Why I built BabushkApp
Selfies nobody took
I opened my grandma’s WhatsApp history and found a dozen selfies she never took. She was just looking for our chat: pocket, front camera, tap-tap-tap.
I mentioned it to friends — turns out many have the same thing with an older relative.
What didn't work
The phone works, she answers incoming calls. But calling out or finding a WhatsApp chat is a maze: open the app, the tabs, the chat list, don’t tap the wrong thing.
She has early dementia. The sequence of steps doesn’t always survive to next time.
What we did
A friend and I put one screen of big buttons on her phone:
- Green — a WhatsApp call to me
- Blue — a normal call
- Red — emergency (112)
One icon on the home screen. Tap it — three buttons — tap one. Done.
No menus, no tabs, no accidental selfies.
Setup
It took about ten minutes:
- Opened the site in the browser on her phone
- Added the icon to the home screen
- Made three buttons with labels she reads
- Showed her once: “tap the green one to call me”
Done.
Two weeks later
She uses it every day. No misses. No “how do I open WhatsApp” calls. She looks at the photos I send. She calls on her own.
The red icon helps even when she forgets which app to open — the colour is an anchor.
Why it’s free and account-free
Everything stays on her phone. We don’t see the contacts and store nothing on a server. It’s a website that works like an app: installs in a couple of minutes and weighs almost nothing — which matters on old phones.
The WHO estimates millions of people live with dementia; many more have low vision or simply can’t keep up with a modern interface. And with the built-in screen reader (VoiceOver, TalkBack) a call through BabushkApp is often shorter than the usual way.
Why I’m sharing this
I’m not a medical company. I’m a grandson who got tired of finding accidental selfies in a chat history.
If it helps your family call without the confusion — that’s the whole point.