That doesn’t follow. Any product that auto updates in a way that changes the UI (I.e. nearly every smart TV) is absolute dog shit to support. All hand written notes and knowing what’s going on over the phone go out the window when an update pushes an ad for a TV show they like on some new app.
This is the extremely frustrating part of not being able to roll back firmware updates in modern devices.
My dad is 78. He knows how to use his tv and cable box. It gets a firmware update that adds some feature that is pointless to him (lets say HDR, he doesn’t give a shit) but refreshes the UI.
I feel like 10-20 years ago I could just download the old firmware onto a usb and install it over the new one for stuff like this. That concept is just unheard of now. I sort of get why from a security perspective but if that has to be the case then keep your shitty UI/UX consistent at least. Or find a secure way to allow downgrades. That’s not my expertise at all but I’m sure it can be done
Yeah but who in the right mind plugged anything like that in? These days you're forced to provide a wifi link first thing when doing the setup of basically anything.
> the software still forced upgrade by getting the data from a special passive channel from the satellite
Ok that one I haven't ever heard of, sounds unwieldy.
DirecTV 100% had self updating receivers by that point, I tried to figure out which ones were the first to get those, but they're not big on being open with info
The manual for the first receiver I remember being able to update itself says 2006, but I can't check if that's right
Edit: I did some digging around, DirecTV's RCA Receivers + Ultimate mention being able to update, and apparently those are from the early 2000's
The manuals are something else, in the internet capable models there are sections on using your TV as an Email client or making your own website
> These days you're forced to provide a wifi link first thing when doing the setup of basically anything.
IDK, my new canal+ box seems to work fine with no internet connection. It gets the software and DRM updates the same way, simplex broadcast received from satellite
Perhaps that’s the confounding variable that ruined everything then. When internet access wasn’t a given and updates couldn’t be signed with activation servers downgrades were still a viable option but now they’re dead and buried
I absolutely loved Chromecasts for this (At least the non 4K ones), there was basically no real GUI after it's setup, everything was on the phone, usually in the same place for every app and it responded to at least some of the TV remote inputs
In my experience with my elderly parents this absolutely won't work. If anything it's more complex since different things, are now hidden in one magic box. She probably won't understand that e.g. Netflix and Hulu are different things. Or how to navigate back if some app gets stuck somewhere.... Also at some point there will be an update of some part of this that breaks everything.
This. This resonates with me helping family members use technology.
IMHO, the problem is that our ideas of discoverability and even our notions of UI from Xerox Parc are based on models for children and not on models for the elderly. People with life experiences typically want things that behave like what they know. I hope the way we design software changes as the population ages.
My mother in law has an apple TV. Most of the time it just works, but sometimes Netflix or whatever just decides to log out and then I have to help her log back in. Another day an app froze and had to be force closed. She doesn't understand that the Apple TV is the box under her TV or that the apps are computer programs. It's just the TV for her. So after several hours of no TV she told me the TV didn't work. I came, hold the menu button for 3 seconds and then it worked again.
Short story: When it works it's no problem. She can navigate between netflix and other streaming services, but once something freeze or she has to log in or whatever she is lost. My dad is a little bit better, but he has problems understanding accounts and logins. Using your e-mail address as username is actually confusing for older folks.
> I came, hold the menu button for 3 seconds and then it worked again.
And where did we ever get "really long press" as an user interface concept? Maybe for maintenance functions on things with one button, but on something with multiple controls?
This is just a hunch, but maybe as as way to keep "weird" stuff as something outside the mind of the less savy
If there is a dedicated easy to press "change something" button it WILL get pressed, "really long press(es)" are hidden enough that they might not be (Even if clearly labeled, people still think "techwiz" even if all you do is read the print and see that the button had another function)
The previous generation of that was the tiny hole where you pushed in the end of an unbent paper clip to reach the hard reset button. Now, nobody has paper clips handy.
I’ll be old pretty soon, but I’m used to crap like usernames and passwords, and needing to log in, update, reboot, juggle remotes, etc. I can’t imagine losing my sense of that paradigm.
My Silent Generation (pre-Boomers) parents struggled with these from before they were as old as I am now, never really got it, and are shedding device functionality daily. “My iPhone is broken again!” “Send over the TV repairman.”
As someone who has worked with windows, mice, menu bars, etc. all his life, I hope the way we design software WILL NOT change as I age. I am _happy_ with old-fashioned menu bars listing all the options that are available to me, using words I can read and comprehend. What good is it to have a 'hamburger menu' if you are on a 4K screen, and all the space to the left of that menu is wasted on a vast emptiness (looking angrily at you, Thunderbird!)?
I don't want incomprehensible icons everywhere. If you want those, why not just mark everything in Chinese? Chinese characters are not harder to comprehend than the unimaginative collection of spheres, wavy lines, dots, etc. that we get now, and at least you learn a new language while attempting to learn to work with the app!
On the one hand I get this. But on the other hand... assuming no actual cognitive issues like dementia, why do we not actually just expect our elders to actually try and learn and figure out how things work?
I suppose that's partly also a question of how learning is affected in old age. In other words, are elderly people physically incapable of adapting?
Because your great aunt will diligently learn how to take photos and later send them to you, but then some clever young designer goes and moves the buttons around and adds some "smart" reorganization, and now she can't find that photo she took of that weird-looking spot on her basement wall the other day, and when she stumbles upon it again, the process you painstakingly trained her on to send it to you no longer works.
So her interest in re-learning how to do this is diminished, because she rightfully no longer trusts that it won't change yet again. Constantly shifting UIs undermine user trust, especially for users who are further from peak learning years.
My three year old, of course, worked out how to navigate around my photos despite my never handing him my phone, and even discovered a feature I didn't know existed.
Adaptation is often slower as you age - I can see this a bit in myself now that I'm past 40. I have to more consciously learn new things than I did 20 years ago.
>I hope the way we design software changes as the population ages.
I'd be happy if we could just figure out how to make software reliable and performant again. Most of it is a horror-show, and only looks any good at all because computers are so fast and many of the underlying tools and infrastructure parts have gotten really good (i.e., server hardware is ridiculously fast, the Linux OS running on most servers is supremely reliable for such a complex system that needs to support a myriad array of hardware from different vendors, but the CRUD software written to run on top of this stack is hacked-together garbage.)
I would agree... Better something primitive and "less convenient" that they're familiar with than learning to operate something completely new at 94. Much more so if they have dementia.
I love this. Yes, as mentioned by others, maintenance might be an issue, but that should not be the reason to abandon the whole effort of connecting elderly people to async TV and simple home automation. I am sure there are more than enough children or relatives that are happy to assist with these maintenance tasks. The author seems to have done similar projects for a lot of his peers and it seems to work for them.
And... it's also a great reminder of how challanging it is for elderly folks (AND ourselves in the future!) to deal with the horror of multiple remotes and tech they don't understand.
In the "Why Use this Website?" section on the frontpage of his site, it reads: "Get help developing products and services that older adults actually want and need."
I applaud the mission and the effort to document all of it in a guide-like fashion. Great job!
> And... it's also a great reminder of how challanging it is for elderly folks (AND ourselves in the future!) to deal with the horror of multiple remotes and tech they don't understand.
Not just elderly. I hate multiple remotes, my wife hates multiple remotes, the kids hate multiple remotes.
Multiple remotes means that your product doesn't play nice with others, and that should be a huge red flag for the future when we have plenty of tech that lets us use a single remote.
Something irks me the wrong way about mindsets like the one that the author of the article has, it's like they're refusing agency and independence to their older relatives.
What's wrong with they want to have soap-operas running in the background all the time? Why do these younger people feel the need to change that to "background nature shows from YT"? (and in so doing helping out a trillion-dollars behemoth).
I would agree. Not sure why 8 hours of shots of Iceland with no narration is better than a TV show in daytime? Not all of it is trash, maybe they are showing classic movies. Even if it is some soap opera, at least the aunt will feel engaged with people, even if those people are characters on TV. Living alone at that age must be lonely, let her have her joys.
I've lived with an elderly that only watches variations of CSI in TV, as long as it keeps her entertained she gets to pick*
*It's still up for debate if those shows or the news are worse for making her a bit paranoid, you'd think it'd be more clear cut, but she only brings up stuff on the news, if it goes too far we will have to make some changes
Or he talked to her, asked her what she likes to watch, and she said she puts on any channel for background noise. Or he added a section because he found the option interesting even if his aunt didn't care for it. Or something else. You're extrapolating a ton from the phrase "better than soaps?"
I like that the author augmented a familiar product instead of adding additional gadgets.
I already notice a lot of difficulties to learn how to use new technologies with much younger relatives than his aunt. I think practice in learning new things and intrinsic motivation to do so is key.
Starting early to build this learning routine with older relatives is something I'm trying to do.
I tried something similar for my elderly grandmother who's suffering with dementia. TV's the only thing that gives her joy these days but she struggles.
I wanted something like reminders and information to show on the screen next to the TV program and used a HDMI capture card along with a Raspberry Pi to essentially add an overlay to the screen but it was too finicky and the pi would often lock up (its nowhere near powerful enough).
Ideally it needs a passthrough system that can resize the source input down a bit to fit a scrolling banner at the bottom and a sidebar that family members can remotely push messages to, or have scheduled reminders with a voice over.
Common things we found needed reminders were things like remembering to drink, a reminder of someone coming round, reminders to go to bed, shower, clean your teeth, etc.
I dont think anything interactive would be a good idea in this situation. The worst thing you can do with dementia patients is introduce something new to learn so it would need to be as frictionless as possible.
This is adjacent to a project I'm currently working on that makes TV more useful for grandparents and elderly parents. It's a shame that in an era when you can't buy a non-smart TV, the market hasn't delivered much in terms of accessibility features for people who struggle navigating menus and apps.
If this sounds like something you want then please register your interest on this form.
My parents are 20 years younger than this aunt and if I introduced these types of changes to make it "easier" for them, I would have to help them out even more. My mother would have even bigger technophobic breakdowns because of her not understanding how things work. And if anything, she would love to revert back to 1980s technology that is straight forward instead of having to learn some high-tech magic voice assistant of teh phuture to change the channel.
I say, keep it simple, keep it familiar. I am 100% sure this will backfire.
1. it sounds like his aunt has a very complicated setup already, he simplified the setup.
2. 20 years younger than 94 might have significantly less medical issues - to quote the article "The problem was that she has difficulty walking, and when she is sitting in her lazy boy chair, it’s tough to get up and walk to the phone to see who is calling. She gets a lot of spam calls. She also plays the TV loud and may not hear the phone ring."
etc. etc.
I'm not sure. I routinely have to help mine understand that one remote is for the TV and the other for the cable box. TV now just being a display for a video input is enough
Having one remote is big
Being able to ask Alexa to find the remote is also big, because I swear my grandmother loses that thing every week
I agree. I have similar aged parents. I advised my dad to get one of those Android TV boxes, and I can't be happier. I spent an afternoon setting it up, getting all their streaming apps in the right place, and the number of TV related tech support calls went down to 0.
One remote that controls everything, it has like 5 buttons on it, and one of them is a netflix button. Fantastic.
And now my dad feels like a tech wizz whenever he casts a photo/video from his phone to the tv when he wants to show his friends something.
This article's solution feels very brittle and cumbersome, which will probably increase the tech support calls.
I had an experience teaching my grandma in her 90s some basic tech. There were no smart devices at that time and no assistants, but I'm pretty sure that assistant would not work for her. First of all because she is not English speaker, second because it is unpredictable tech, meaning that any query may end up in completely different result, which would block her.
Instead what she used most were stateless devices. Devices which you can turn off, then turn on, and then she would see the exact same starting point and have exact same path to the target. For example call on a dumbphone - she knew that she needed to unlock it via a corner button then press down on a joystick as many time as that person required. Same with TV, she knew approximately what buttons to click to get to some channel.
She had bad eyesight and it would make voice assistant even worse, because she wouldn't see what happened after each command.
Gone are all the superfluous netflix or change input buttons that make your parents stuck and generate support calls.
You configure the remote for tv and when thats done you (optionaly) configure it for the settop box. At that point only the dedicated TV power button goes to tv all other keys go directly to the settop box and theres very few of them with comfortable size and best rubber quality i've seen in a remote ever.
The settopbox/tv compatibility list is not published online but spans decades and i had no problem setting up a noname one that wasn't even on the list.
The higher end Roku devices include a unified remote that works for the Roku and the TV and simplifies things well. If you're able to work with a setup where everything comes through the Roku, I can see it being a decent setup for an older person that doesn't want to fool with technology.
Includes things like a remote finder button on top of the Roku that works pretty well.
Does this has Bluetooth support? It would be wonderful. Some boxes (eg. the Mi Android TV stick from Xiaomi) use Bluetooth for the remote instead of infrared... and come with stripped-down remotes that many elderly people feel more difficult to use than regular TV remotes.
Isn’t it weird there isn’t a hardware company that has a brand promise of “ease of use” vs “features”? There has to be a reasonably sized market share that prefers ease over advancements.
Two remotes was the moment I stopped watching TV altogether at third of her age.
Am I pointing the right device? Is the battery in any of them out? Is the bloody device not reacting of just waking up? The cable box is connected to the TV aux or it's a "smart" one connected to one of the HDMI aux'es? All this mess to watch mostly ads.
Fully agree. Why is this even a thing? A tv remote can toggle power on/off, change the volume, has up/down/left/right/enter/back/play/pause/numerical keys. Why can't I use the tv remote to operate other devices connected to the TV? Actually scratch that - why can't I use the power button on the TV remote to power other devices? Instead, I have to use different remotes. I can't imagine a scenario where I want to operate my DVD player while my TV is off.
That's where the smart TVs missed the mark. When I press mute on my TV remote, it should be smart enough to figure out how to talk to other devices to mute everything.
I've actually never had a problem with HDMI-CEC. I can use my TV remote to control my AV receiver, my Fire TV stick and even my PS{3,4,5} consistently.
Well, this just goes to show not all elderly are the same. My relatives would love more remotes and hate more strange non physical interfaces. Controlling lights with voice commands vs a (eventually on a remote) button, button wins 100% of the time.
The biggest hurdle seems to be discoverability. A physical remote makes sense, and doesn't change. Buttons have a singular function and context doesn't matter. Apps are different beasts, navigate up/down/forward/backward (thus context (what did you do before, now doing x does y, but otherwise z)) is just met with glazy eyes. Going back and front just makes no sense, why sometimes you need to go to a menu and other times it's a shortcut button, makes no sense, especially when summoning the menu needs special navigation. To add insult to injury, every now and then apps get an overhaul, and suddenly navigation and buttons changed/looked different.
Now when i say apps, i do mean apps on phones/tvs. The windows UI works for them because the basics are the same for all programs, using word or outlook, menu items have text like "send" "save" and while it takes time, functionality is discoverable. But for tv apps the logic is "click up or down until the icon you want has a different hue, then press a button on the remote to do stuff, but only when the screen shows x,not when it shows z". It's too much functionality condensed in too little UI. I'm constantly baffled by design choices for apps that are supposed to be used by everyone, I'm sure it looks nice to designers and devs, but have they even tried showing their brand new TV interface (these are the worst offenders) to an elderly and gave them simple tasks?
In my experience, modern entertainment takes too much cognitive load to get up and running. With streaming/on demand, I have to make pointed decisions on what show I'm watching. I don't always want to make a decision right now of what to watch, I just want to watch something that's good enough or fits a certain theme. TV Channel creation programs, like DizqueTV[0] or ErsatzTV[1] have taken the load off, or at least lets me do that cognitive work in advance when making the channels.
You still need some way to get input to swap between these digital channels (I use Plex to surface my shows and schedule), but if you have existing local content it really feels like the "old" way of doing TV. You can even add commercials between episodes if you wanted!
I'm not sure if I'd call this foolproof for a 94-year-old, especially since sometimes the software needs to restart, but it's a step above modern streaming IMO.
62 comments
[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 110 ms ] threadMy dad is 78. He knows how to use his tv and cable box. It gets a firmware update that adds some feature that is pointless to him (lets say HDR, he doesn’t give a shit) but refreshes the UI.
I feel like 10-20 years ago I could just download the old firmware onto a usb and install it over the new one for stuff like this. That concept is just unheard of now. I sort of get why from a security perspective but if that has to be the case then keep your shitty UI/UX consistent at least. Or find a secure way to allow downgrades. That’s not my expertise at all but I’m sure it can be done
and if not that way, the software still forced upgrade by getting the data from a special passive channel from the satellite.
> the software still forced upgrade by getting the data from a special passive channel from the satellite
Ok that one I haven't ever heard of, sounds unwieldy.
DirecTV 100% had self updating receivers by that point, I tried to figure out which ones were the first to get those, but they're not big on being open with info
The manual for the first receiver I remember being able to update itself says 2006, but I can't check if that's right
Edit: I did some digging around, DirecTV's RCA Receivers + Ultimate mention being able to update, and apparently those are from the early 2000's
The manuals are something else, in the internet capable models there are sections on using your TV as an Email client or making your own website
IDK, my new canal+ box seems to work fine with no internet connection. It gets the software and DRM updates the same way, simplex broadcast received from satellite
My mom loved it too
IMHO, the problem is that our ideas of discoverability and even our notions of UI from Xerox Parc are based on models for children and not on models for the elderly. People with life experiences typically want things that behave like what they know. I hope the way we design software changes as the population ages.
Short story: When it works it's no problem. She can navigate between netflix and other streaming services, but once something freeze or she has to log in or whatever she is lost. My dad is a little bit better, but he has problems understanding accounts and logins. Using your e-mail address as username is actually confusing for older folks.
And where did we ever get "really long press" as an user interface concept? Maybe for maintenance functions on things with one button, but on something with multiple controls?
If there is a dedicated easy to press "change something" button it WILL get pressed, "really long press(es)" are hidden enough that they might not be (Even if clearly labeled, people still think "techwiz" even if all you do is read the print and see that the button had another function)
My Silent Generation (pre-Boomers) parents struggled with these from before they were as old as I am now, never really got it, and are shedding device functionality daily. “My iPhone is broken again!” “Send over the TV repairman.”
I don't want incomprehensible icons everywhere. If you want those, why not just mark everything in Chinese? Chinese characters are not harder to comprehend than the unimaginative collection of spheres, wavy lines, dots, etc. that we get now, and at least you learn a new language while attempting to learn to work with the app!
I suppose that's partly also a question of how learning is affected in old age. In other words, are elderly people physically incapable of adapting?
So her interest in re-learning how to do this is diminished, because she rightfully no longer trusts that it won't change yet again. Constantly shifting UIs undermine user trust, especially for users who are further from peak learning years.
My three year old, of course, worked out how to navigate around my photos despite my never handing him my phone, and even discovered a feature I didn't know existed.
Adaptation is often slower as you age - I can see this a bit in myself now that I'm past 40. I have to more consciously learn new things than I did 20 years ago.
I'd be happy if we could just figure out how to make software reliable and performant again. Most of it is a horror-show, and only looks any good at all because computers are so fast and many of the underlying tools and infrastructure parts have gotten really good (i.e., server hardware is ridiculously fast, the Linux OS running on most servers is supremely reliable for such a complex system that needs to support a myriad array of hardware from different vendors, but the CRUD software written to run on top of this stack is hacked-together garbage.)
And... it's also a great reminder of how challanging it is for elderly folks (AND ourselves in the future!) to deal with the horror of multiple remotes and tech they don't understand.
In the "Why Use this Website?" section on the frontpage of his site, it reads: "Get help developing products and services that older adults actually want and need."
I applaud the mission and the effort to document all of it in a guide-like fashion. Great job!
Not just elderly. I hate multiple remotes, my wife hates multiple remotes, the kids hate multiple remotes.
Multiple remotes means that your product doesn't play nice with others, and that should be a huge red flag for the future when we have plenty of tech that lets us use a single remote.
What's wrong with they want to have soap-operas running in the background all the time? Why do these younger people feel the need to change that to "background nature shows from YT"? (and in so doing helping out a trillion-dollars behemoth).
*It's still up for debate if those shows or the news are worse for making her a bit paranoid, you'd think it'd be more clear cut, but she only brings up stuff on the news, if it goes too far we will have to make some changes
Yes, curse these hip, fresh-faced, (checks author's bio) 76-year-old whippersnappers for thinking they know better than the elderly!
I already notice a lot of difficulties to learn how to use new technologies with much younger relatives than his aunt. I think practice in learning new things and intrinsic motivation to do so is key.
Starting early to build this learning routine with older relatives is something I'm trying to do.
I wanted something like reminders and information to show on the screen next to the TV program and used a HDMI capture card along with a Raspberry Pi to essentially add an overlay to the screen but it was too finicky and the pi would often lock up (its nowhere near powerful enough).
Ideally it needs a passthrough system that can resize the source input down a bit to fit a scrolling banner at the bottom and a sidebar that family members can remotely push messages to, or have scheduled reminders with a voice over.
Common things we found needed reminders were things like remembering to drink, a reminder of someone coming round, reminders to go to bed, shower, clean your teeth, etc.
I dont think anything interactive would be a good idea in this situation. The worst thing you can do with dementia patients is introduce something new to learn so it would need to be as frictionless as possible.
I'd guess that it really depends on the person. This makes me hopeful https://newatlas.com/health-wellbeing/people-with-dementia-c...
If this sounds like something you want then please register your interest on this form.
https://form.jotform.com/232982350527156
https://www.stayspry.tv/
I say, keep it simple, keep it familiar. I am 100% sure this will backfire.
2. 20 years younger than 94 might have significantly less medical issues - to quote the article "The problem was that she has difficulty walking, and when she is sitting in her lazy boy chair, it’s tough to get up and walk to the phone to see who is calling. She gets a lot of spam calls. She also plays the TV loud and may not hear the phone ring." etc. etc.
Having one remote is big
Being able to ask Alexa to find the remote is also big, because I swear my grandmother loses that thing every week
One remote that controls everything, it has like 5 buttons on it, and one of them is a netflix button. Fantastic.
And now my dad feels like a tech wizz whenever he casts a photo/video from his phone to the tv when he wants to show his friends something.
This article's solution feels very brittle and cumbersome, which will probably increase the tech support calls.
Instead what she used most were stateless devices. Devices which you can turn off, then turn on, and then she would see the exact same starting point and have exact same path to the target. For example call on a dumbphone - she knew that she needed to unlock it via a corner button then press down on a joystick as many time as that person required. Same with TV, she knew approximately what buttons to click to get to some channel.
She had bad eyesight and it would make voice assistant even worse, because she wouldn't see what happened after each command.
For everyone else looking to consolidate a settop box and tv to a no bullshit remote highly recommend
https://www.oneforall.com/universal-remotes/urc-6820-zapper#...
Gone are all the superfluous netflix or change input buttons that make your parents stuck and generate support calls.
You configure the remote for tv and when thats done you (optionaly) configure it for the settop box. At that point only the dedicated TV power button goes to tv all other keys go directly to the settop box and theres very few of them with comfortable size and best rubber quality i've seen in a remote ever.
The settopbox/tv compatibility list is not published online but spans decades and i had no problem setting up a noname one that wasn't even on the list.
Includes things like a remote finder button on top of the Roku that works pretty well.
https://youtu.be/gZCw9bUJ6q8
Two remotes was the moment I stopped watching TV altogether at third of her age.
Am I pointing the right device? Is the battery in any of them out? Is the bloody device not reacting of just waking up? The cable box is connected to the TV aux or it's a "smart" one connected to one of the HDMI aux'es? All this mess to watch mostly ads.
That's where the smart TVs missed the mark. When I press mute on my TV remote, it should be smart enough to figure out how to talk to other devices to mute everything.
The biggest hurdle seems to be discoverability. A physical remote makes sense, and doesn't change. Buttons have a singular function and context doesn't matter. Apps are different beasts, navigate up/down/forward/backward (thus context (what did you do before, now doing x does y, but otherwise z)) is just met with glazy eyes. Going back and front just makes no sense, why sometimes you need to go to a menu and other times it's a shortcut button, makes no sense, especially when summoning the menu needs special navigation. To add insult to injury, every now and then apps get an overhaul, and suddenly navigation and buttons changed/looked different.
Now when i say apps, i do mean apps on phones/tvs. The windows UI works for them because the basics are the same for all programs, using word or outlook, menu items have text like "send" "save" and while it takes time, functionality is discoverable. But for tv apps the logic is "click up or down until the icon you want has a different hue, then press a button on the remote to do stuff, but only when the screen shows x,not when it shows z". It's too much functionality condensed in too little UI. I'm constantly baffled by design choices for apps that are supposed to be used by everyone, I'm sure it looks nice to designers and devs, but have they even tried showing their brand new TV interface (these are the worst offenders) to an elderly and gave them simple tasks?
You still need some way to get input to swap between these digital channels (I use Plex to surface my shows and schedule), but if you have existing local content it really feels like the "old" way of doing TV. You can even add commercials between episodes if you wanted!
I'm not sure if I'd call this foolproof for a 94-year-old, especially since sometimes the software needs to restart, but it's a step above modern streaming IMO.
[0] https://github.com/vexorian/dizquetv [1] https://github.com/ErsatzTV/ErsatzTV