HACKER Q&A
📣 unsupp0rted

How to teach an elderly parent how to point the camera?


I’m trying to help my parent set up a smart scale over FaceTime. This requires screen sharing for the app but also camera for seeing the smart scale’s display during setup.

My parent is perfectly fine with iPads and iPhones but after a decade of practice can’t point the camera at a thing I need to see.

Last time I was there I put some numbers on a piece of paper and we practiced pointing the camera at the numbers.

They understand conceptually that what they see in the “me” box during a FaceTime call is what I see of their camera.

Nevertheless they’ll show me the glass corner of the scale for a second, then the display, then at a critical moment during setup the glass corner again.

It doesn’t seem to be a device heaviness issue.

Any tips for permanently teaching my elderly parent how to point the camera at something and keeping it in view?

  👤 k310 Accepted Answer ✓
If it's a useful data point, when I zoom (app) with the iPad in landscape orientation, I have to tilt the entire iPad to get myself entirely within the screen.

I suppose that orienting it in portrait mode might be a more "normal" tilt operation, but none of my awesome background photos are portrait mode. :-)

At least, in portrait mode, the camera is centered left-to-right.

I am elderly, if that matters.

And by the way, when you hold an iPad in landscape mode, the totally natural position for the left hand is over the camera lens for face ID.

👤 floxy
I wonder what the historical reason is for having the camera lens at a corner, instead of at the center of the phone/tablet. Is this some fashion thing that everyone decided to copy? I can't imagine there is a technical reason, but I'm open to hear thoughts on this. Maybe originally battery shapes / sizes made a corner camera easier? And now everyone just follows the trend? Onions in the varnish style?

Is the "me" box on Face Time at a different corner than the camera lens?

https://www.joeydevilla.com/2001/12/03/4419/

👤 starbase
Buy them a mini tripod to hold the phone at the right angle? idk man