Zombie Alexas!

And other tech fumbles. Context Collapse #129

May 10, 2022

Hey there. So… it’s been a weird couple of months. My mom died unexpectedly in late March (a great way to kick off any newsletter!) and then COVID took turns working its way through Ungerleider Haus. First my three-year-old son got the ‘rona, then my wife got sick a few days later, then I got sick the next week.

I’m boosted and my symptoms were firmly in the annoying-but-not-hospital-worthy category, but the toddler? Ooh boy. With the cold or the flu, the kid’s a little lethargic… but not with the ‘rona. His case was a magic convergence of constant sneezing, constant coughing and unceasing maniacal high energy toddler everyday toddling of climbing on furniture and running around the room for hours on end.

It was certainly something.

Anyway, let’s talk Zombie Alexas.

Even though she died in March and the service we subscribed to, Amazon Care Hub, was discontinued months ago, my mom’s Amazon Echo Show keeps pinging my phone every day with no way to turn it off.

A communications breakdown for sure.

The long story short:

I bought my mom an Amazon Echo Show last year to make it easier for her to videochat with her grandson.
When we purchased it, Amazon had a free service called Alexa Care Hub designed to use for checking in on older relatives. Setup was easy and I set a notification for my phone’s Alexa app if my mom hadn’t used her Echo Show that morning. No problemo.
A few months after setting up Care Hub, Amazon announces plans to discontinue the free Care Hub service and replace it with a $19.99/month service called Alexa Together. My mom wasn’t exactly the most tech-savvy person and most of the functionality would have been wasted. We don’t sign up for the service.
Amazon sends an email that the Care Hub service would be sunsetted and functionality wouldn’t continue. The Care Hub option disappeared from the Alexa app and with it, any way to turn off Care Hub notifications. The daily notifications keep coming every day that my mother didn’t use her Alexa in the morning.
My mom dies. The notifications keep coming! I give her Echo Show to another family member and we factory reset it together and link it to a different Amazon account. The notifications keep coming!

All in all, the notifications aren’t scary or depressing, just really damned weird. I’m talking with Amazon’s tech support in an ongoing attempt to have the notifications stop coming. I’d uninstall Alexa from my phone but depend on it to video chat with other elderly relatives.

File under: Unintended consequences of Amazon discontinuing functionality for a service geared towards older users who sometimes die.

But! Back to more cheerful stuff with a puppy chaser.