SumDay

A daily dashboard to manage tasks for the elderly and disabled.

Comment

Inspiration

I recently became a caretaker for my mother, and my sister is autistic. It can be a burden for everyone to schedule and keep track of essential daily tasks. I decided to build a dashboard app that makes it easy to see important information for the day, to be able to mark off what's done, and a simple way to communicate with a caretaker. I also needed an associated caretaker app to schedule reminders and keep tabs on what was done and not done on a day.

What it does

A dashboard app runs on an iPad and displays important information for the current day. The current day and time are prominent. A list of available caretakers are displayed, with an easy method to contact them with a video call. Tasks for the day are listed with a simple way to mark them as completed.

A caretake app runs on an iPhone and allows a caretaker to set their availability, add reminders, and view and export reports.

The apps use a secure pairing mechanism to connect a caretaker with a client.

How we built it

I created two apps using Swift and SwiftUI. The apps coordinate through a backend built using the Google Cloud Platform and Firebase. The backend handles authentication (along with Sign In with Apple), storage, messaging, Serverless functions, workflows, and document export. Communication between client and caretaker is performed using Agora to provide a video call service. Agora plugins are used to remove background sounds via Bose PinPoint, and background images via VisionLab's DoreSegment. These plugins provide privacy for conversations by eliminating ambient elements.

Challenges we ran into

This turned out to be a larger project than I initially anticipated. Getting it done before the deadline was in doubt without a major push over the weekend. Some of the technology was also new to me, and took a while to learn and figure out how to properly integrate and use within the apps. These included GCP Workflows and the new Agora SDK (4.0.0) that allows for plugin integration.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

I'm really proud that the product is working well enough already to do some field testing. The hackathon deadline really helped push it along, and I feel good that I can now get other people to try it out.

What we learned

I have used some of the technologies before, but the SumDay project improved my skills with SwiftUI and Firebase Functions. This was my first use of GCP Workflows, so I learned a lot about how to set them up and use them to orchestrate operations. I hadn't used Agora for a few years, and it has become both simpler to integrate, but more complex in that it now has richer features. Figuring out how to embed the Agora UI inside a SwiftUI app took some work, and I had to figure out on my own how to enable and integrate Agora extensions from the marketplace.

What's next for SumDay

I want to do some field testing with a few people to get some usability and feature feedback. I would also like to talk to caretaker services to gauge their interest in using or integrating SumDay.

Built With

Share this project:

Updates