Name for settable alarm device that works like restaurant buzzer/pager, but smartphone controlled?

Question

Just got this question closed at SuperUser, so I hope I'll have more luck here.

I'm trying to help some elderly relatives, that cannot hear nor remember well.

They had remembered that at a certain point, they had used something that was a wireless device, that could beep extremely loud and vibrate at the same time in order to alarm/notify the user - and they would like something like that to set time duration based reminders/alarms (for instance, one would be able to set: "beep in 30 minutes"; or "beep in 2 hours").

The only thing this kind of description reminds me of, are so-called "restaurant pager coasters" or "buzzer" systems; as an example here is an image from https://www.jiantaotech.com/collection/wireless-guest-paging-system, for a product called "JT-9301 Coaster Pager Restaurant Paging System"

Obviously, the use case of these is different from a single-person use, so you're usually sold a set of "bricks"/"coasters", and a simple "remote control" to trigger them.

What I would need instead, is a single such "brick"/"coaster" that can beep/ring extremely loud, flash lights and vibrate - but would either have some simple interface on-device, to set a timer (to beep in some time, say 15 mins or half an hour) - or be controlled via smartphone (preferably Android) app: e.g. the app helps you set the timer alarm (when the device should beep), or cancel a running timer/alarm, either over Wi-Fi or over Bluetooth.

My biggest problem is - I have no idea how such a device would be called/named, so I cannot really find anything useful; all I find are restaurant pager systems like above, which I cannot really use as a settable alarm widget for an elderly person. Would anyone have an idea about what terms I should search for?

Answer 1

If you allow that a smartphone is a hardware device, this answer qualifies as more than a simple software solution. Using the terms "iphone app remote alarm" provided few appropriate results save one.

This app is named Galarm - Alarms and Reminders App and I have confirmed that it is still available in the Apple App store, free of charge.

One feature of note is that it allows alarms to be configured and sent to another party. There is mention of a telephone number, but I suspect that it might work if connected by a shared wireless network, although that's conjecture and has not been tested.

From the linked site:

The feature will work for people who have Galarm app in their phones. For example, If you want to remind George to pick up birthday cake when he leaves office at 7 PM — just send a reminder to George using Galarm. Galarm will make the reminder pop-up for George at 7 PM. You can even chat with George to tell him to get muffins too from the bakery.

If George doesn’t use Galarm, then you can send the reminder to him using any messaging app of your choice. When George will tap on the reminder, he will be asked to download the Galarm app and reminder would be automatically created for him.

References at the linked site cover vibration alerts, notifications that an alarm was not observed, and other features.

Google Play also has the app and the reviews appear positive. One can purchase an Android phone for what I consider to be a reasonable cost and install the app.

Of course, the learning curve for users born in the last century may be a bit steep.