What we help with | The Makers, LLC

Phones and tablets

iPhone, iPad and Android. Making the text bigger and the screen less busy. Moving the apps you use to where you can find them, and hiding the ones you do not. Sending and saving photos, sorting out voicemail, and getting comfortable with a new phone instead of dreading it.

Computers and email

Email that has stopped working, or never quite did. Printers that will not print. Passwords — all of them — organized somewhere safe so you are not locked out again. Online accounts like your doctor’s patient portal, your bank, or Medicare.gov, set up so you can actually get into them.

Staying safe from scams

Scammers target seniors on purpose, and they are good at it. We will look at the suspicious email, text or pop-up with you and tell you plainly whether it is real. We turn on the protections that help without getting in your way, and show you the few warning signs that catch almost every scam.

If something has already gone wrong, we help you take the right next steps with your bank and your accounts. We cannot promise to get money back — nobody honest can — but we can make sure it does not happen twice.

A phone line the family can help look after

We can move your loved one’s existing number to a service built for keeping an eye on it — Google Voice, Vonage, Twilio, or a plan with the carrier you prefer. They keep the same number and the same phone; we handle the paperwork with the old carrier.

A list of who called and when, for the family members who help, with known numbers named: her doctor’s office, the grandchildren, the pharmacy.
Robocalls and known scam numbers screened before the phone rings.
A text to family when a call from an unknown number comes in, if you want one.

We set this up with your loved one’s agreement, or with whoever holds their power of attorney. We keep a list of calls, never recordings of them.

Video calls with family

FaceTime, Zoom, WhatsApp and the rest, set up so that seeing the grandchildren is one tap rather than a puzzle. We will do a practice call with you so the first real one is not a scramble.

TV, streaming and smart speakers

The remote with fifty buttons, the streaming apps and their logins, and an Alexa or Google speaker set up to do the handful of things that are genuinely useful: reminders, the weather, calling family, playing your music.

Checking in on a screen

An Amazon Echo Show sits on the counter and lets family drop in for a face-to-face hello — useful when somebody cannot reliably answer a phone, or when you want to see how a day is going rather than hear about it.

Set up with her, not around her. She decides who may drop in, and there is a chime and a countdown before any camera comes on. It can be turned off for a room, or for a while, and we show her how.
Calling back is one word, so it works both ways rather than being a window the family looks through.
Announcements and reminders — "the ride comes at ten" — spoken in the room she is in.
The awkward parts handled: the Amazon account, the household profiles, and which contacts can reach her.

Home security and cameras

SimpliSafe alarms, video doorbells and indoor cameras, chosen for the house and set up so they help rather than nag.

Fitted and tested, including the door and window sensors, the keypad by the door she actually uses, and the panic button if she wants one.
Alerts to the right people. A doorbell that rings your phone as well as hers, so a stranger at the door is not hers alone to judge.
Monitoring explained plainly: what the monthly plans do and do not cover, and what happens when the alarm goes off at two in the morning.
Her privacy respected: cameras where they help, never in a bedroom or a bathroom, and she knows where every one of them is.

Solutions built around the FreeStyle Libre 3

The FreeStyle Libre 3 is an excellent sensor. What it does not do on its own is make sure anybody actually hears it. Its alerts live on a phone, and a phone can be on silent, in a handbag, or in another room.

We build the rest:

Readings spoken out loud on an Echo speaker in the room you are in, so you do not have to find your phone to know where you stand.
A text to family when your glucose goes genuinely low — not for every wobble, so that when a message comes, people pay attention.
A simple family page showing the current reading and the last twelve hours, so your son or daughter can check in without calling to ask.
A warning when the sensor stops reporting, so nobody relies on a number that is hours old.
Setup help with the Libre 3 itself: a phone that works with the app, sharing readings with family, and what to do when a sensor fails early.

We started with our own. My mother’s glucose readings come off her sensor every few minutes, and when something matters, the speaker in whatever room she is in says so out loud. If she goes genuinely low, I get a text. We built it for her, which is how we know all the ways it can go wrong.

Everything we build sits alongside your Libre’s own alarms, never instead of them. Those stay switched on, always.