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Comment by marcol1n0 | Hacker News Reader

My mum did run a B&B, in Italy, on the sea.

Me and my sister do live in different cities. She was quite old, but did not want any help from strangers. She did refuse to use a computer keyboard, since she hated informatization, and her sight was short.

So I did automate a system for her to scan the guests documents, detect the data required by local police for registration via OCR, fill up the form to send those data, and update the web site availability database table. The computer, when powered up, did only show instructions in big text, high contrast instructions, which where repeated by TTS (essentially "please feed the documents in the scanner", "please remove the documents from the scanner").

At the end she got used to using it, and she was quite proud being able to be so independent, since the last days of her lovely life.

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I think people underestimate the power of IoT and automation to make independent living possible much longer. I recently installed the basics of my home automation system at my grandma's. Her keeping her thermostat set reasonably was an issue, and I've got the smoke detector on the system as well.

One of the things I'd like to add is the ability to detect natural gas: She doesn't have a lot of gas appliances, but she has no sense of smell, so the usual warning sign for natural gas she'd never notice.

I had some fun wiring one of these up for my apartment to check air quality. Relatively inexpensive, although calibration is an issue, and I'm not sure I'd trust it in an emergency.

https://www.adafruit.com/product/3199

Cool, would the source code for this available in github? Thanks

Personally my preference is towards consumer products where possible, because they require less effort and look more presentable... Especially when its for a non-technical user. For instance, the smoke detector is a First Alert. It appears First Alert does have a natural gas detector, but it doesn't appear they make it with support for their Onelink protocol.

> detect the data required by local police for registration

What data do the local police require?

Hotels/hostels/B&Bs I believe are generally required to have the passport of foreign guests scanned or logged. This has been true of almost every country I've traveled to. Dunno why. Maybe they need the ID of local guests too? No idea.

It is typical to need to give a place of residence when entering a country (even if you are on a travel visa.) Immigration departments will reach out to these places of residence if they are concerned of someone overstaying their visa. The B&B or hotel will show them the copy of the Visa stamped in the passport and their check in and check out time they are in the clear.

Specifically in the case of Italy it seems like it is to be compliant with long standing legislation called TULPS.[1]

1.https://www.quora.com/Are-hotels-in-Italy-required-to-take-a...

Some countries require to report names and IDs of all guests staying. All of them, not just foreigners.

This made my eyes wet.

We normally use the past participle where you use the interrogative. Except in the last paragraph. Two separate people wrote that post didn’t they :-)

That is brilliant. Did it take much maintenance?

It did never took any maintenance, apart from a password change for the police site... I am quite proud of this project, it's one of the most successful of mine... :-)

That is fantastic. What technologies did you use?

Hello Marco,

That's a great way of using accessibility tools & automation.

To solve this pain point - one of our friend has created PlusGuests.

http://plusguests.com/

Uh .. if I read the comment correctly, Marco's relative has passed away.

Really sorry, I didn't read the message entirely.

My apologies for not reading your message entirely. May her soul rest in peace.

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