[cbhl]

What causes your brother to be able to do these tasks? Is it that the instructions are presented step-by-step? Is it because his mother cares about him getting it done?

Have you tried using lower-tech devices to help remind him? A paper agenda, Google Calendar, and alarm clocks/wristwatches are all techniques that other autistic people have used with varying levels of success.

If you want to test whether the Echo reminder would help, you should try a lower-fidelity prototype -- record your mother saying the reminder with a tape recorder or a Sound Recorder app on a computer, and then play it back at the appropriate time and see how he responds. (If it was me, I'd find it rather insulting and might respond angrily, but I wouldn't assume your brother acts the same way.)

Does your brother want to live independently of your mother? If your mother is the only social contact that your brother has during the whole day, then replacing her with an Echo might make him even more isolated, right?

[davidcoronado]

Those are some great points. He needs a constant reminder to do things. We've tried alarms before but it's only when we talk to him that he responds. I think the Amazon Echo could be a good first start with testing. I was thinking of manually dictating Alexa to see how effective it is and how he reacts.

He has social interaction at work but my mother travels often which makes it difficult for her because she has to constantly be calling him to make sure he is up and ready to get out the door. I'm just looking for a solution to help him be more independent and make it easier for her when she travels.

[cbhl]

It's important that your brother wants to become independent by himself, and understands why they stand to benefit from it. (For me, living independently means I can go to sleep early if I want, or go to sleep late if I want, or sleep in an extra hour, so long as I'm not late for work the next day.) You don't want to try to force the Echo onto your brother to make him independent if he's not willing -- it will just end with him ignoring the Echo, or worse, trying to break the thing. (I realize that it may be hard to have this conversation with him. It's not totally clear how "high-functioning" your brother is from your post.)

I agree that alarms are a mixed bag. They can cause sensory overload for some; for others they're easily missed/ignored (especially if they go off too often).

An aside: it sounds like you're trying to justify the purchase of an Echo by using your brother as an excuse. Don't do that. If you just want an Echo, you should own up to it and buy it because you want it. But if you already have one, it's fine to experiment with it.

A voice recording alarm clock is a lot cheaper than an Echo; have you tried that? There are also vibrating alarms (the Pebble had a great one, but they went out of business -- the Fitbit "Silent Alarms" are too weak in comparison).

[davidcoronado]

That's a great point about if he wants to be independent himself. He is pretty high functional. He has a hard time picking up social cues and tends to take a bit longer to process things. We've had so many conversation about him one day being in a relationship and living on his own.

As for this idea, I haven't run it by him yet. That why I was curious to see what others thought. I already have an Alexa and this is more of an experiment. I do like the voice recording alarm clock. I think I'm going to start there. Thanks for the suggestion.