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Instant Remote Music Playing

By:  Frank Engelman   |  Posted: July 15, 2022   |  Updated: April 18, 2023

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The Problem to be Solved

Music for Person with Dementia

Music for Person with Dementia

Your loved one would like some personalized music, but they are unable to speak the commands to play music on an Amazon Echo Dot, or manage conventional sources of music.

View the problem

Solution Details

 

Here is another solution that keeps your Alexa account and that of your parents separate, but still allows you to start music in the house / room of a person with dementia when you want.

 

Your Phone, Starts Music on Their Alexa

An IFTTT applet running on your smartphone can be triggered by a “widget button” on your phone’s screen causing a trigger event to your loved one’s Alexa Routine.

Please note that this is possible, even though you are NOT logged into your loved one’s Alexa account as the IFTTT applet will be using the Alexa account of your loved one!

 

Here is a video of it in action.

 

 

The Details

There are many possibilities for use of this feature including being able to… instantly…

  • Play their favorite music
  • Show their favorite photos
  • Turn on their favorite TV show
  • Adjust the volume on their Echo device or Fire TV
  • Turn on/off lights or smart devices
  • Turn off “Do Not Disturb” (when your loved one turned it on by accident)
  • Join a scheduled Zoom meeting for them

 

How to setup your loved one’s Alexa account

  • Log out of your Alexa account on your smartphone
    • Tap “More-> Settings-> Sign Out”
    • Log into your loved one’s account
    • Skip as many things as possible
  • Add the Alexa Skill IFTTTrigger (3 free Alexa Triggers)

 

 

Caption- IFTTTrigger Skill

 

 

  • Create Alexa Routines under your loved one’s Alexa account, e.g. play radio stations

(If you are not familiar with creating Alexa Routines, see this article “Solution: Make Alexa Proactive: Create Routines” )

 

Caption- sample radio station routines

 

 

 

How to setup the IFTTT app to create button widgets on your smart phone

  • Log out of your loved one’s Alexa account
  • Log into your Alexa account
  • Install the IFTTT app on your smart phone (see Kit List)
    • Create an Applet (5 free applets)
      • Tap “Create”
      • Tap “Add”

 

Caption- Create applet

 

 

    • Search for “button”
    • Tap “Button widget”

 

Caption- search for “button”

 

 

    • Tap “Button press”

 

Caption- button press

 

 

    • Tap “Add”

 

Caption- then that add

 

 

  • Search for “Alexa Actions by mkZense”
  • Tap “Alexa Actions by mkZense”

 

Caption- Alexa Actions

 

 

    • Tap “sendAlexaActionByMkzense”

 

Caption- send action

 

 

    • Tap “Connect”

 

Caption- Connect

 

 

Tap “Login with Alexa”

 

Caption- Login with Alexa

 

 

  • Tap “Allow

Caption- Allow sign in

 

 

    • Fill in your loved one’s information
      • Note- use your loved one’s Alexa account, NOT YOURS!
        • (This is how the button on your phone gets connected to a different Alexa account)
    • Tap “Sign-in”

 

 

Caption- loved one’s info

    • Choose a Trigger for this button
    • Tap “Continue”

 

Caption- choose trigger

 

 

    • Tap “Continue”

 

Caption- next continue

 

 

    • Edit the Applet title to what you would like to appear on the button
      • Note: IOS widget titles should be lower case and VERY short e.g., “wxvu”
    • Tap “Finish”

 

Caption- Finish

 

 

Note: If you are on an Android phone, you will see the “Add” button. If on an iPhone, see the IOS steps listed further below:

  • Tap “Add”

 

Caption- add widget

    • Tap “Add Automatically”

 

Caption- add automatically

 

 

NOTE: If you are on an Android phone, the widgets will be added here, and can be placed anywhere on your phone screen.

Just tap your “Home” button to see them

 

Here are the IOS instructions to add the widgets to your phone

  • Tap “X”

 

Caption- X

 

  • Tap the phone “Home” button or swipe up to get iPhone Home screen
  • Swipe right to get to the leftmost screen

 

Caption- IOS edit

  • Tap “Edit”

 

Caption- IOS customize

  • Tap “Customize”
    • You may have to scroll up to see this button

 

Caption- IOS IFTTT

  • Tap the “+” icon to the left of the word “IFTTT”
  • Tap “Done”

Your IFTTT widgets are now available when you swipe right to the left-most screen from the home screen

 

Button Widget Usage

You can now tap the widget buttons on your phone to cause these radio stations to play on your loved one’s Echo device

 

 

 

Kit List for this Solution

 

 

 

 

*Disclosure: The research and opinions in this article are those of the author, and may or may not reflect the official views of Tech-enhanced Life.

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Author

franke_headshot.png

Frank Engelman

Retired Intel Engineer wanting to share DIY technology tips for the children of parents wanting to remain living independently. I like posting ideas and answering technical questions. If a product or software has an issue making it hard for seniors to use, I try to offer workarounds and also try to contact the manufacturer for solutions. I write a column for this website in the Innovation- Homebrew Solutions & Ideas section

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