Show HN: I made an emergency page for my family

I don't get it. Is this for your family to message you in emergency (e.g. they lose their phones) without needing credentials to their 2FA-infested apps of sorts that they're locked out of?

Are you not getting a ton of spam from this form being open to public?

I've had similar ideas but I'd probably make it something easy to remember like myname.com/message and it quizzes the user or various things that only my family would know. Things like the color of the bedsheets, which specific IKEA kallax square the cat loves to hang out in, the location in the kitchen where the rice is stored

I would probably suggest switching the link to the GitHub source code and listing the actual page URL in the description; otherwise, I click the link in the article and get a location sharing request and a Send button; after a few seconds I matched that with the title, but I still had my WTF moment.

When I was really bad at speeding all the time I had this fear I'd go to jail and my cat would die alone in my apt. So I started working on my own dead man switch, I actually have not finished it but I at least bought him like a self-feeding thing that would last a month or more and he unfortunately drinks out of the toilet too so I leave the top cover off.

I've recently stopped or working on stopping the triple digits driving.

The topic at hand this would be a Twilio thing sending a message like "so and so might be in jail take care of the cat" which is messed up/funny but I do tell them in advance can you be on this list. But at least this phase of my life is over/I have something to look forward to/behave for.

Before MFA was mandated on every service this was an easy problem to solve. Now when you lose your phone while out and about you lose your ability to log in to even Dave's Speed Cow Milker's Enthusiast Forum unless you're at home with another computer already logged in to various things.

A "simple page" but it needs multiple SaaS API keys (Openrouter, Resend, Textbelt) AND requires Temporal? I can't see how this will last/be reliable for an extended period of time.

Also, how do you prevent spam?

Why is it more likely you'll have internet access when you don't have a phone? If you happen to find a computer, what's insufficient about writing an email?

In a wider disaster, such as a fire, earthquake, tornado or hurricane both companies and families want to contact employees or loved ones to make sure that they are OK. Unfortunately, land networks, Internet, links and mobile networks may be compromised by the emergency further, people may be caught away from home. Their laptop or mobile device might run out of power.

I thought a solution might be some type of “check-in” service - especially for employees. Are you OK? How can we reach you? Are you available for work? Do you need assistance? Etc.

Things like slack, teams, etc. can fit the bill so it was not really monetizable.

Youre not alone with the problem: if device lost -> difficult to reach family

No matter what solution you choose you will need to remember something. I have two family members who always answer, so their phone numbers are the only two I know. By dialing them manually now and then I make sure my memory is working.

In the age of AI/voice generators I’ve also told them how I will identify myself. So if being mugged in Kiwiland, and they get a call where I ask them to transfer money they can do so knowing it would only be me making that request as I told them the secret phrase: ”yes, it was me who tipped over the Christmas tree”. Ofcourse not that, but something none of the inner family will ever forget.

I built life-link almost a year ago for the same purpose: https://github.com/ahmedsaoudi/life_link

I even created a generator so people can configure it with their Telegram/Pushover settings and have it generate a static app easy to host on Netlify or Clouflare Pages/Workers.

I'm also from Brazil and share the same fears. I built a family note taking app which has an internal contact form for the same purpose. One can use it to contact family members in situations of having the phone lost/robbed. Now I'm looking forward to implementing an ephemeral web conference room via API so we could have emergency voice chat. I tried with Jitsi, but it didn't work for me.

I did something similar, just a photo of handwritten phone mumbers and an easy to remember URL that's not indexed.

Anyone will hopefully lend you a phone if you're in a pinch but I realized that I don't know very numbers to actually call and it's kinda weird to start using email/Whatsapp whatever on a strangers phone compared to asking to visit one site and make one call

I thought the unlabeled `<textarea>` was part of the prominent Cloudflare captcha that’s on the page. I sent intense swearing as a result. I’m sorry. But your UI could be made slightly better (by adding a label)!

Why did you let me send you a message? That’s what came up when I hit this page.

Hmm I'm not sure why in an emergency situation accessing a webpage would be easier than making a phone call.

Why did it ask my location.

I was trying to figure out if the bad gateway page was the page or an error

I... I would not trust my emergency page to an LLM.

"LLM-summarized" lmao

This isn't a terrible idea, but I'd password protect it and share the password with the people you want to be able to contact you. That'll help avoid spam/scams. "I'm your family member in trouble please send money now to X immediately no time to explain further" is a very common scam and a page like this would make it very easy.

Did you get my request for help?

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