Show HN: I made an emergency page for my family

Original Article ↗ Hacker News Discussion ↗

Use case: why an emergency web page?

  • Goal: contact family if phone is lost/stolen and 2FA locks users out of usual apps.
  • Page can trigger SMS/email to predefined contacts; URL is easier to remember than multiple phone numbers.
  • Some argue a web page is less practical than simply calling or texting from a borrowed phone, especially in an emergency.
  • Others note many people don’t memorize numbers anymore, so a URL that exposes contact info or sends messages can be useful.

Messaging apps and communication channels

  • Debate over WhatsApp vs iMessage/Signal/Discord vs regional apps (WeChat, Line, KakaoTalk).
  • Usage is highly regional: in some places WhatsApp is near-universal, in others almost nobody uses it.
  • Some suggest just listing WhatsApp/phone details on a simple, possibly passworded page.

2FA, account recovery, and “cold reboot of digital life”

  • Losing a phone often means losing access to email and services due to mandatory 2FA.
  • Suggestions include: backup codes in wallet, hardware keys (e.g., multiple YubiKeys stored with trusted people), memorized recovery keys, or duplicating TOTP secrets via static QR codes.
  • One link shared to a “2FA mule” concept for off-device access.

LLM summarization for SMS

  • The app uses an LLM to shrink a long emergency message into SMS-length.
  • Critics say this is a bad fit: in emergencies messages should be short and unambiguous; better to enforce a hard character limit, have separate “subject + body” fields, or send multiple SMS.
  • Concern that LLMs might omit crucial context.

Security, spam, and abuse concerns

  • Open form could be exploited for scams (“relative in trouble, send money”).
  • Suggestions: password-protect the page; knowledge-based questions only family can answer; list contacts but restrict who can trigger notifications.
  • Some worry about long-term reliability due to multiple SaaS dependencies and Temporal.

UI/UX and deployment feedback

  • Confusion over unlabeled textarea (mistaken for CAPTCHA); suggestion to add labels.
  • Some users unexpectedly sent messages to the author due to unclear UI.
  • Reports of access being blocked (e.g., via Cloudflare) and brief downtime during deployments.

Alternative ideas

  • Simple handwritten list or unindexed URL with phone numbers.
  • “Dead man switch” or phone-motion-based alerts if a device stops moving.
  • Dedicated family chatroom or check-in service for disasters.