Ethan Gardner ettacalls.com
Project 02 · Software
Etta logo

Etta

The daily call you can't always make.

Etta phones your mom or dad every day for a warm, unhurried conversation, then sends you a short note on how they're really doing. It's a product I'm designing and building around one hard rule: Etta is always honest about being AI, and it only ever calls with your parent's consent. It's early-stage, and the site says so plainly; what's live today is the design, published for feedback.

01

Between visits, you're guessing

Most families patch the gap with fragments. A Sunday call catches one mood out of seven. A motion sensor says the coffee maker turned on. A text gets a thumbs-up back. Each one tells you she's alive; none of them tells you how she's doing.

MON TUE WED THU FRI SAT SUN ? ? ? ? ? ? the call 20 min

A weekly call catches one mood out of seven. The other six days are guesses.

02

A call, not an app

Etta rings her own phone at the same time every day. There's no app for her to learn and no gadget to wear, just a ten-minute conversation about sleep, breakfast, the garden, and that knee. Etta opens every call as itself, an AI check-in companion, never pretending to be human. That honesty is the pledge the product is built on, and the consent step, your parent's own yes, matters most of all.

8:00 AM her phone rings ETTA Good morning, Margaret! It's Etta. How did you sleep? MARGARET Oh hello, dear. Not too bad, up at six. ETTA An early bird! Breakfast yet?

From a real morning call on the site. Etta opens as itself, an AI companion, every single time. If she doesn't pick up, Etta retries, texts her, then works through the contact chain you chose.

03

The note after every call

A few minutes after each conversation, you get a short note by text: mood, meals, medication, and anything worth knowing. No app, no inbox, no login, for them or for you. It's the difference between "alive" and "doing well." A sensor tells you the coffee maker turned on; Etta tells you how she sounded.

Etta today · 8:05 AM Margaret sounded cheerful today. Slept well, had toast and jam. She'll water the garden this afternoon. Her knee is stiff again, second time this week. MOOD · BRIGHT ATE · YES MEDS ✓ WATCH · KNEE

The note lands as a plain text message. No app, no login, nothing new to check.

04

Patterns over time

Single days lie; weeks don't. Etta rolls the daily notes into weekly trends across sleep, appetite, and spirits, so slow changes don't slip past anyone. One stiff knee is a Tuesday. The same knee twice in a week is something to mention, and Etta mentions it.

Sleep Appetite Spirits Knee MON TUE WED THU FRI SAT SUN

A week of notes becomes a trend line. The knee that comes up twice gets flagged.