My dad is 82. He’s never been great with technology and computers in general, and as he ages and paradigms shift away from what he’s accustomed to, he’s growing more and more cut off from the modern world. His biggest challenge is navigating entertainment and the equipment needed to access it, and its getting worse. I was hoping the community here would have some suggestions on how I can solve the problem for him.
Right now, he watches regular cable through a spectrum-provided garbage cable box. He’s also a Netflix user, the latter of which he watches through an Apple TV. However, he cannot handle either the Apple TV interface, the television’s interface, and source switching for his various devices. I’d love to get him down to one device only, with one remote, and one interface. His challenges include:
Cannot interact well with capacitive touch surfaces, like tablet/phone screens and touchpads. They just don’t respond to his fingers for some reason.
Interface changes confuse him routinely. When something moves, or is renamed, or icons are re-ordered from a software update, he’s utterly lost and unable to navigate the interface.
He’s starting to have issues with memory.
So I hit on the idea of putting together a custom set top box with some idle hardware I have here at the house (Ryzen 2200G based system). His TV doesn’t go much past 1080p, so I dont need much in the way of hardware - really just something to display an interface. My hope is to put together an interface that will display everything he needs, from netflix to his cable box. Here’s what it needs to do:
Single interface for everything - cuts the need to switch inputs on the television.
Interface does not change.
Can seamlessly launch Netflix, the cable box, and maybe a Jellyfin client.
Responds to a familiar remote, maybe a keyboard and mouse.
The bugaboo here is the cable box, since it uses HDCP and likely will not work through 4k PCIe capture cards.
Anyway, I was curious if anyone had some suggestions on solutions. Mahalos!
This feels like a solution in need of a champion. Plex Elderly or something. It would be great if it had a very simple remote like with 8 buttons on it that correspond to 6 rectangles on the screen and a power button and a home/start over button. It would require the services, like Netflix and AppleTV and the cable box or app (thinking like Google TV, or another OTT service) and YouTube to all publish an API that is friendly for this type of service.
I really hope someone builds it, cause it won’t be long before I might want it myself!
I will mention that there are HDMI switching devices with a RS232 (serial) command protocol, if that works for you, but unfortunately they’re not a cheap investment, and are generally overkill for your needs. https://www.monoprice.com/product?p_id=15750 is one such example.
As you get older, your skin gets drier and stops being detected by capacitive touch screens. Already getting it happening with my index finger, fortunately the others still work so I just have to remember to switch fingers if it starts ignoring me.
Also for some people, and maybe moreso as one gets older, memory is positional - you don’t remember what the icon for a function looks like, just where it is. Hence my confusion if they reorganise the grocery store layout even slightly.
I’ve got my parents setup with Nvidia Shield devices that run a custom launcher called Projectivy so Google can’t change the homescreen on them. I have it customized with huge tiles for each app so it’s super easy to navigate. HDMI-CEC means the power button on the Shield remote controls the displays so there’s just the single remote. Their kitchen display is actually a 32" MSI computer monitor that works great except for the built-in speakers being a bit quiet.
I hope you find a solution for your dad!!! If I see anything I’ll reach out
I’m 74 y/o and I’m technical support for all of my kids, step kids, grandkids and older folks in my group of friends. I also have no problems with touch devices, iPhone and iPad in use daily.
