Easiest way for Elderly relative to ping me copies of Letter etc?????

wilf1234

Hi 
Has anyone found a magic solution for an elderly parent to easily send through photos of correspondence or letters they've received?
My mum lost my Dad after 54yrs of marriage last year, and in that time she never did any of the utilities or money management etc. So I'm doing it all for her remotely from 100miles away. 
Most of it is on line, but when she receives a letter or form etc, I'm having a nightmare trying to get her to just ping me a photo of it.
She has an Ipad, uses gmail and Whatsapp, but with only very limited success when it comes to attaching or viewing anything!! Today she tried to send me a 12 paid document and it took us over 2hours to get it all through (eventually partly by Whatsapp and partly by Gmail, most pages duplicated several times)
She can be taught how to use most things, but quickly forgets!! 
Does anyone have any ideas of apps dedicated for this sort of thing? or found a utterly foolproof method for her to use? 
I'm even contemplating scratching around for a fax machine if I can't find anything else!!!
Ta



 

Andy_L

TBH sounds like post could be easier

murphydavid

Kind of depends where the problem lies.
If you set up a google account for which you both have the login details once her ipad has been logged in to it it will stay logged in and it can be set so that every photo she takes will be synchronized with her google photos and you will be able to see them almost immediately.
So all she has to do each time is select the camera icon on the ipad and take a photo of the document.

If focusing is a problem and you can do a bit of DIY you can create a make shift frame like four short legs and a rectangular top frame with a height that if the frame is placed on a table over an A4 sheet and the ipad on the frame it will focus correctly if you see what I mean.
like this
https://www.amazon.co.uk/SCANLIO-Smartphone-Economical-Document-Scanner/dp/B06XQLBX5F/ref=sr_1_7?dchild=1&keywords=scanning+stand&qid=1600512974&s=electronics&sr=1-7
To help stop multiple photos set the ipad to make a sound when the camera is activated then she will know the photo has been taken and not think she needs to do it again.
Got to be easier than learning how to use a fax.

stragglebod

I stopped using a printer years ago so not sure if they can do this, but could it be possible to get a multifunction scanner/printer that can scan direct to Google Drive or another cloud service? Or even to access and control it remotely?

Otherwise, do Teamviewer do an app for the ipad to allow you to control it remotely? Then you could just get her to point the camera at the documents and take care of the tech side of it yourself.

IvanOpinion

I do this with Mrs O when I am working away.  All she has to do is take a picture with her camera.  I (remotely) got her to download and install pCloud, linked her phone to my account and set the flag that automatically uploads photos to pCloud (she doesn't have to do anything except photograph it - sometimes it can take a few minutes for the photo to appear but so far it has been totally reliable).  Similar may work with other cloud providers.

ballyblack

Further to previous replies. No need to send Pics!

All you need is a Android phone with half decent camera set up correctly to sync everything
All she has to do is take a photo & thats it 
Then you log into her Google photos using her log in details and the pics will be there
I do it all the time in similar circumstance!

Farway

ballyblack said:

Further to previous replies. No need to send Pics!

All you need is a Android phone with half decent camera set up correctly to sync everything
All she has to do is take a photo & thats it 
Then you log into her Google photos using her log in details and the pics will be there

And using same google photos, you can view them on your TV should they need large format for easy viewing

missile

Scan using a printer might be another option? My HP can send scans via Wifi to a remote computer.

mobileron

take photo on whats app,it then give you the chose to mail and other features for free.

wilf1234

Thanks guys,
I was using Google photos at the start, but synchronising was taking forever (couple of days+!) - for example, the photos she took yesterday morning are still not online!
I perhaps need to look in to improving her wifi coverage!!

knightstyle

Does she have a neighbour who can do this for her?