NamasteParent: AI phone check-ins with elderly parents plus WhatsApp family updates

Problem

Adults living in another city or country want to check on aging parents back home every day, but time zones and busy workdays get in the way. Meanwhile, elderly parents don't want to install or navigate a health app—they just know how to answer a regular phone call.

What I built

An automated phone check-in service where parents simply pick up a normal phone call from a warm AI voice powered by Gemini 3.1 Flash Live. After the call, the system summarizes how they are feeling, whether they took their medicines, and sends a structured update to the family on WhatsApp.

Architecture diagram

+---------------------+     PSTN Call     +------------------------+    Bidi Audio Stream    +------------------------+
|  Elderly Parent's   | <---------------> |   Piopiy / TeleCMI     | <----------------------> |  FastAPI on Cloud Run  |
|    Regular Phone    |                 |   Telephony Gateway    |                         |  + Gemini 3.1 Flash    |
+---------------------+                 +------------------------+                         |   Live Audio Session   |
                                                                                         +-----------+------------+
                                                                                                     |
+------------------------+          Post-Call Summary                                                v
| Family WhatsApp Update | <------------------------------------------------+          +-----------------------+
|  + Next.js Dashboard   |                                                |          |  Supabase PostgreSQL  |
+------------------------+                                                +--------> |  (JWT Auth + Row-Level|
                                                                                     |   Security per family)|
                                                                                     +-----------------------+

Key decisions

1. 01

   Zero-app PSTN phone call for the parent, WhatsApp for the children

   Why: Kept the parent interface strictly to an incoming regular phone call via Piopiy/TeleCMI and delivered summaries via WhatsApp.

   Trade-off: Higher per-minute telephony cost than an in-app VoIP call, but zero onboarding friction for senior citizens.

2. 02

   Gemini 3.1 Flash Live for low-latency, interruptible voice

   Why: Used real-time streaming audio (Gemini 3.1 Flash Live) instead of a chained STT → LLM → TTS pipeline so the agent listens while speaking rather than doing "wait-for-your-turn robot talk".

   Trade-off: Requires persistent WebSocket audio bridging on Google Cloud Run, but makes the conversation feel natural to an older listener.

3. 03

   Strict Row-Level Security (RLS) in Supabase for family health notes

   Why: Enforced JWT-scoped Row-Level Security policies directly in PostgreSQL so family check-in logs are isolated at the database layer.

   Trade-off: More upfront SQL policy testing, but prevents cross-tenant data leaks on sensitive family check-ins.

Result

• [PLACEHOLDER]

  [ADD METRIC: check-in calls completed]

• [PLACEHOLDER]

  [ADD METRIC: average call latency / completion rate]

• [PLACEHOLDER]

  [ADD METRIC: WhatsApp summary delivery time]

Demo

Want to build a real-time voice product on Gemini Live or custom telephony?