My brother in law is visiting from Alaska.

His first night here he misjudged the final step on the staircase, fell, and broke his hip. A week, a hip replacement, and $20,000 USD later, he is out of the hospital and in a nursing care facility about three miles away. In a few more days, he will be back here at my house.

His apartment is two floors beneath mine and they are serious floors: 14 inches of concrete heavily reinforced with steel. A cordless telephone or wi-fi signal will not penetrate one of them, much less two.

I need ideas for a simple, low-tech signaling system. It could be as basic as a string he could pull connected to a bell on the upper floor, except that the layout of the building makes any direct physical connection quite difficult, and there is little in the way of bits and pieces available in this little town where I live.

He has cerebral palsy, and operating a cell phone is beyond his capabilities. I have a relay system set up to feed wifi to the apartment directly below mine, but two floors down from me there is no usable signal.

I'm hoping there is some outside-the-box idea that I'll say, "Why didn't I think of that?" when I hear it.

tanstaafl.

A doorbell?

Give him the button, wire the bell to an outlet in your suite, and run two-conductor wire from his button to the bell.

If you already have a doorbell, even better -- use it, and still run two-conductor wire from it down to a button for him.

EDIT: or forgo the wire, and purchase a "wireless" doorbell system. Except it probably won't work with all of that concrete and rebar. So you pretty much will have to run a wire.

If the concrete has no access tubes between floors, can you drop a wire outside the building via windows? I did that in the UK in some ancient stone and concrete structure we had.

-jk

How about an old garage door opener? The remote should have enough signal to get there.

Doug,

This was a tough enough question that it forced me to figure out my BBS password.

I wonder if FRS radio might work over such a short distance, concrete or not. An example kit:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16872104053

So, essentially fancy walkie-talkies, push to talk. Something you could configure before use.

Good on you regarding your visitor.

Jim

The wallkie talkie idea is a good one. When I was young, I had a friend whose bedroom was a converted shed out in the yard. (He liked the privacy it afforded.). They had a radio intercom set up, base station in the house and the remote station in the bedroom. Something like that might work, and the simplicity of the large single button might be good for him. (Edit: Modern version here, claims pretty good range.)

Another idea: I recently got a remote control electrical plug thingy originally intended to activate outdoor Xmas lights. I use it to activate a "recording" sign downstairs from my upstairs studio. Plug a light bulb into that puppy and he can signal you if he needs you.

I suspect not. It isn't the concrete so much as all the steel embedded in it. In any case, it has to be a local solution. It takes a minimum of two to three weeks to receive a package here, and I need something today or tomorrow.

I have found a way to run a wire outside the house involving drilling a small hole through a bug screen, so I think I'll start looking into a doorbell-type solution. 30 feet of wire, a buzzer, a button, probably a transformer (I don't think the buzzer will be running at 110 volts, will it?) and maybe I can put something together.

tanstaafl.

Still the problem of transmitting through 28 inches of concrete and a lot of steel reinforcement. In any case, the shipping delays to receive it make it a non-viable solution, and chances of finding something similar locally are slim to none.

tanstaafl.

Are the two flats on the same electrical service? You might be able to arrange Ethernet-over-powerlines (e.g., http://thewirecutter.com/reviews/best-powerline-networking-kit/) for getting data back and forth, and at that point, you just need the right gizmo.

Searching Google for "Ethernet doorbell" actually turns up a number of hits. You can kludge something together from Arduino parts (http://lifehacker.com/5908850/build-an-a...-text-and-photo) or maybe buy something that suits your needs. There seem to be a lot of "video doorbell" contraptions out there, which might be the proper "overkill" solution to your problem.

Where the walkie-talkies may have an edge over other wireless tech, is that they typically use a longer radio wavelength than more modern stuff (eg. WiFi). Longer wavelengths penetrate objects better, but more importantly they also tend to reflect better from other nearby structures. This enables non line-of-sight communications, eg out the window, off a neighbouring structure, and back in through a different window.

But I still favour the doorbell style solutions -- wired beats wireless for reliability every time.

Cheers

If you can string a doorbell wire between the two locations, you can also string an Ethernet cable. Add an Ethernet switch (not router) and/or a WiFi Access Point to the new location, then you can add whatever networked devices you deem useful. Perhaps a baby monitor type 'videophone' that works over Ethernet or WiFi...

Doorbells generally operate using about 16 volts AC up to maybe 24 volts, in my experience. 12 volts AC can work in a pinch, but not all ringers will respond to a mere 12 volts. So there is a transformer involved to reduce the mains voltage down to doorbell safe voltages.

Wiring for doorbell use is entirely non-critical. Almost anything that conducts will work. Two wires from the button to the ringer, another two from ringer to transformer.

Basic wired intercom wiring is similarly non-critical for short distances. Some can work with only two wires, others need four or six wires. If you have a local electrical/electronics scrounger/recycling guy he may know where to source this sort of thing.

Outside the box? Perhaps a hands free (speakerphone) type telephone with a one button auto dial to your phone number.

Running telephone, cable TV and other such wiring around the outside of buildings is a time honored solution. I recently wrapped Ethernet cabling around two sides of a two story house to solve a 'you can't get there from here' WiFi problem. If you are worried about weather exposure you can run the wires inside plastic plumbing piping. Minimize or eliminate the pipe glue will make it easier to thread wires and make changes later.

And I was thinking a cheap pair of FRS might be found among the locals and/or the expat kayakers.


Amen, brother.

My first thought was a pair of soup cans with a string between them, hanging out from your window down into his window.

I like simple