of it. Your readings spoken out loud on a speaker in the room you are in. A text to your son or daughter when your glucose goes genuinely low. A simple page your family can check from anywhere, instead of calling to ask.
We started with my own mother’s sensor, so we know the details that trip people up: which phones work with the app, how sharing with family is set up, and what to do when a sensor stops reporting.
Everything we build sits alongside your Libre’s own alarms, never instead of them — those stay switched on. We do not give medical advice. FreeStyle Libre is a trademark of Abbott; we are not affiliated with or endorsed by Abbott.
- 7:14 AMKitchen speaker: “Your glucose is 128 and holding steady.”
- 2:03 PMText to your daughter: “Glucose 64 and falling. Reading taken 2:01 PM.”
- Any timeFamily page: the current reading and the last twelve hours
- Sensor offA heads-up that no readings are coming in, so nobody trusts an old number
How it works
Call or write
Tell us what is going on, in your own words. “My email stopped working” is plenty. There is no wrong way to describe it.
We come to you
Or we help over the phone, if that is easier. Either way we sit with you and your device and sort it out together.
We show you how
Not just fixed — explained, slowly and in plain English, so it still makes sense the next time.
We stay a call away
When the next update moves everything around again, you know exactly who to call.
A phone line the family can help look after
Scammers call older people far more than anyone else, and the family is usually the last to know who has been ringing. We can move your loved one’s number — the same number everyone already has — to a service built for this: Google Voice, Vonage, Twilio, or a plan with the carrier you prefer.
Once it is there, the people who help can see a simple list of who called and when, with the numbers they know already named. Robocalls and known scam numbers can be screened before the phone ever rings, and a call from an unknown number can send a quick text to a son or daughter.
We set it up with your loved one, not behind their back. They keep their number, their phone and their say, and we handle the paperwork with the old carrier.
We keep a list of calls, never recordings of them. Moving a number usually takes a few days, and the phone keeps working in the meantime.
- 10:02 AMDr Patel’s office called · 4 min
- 1:15 PMLikely scam call screened out — the phone never rang
- 4:40 PMText to her son: “Mom just had a 20-minute call from a number we don’t know.”
- Any timeFamily page: this week’s calls, who and when
I learned this helping my mother
I was living on Salt Spring Island, off the coast of British Columbia, when I moved back to St. Louis to look after my mother, Carol. She has dementia and type 1.5 diabetes, and keeping her phone, her tablet and her glucose sensor working became part of every day.
It taught me what good tech help looks like: patient, in plain English, and still there next week. That is what The Makers offers.
Rob Reinhardt — founder, The Makers, LLC. Back in St. Louis, and the person you will actually talk to.
Ask for help
Tell us what is going on and we will get back to you. A real person reads every message — no newsletter, no sales calls.
Would rather talk? Call (314) 207-3800.