Family Roll Call™ started during a visit to our mother over Labor Day weekend 2013. Dad passed away several years earlier, and Mom is a private person that did not want to call and bother her children every time she made shopping trips to nearby cities. Additionally, she worried that she might somehow get stuck in the house and be unable to get help via her phone or alarm system. Thus Family Roll Call was born as a prototype just for Mom. As our first user, she checked in every day. The user interface was very simple, as Mom is not the most tech-savvy person. About 15% of the time, she needed a reminder notification. After several months, the only "false alarms" were two when she was visiting us or we were visiting her and she never looked at her phone, iPad, or email that day. So, we added "Vacation Mode" capability to temporarily suspend service while we were visiting.
Word spread among family, friends, and coworkers who asked for access to the app. So, we took it to the next level to make it a secure multi-user experience with our major goal being simplicity and intuitiveness.
This image was used for the original icon for the app prototype that was used just by our Mom (it's a painting made by one of her children):
We invite you to read the FAQs to learn more about Family Roll Call!
