How Ellis works

1. Getting set up, once

Setup is the part most technology gets wrong for older adults: it front-loads every decision onto the least familiar moment. So it does not happen on their phone at all. Somebody in the family puts in the everyday details on their own phone: the medicines, the pharmacy, the doctor, the people who matter.

Then they send a link. Tapping it signs the older adult in: no password to choose, no account to make, nothing to remember. Three words typed in do the same thing if the link goes astray.

2. Tap, and talk

There is one thing to do: tap, and say what you need in your own words. Not a command, not a phrase to memorise. “I need more of my blood pressure pills” works. So does stopping halfway through and starting again.

Ellis answers, and asks when it needs to: which medicine, and whether to ring the pharmacy now. You can take as long as you like over it, and nothing times out because you paused.

3. It says what it is about to do

Before Ellis rings anybody, it repeats back who it is calling and what it will ask for, and waits for a yes. This is deliberate and it is not skippable.

The reason is simple: an assistant that acts on its best guess is fine when the guess is a song, and unacceptable when the guess is which prescription a pharmacist is being asked for. Anything that can be got wrong is confirmed first, and anything irreversible is confirmed clearly.

What family sees

Family can follow along: what was asked for, who Ellis rang, what they said, and what is still open. When a call needs a person, family are told and given the number. The rule that shapes all of it: what family can see is what the person can see. There is no second, fuller view of somebody’s day that they do not have themselves.

That means it is not a way to check up on a parent, and it is not meant to be. It is a way to stop three people asking the same question on three different phone calls.

When it does not understand

Sometimes it will mishear, and sometimes it will not be able to help. Both need to fail in the open rather than quietly: saying so and asking again is the correct behaviour, and pretending to have understood is not.

There are also things Ellis will not do. It does not give medical advice, it does not call for help in an emergency, it does not book or move appointments, and it does not telephone about a controlled medicine, because a pharmacy will only take that request from the person themselves. Those are not gaps waiting to be filled; they are where the edges are meant to be.

What it does not need from you

• Nothing to read: it is asked out loud and it answers out loud
• One tap, and then talking
• Your own words, at your own pace
• Family can help, and does not have to be sitting there