The 138th Installment
How to Visit Your Parents Remotely
by Tomoyuki Ohkubo,
Assistant Professor
Since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, it has been difficult to visit our parents. As the state of emergency was declared during April to May 2020, January to March 2021, and April to September 2021, people were requested to refrain from crossing prefectural borders and encouraged to return home remotely, or online, which has been gaining popularity[1] .
Five years have passed since I joined AIIT. Now I am happy to say that my daughter was born during that period and became two years old in 2020. Her grandparents wanted to meet her, but the situation did not allow me to take her out of the prefecture to visit them as we wished. So, my family decided to visit them remotely.
However, since my parents had had no IT background, it was quite challenging to introduce this method. First, they did not have an Internet connection. So, it turned out that seeing them through a PC was, first of all, impossible. As they were not used to handling a smartphone, making video calls through applications such as LINE was also difficult. Thus, we decided to set up devices here and send them so that they could use them. Luckily, Amazon’s Alexa-powered Echo series includes several devices with 5-inch, 7-inch, and 10-inch screens. The Echo series has the “Drop In” feature that facilitates communication between devices using the same account[2]. So, I decided to use this feature.
As for Internet access, fiber-optic communication would be a big hurdle for those who had never used the Internet, as it would inevitably require cable installation work. Therefore, I decided to adopt for an LTE home router that uses a cellular data line for an Internet connection. I inserted a SIM from MVNO communication service, or a so-called low-cost SIM, into the router. This would allow me to set up the router and the Amazon Echo device here and then send them by courier to my parents so that they could use them.
Now we were ready to talk online at any time. When the courier handed the devices to my parents, I asked them to connect the LTE home router and the Amazon Echo to a power source and used “Drop In.” We successfully made a video call.
My two-year-old daughter enjoyed communication at first, but after a few weeks, she seemed to get bored. When I asked her why, she said, “I can talk to Grandma, but I cannot meet her.” After all, this was not better than meeting them in person. When the state of emergency was lifted and the new coronavirus infection had calmed down, we physically visited them.
We cannot see our parents every day offline. We cannot go home every day. On the contrary, we can make a short online visit to our parents even daily. That is an advantage. Although I started visiting my parents remotely as a mere alternative to physical visits, I found out that a remote homecoming through video calls has its own advantages. I have learned that there are benefits and drawbacks to both returning home online and offline.
The COVID-19 pandemic unexpectedly made me build the system, but it taught me a lot.
[1] Asahi Shimbun Digital: Experts’ 10 Proposals to Reduce Physical Contact by 80% at the Second Week of the State of Emergency: Prime Minister Says, “Return Home Online during Golden Week”
https://www.asahi.com/articles/DA3S14452383.html
[2]IT media PC USER: “Are They Useful to Online Homecoming? An Examination of the Differences Between Alexa’s Various Video Calling Features”
https://www.itmedia.co.jp/pcuser/articles/2006/01/news068.html