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Show HN: I made an emergency page for my family
I have a bad memory and can't memorize some important numbers, so I created this project.
I've always been concerned about being without my phone (getting robbed - which is common in Brazil - running out of battery, having it break, etc.), so I decided to create a page that sends SMS messages (LLM-summarized) and emails with more detailed information such as geolocation, IP address, and the full message.
It’s a simple page that allows sending one or more messages, with recipients being myself and other people - for example, in case I or they need help or need to communicate something important.
The source code is available at https://github.com/skhaz/dokku/tree/main/apps/help
When I was really bad at speeding all the time I had this fear I'd go to jail and my cat would die alone in my apt. So I started working on my own dead man switch, I actually have not finished it but I at least bought him like a self-feeding thing that would last a month or more and he unfortunately drinks out of the toilet too so I leave the top cover off.
I would probably suggest switching the link to the GitHub source code and listing the actual page URL in the description; otherwise, I click the link in the article and get a location sharing request and a Send button; after a few seconds I matched that with the title, but I still had my WTF moment.
Before MFA was mandated on every service this was an easy problem to solve. Now when you lose your phone while out and about you lose your ability to log in to even Dave's Speed Cow Milker's Enthusiast Forum unless you're at home with another computer already logged in to various things.
Learning my 1Password recovery key took quite a while, but should allow me to do a cold reboot of my digital life.
Yubikeys could be cheaper. In addition to the two I have, I bought two more to store offsite with friends and family for redundancy (with access to my password manager + important email accounts).
Why is it more likely you'll have internet access when you don't have a phone? If you happen to find a computer, what's insufficient about writing an email?
How will you log into your email from a strange computer without your phone. Gmail has required 2-factor auth for a long time.
I get your point, but believe it or not there's more email services than just Gmail
My wife doesn't check email frequently, so SMS (or even better, WhatsApp) would be more reliable.
Maybe an alternative is to store the WhatsApp contact information of people who could help behind a password.
Then, if I need help, I can ask to borrow someone's phone on the street. If they don't have WhatsApp, I can just make a regular phone call instead.
> If they don't have WhatsApp
Is this really likely? I would guess only 70 year olds don't have WhatsApp.
Seems more likely you forget the impoprtant phone numbers because you never enter them manually.
Nobody in my friend group has a WhatsApp and I'm a millennial.
It doesn’t have to be just for one type of user.
WhatsApp is not universally used. Line, WeChat, and KakaoTalk are more common in East Asia
In the US, the only people I know who use WhatsApp are immigrants who use it to talk to friends and family back home.
With iMessage, Discord, and Signal, I can't imagine a use case for me or anyone I know to use WhatsApp.
The vast majority of the world defaults to whatsapp. But yes, other than convention, any of these could be equivalent.
I don’t see why you would care for Discord over whatsapp except that it’s what you happen to use already.
I built life-link almost a year ago for the same purpose: https://github.com/ahmedsaoudi/life_link
I even created a generator so people can configure it with their Telegram/Pushover settings and have it generate a static app easy to host on Netlify or Clouflare Pages/Workers.
Hmm I'm not sure why in an emergency situation accessing a webpage would be easier than making a phone call.
The problem is to remember numbers.
I did something similar, just a photo of handwritten phone mumbers and an easy to remember URL that's not indexed.
Anyone will hopefully lend you a phone if you're in a pinch but I realized that I don't know very numbers to actually call and it's kinda weird to start using email/Whatsapp whatever on a strangers phone compared to asking to visit one site and make one call
I... I would not trust my emergency page to an LLM.
This isn't a terrible idea, but I'd password protect it and share the password with the people you want to be able to contact you. That'll help avoid spam/scams. "I'm your family member in trouble please send money now to X immediately no time to explain further" is a very common scam and a page like this would make it very easy.
"LLM-summarized" lmao
Do you know another way to fit a 3000 long message into a 160ish SMS?
19 SMS messages.
Does anyone still pay per text?
> Does anyone still pay per text?
It makes much more sense outside the US than to pay for a text bundle. My phone plan includes 0 SMS messages, and I don't know what was the last time when I've had to send one was. It's only useful when someone doesn't have internet, which only happens once every few months at most.
Why 3000 ? Set a character limit. If the detail is important they can just send 2.. or 10.
Ok I understand the usecase now.
I would have used two textboxes, Title and description, but this works as well.
write a shorter emergency message?
"I was in a car accident, come to general hospital downtown"
Did you get my request for help?
I got ~300 requests :)
So far...
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