Video calls, shared photos and the easy ways to stay close to family

The best thing about video calling is not the technology. It is that a four-year-old will show you their dinosaur, unprompted, from 200 miles (320 km) away, and for three minutes the distance stops existing. Everything here is in service of more of those three minutes.

Pick the app the family already uses

Age UK’s guide lists the usual candidates: WhatsApp, FaceTime, Zoom, Facebook Messenger and Skype. The right one is whichever your family already has, because the biggest obstacle to a call is one person having to install something.

In broad terms: FaceTime is built into every iPhone and iPad but only works between Apple devices. WhatsApp works on any phone and is often already the family group chat. Zoom is the one for bigger gatherings — Age UK notes it supports up to 100 people — and works on a computer or tablet if you would rather see faces on a bigger screen.

One reassurance from Age UK: video calls use the internet, so on Wi-Fi a call to a relative abroad costs nothing extra.

Fix the time; don’t wait for the mood

Spontaneous calls fail for boring reasons — the baby is asleep, someone is driving, you feel you are intruding. A standing time removes all of that: Sunday at four, Wednesday after school, in everyone’s diary, so nobody has to be the one to ask. Keep it short by default, and have something to look at ready — a photo from the week, the school project, a thing in the garden.

Age UK’s most practical tip is to make a test call with a trusted contact first, checking that your microphone and camera are on; when they are off, the icons show with a line through them. If the picture freezes, moving closer to your Wi-Fi router is the first fix.

Lighting, sound and hearing

A few small adjustments turn a grainy, echoing call into something that feels like a visit. Several come from RNID (the UK hearing-loss charity), whose advice for accessible video meetings applies just as well to family calls.

• Face the light. Sit facing a window or lamp, not with it behind you. RNID’s first rule is “make sure your face is visible” — most of us lip-read a little.
• Phone at eye level. Prop it against a stack of books rather than holding it.
• Find a quiet room. RNID notes that background noise is picked up by microphones and hearing aids alike. Turn the television off.
• One at a time. On a group call, RNID suggests raised hands so whoever hears least well can follow.
• Turn on captions. Most video apps can show live subtitles; RNID recommends them, noting automatic captions are imperfect.
• Earphones. Wired earphones often make voices clearer than the phone’s speaker; many hearing aids now connect directly to a phone.

Reading to grandchildren over video

The single best use of a video call, and it needs almost no technology. Choose a picture book, hold it up to the camera when you turn a page, and read. Children do not mind the lag. A copy of the same book at each end lets them turn the pages while you read. For older children, a chapter a week gives the call a reason to exist and a cliffhanger to bring them back.

Shared photo albums

Photos sent one at a time by message vanish into a scroll. A shared album is a single place the whole family can add to and comment on.

On an iPhone, Apple’s Shared Albums live in the Photos app: create an album, name it, choose photos and invite people. Apple confirms relatives without an Apple device can still join and add photos on the web. Google Photos offers similar shared albums for Android. Whichever you use, one album called “Family” that everyone adds to beats twelve carefully organised ones nobody opens.

Digital photo frames — and paper

A digital photo frame displays a rotating set of photos; the useful kind is one family members can send pictures to remotely, so a new photo of a grandchild simply appears on your kitchen wall. The frame is only as good as what arrives on it, so check the senders find it easy.

Do not give up on paper, either. Most supermarkets and chemists (drugstores) print from a phone, and a photo book made from the shared album is a birthday present that costs little and lasts.

Back the photos up first

Make sure the photos exist somewhere other than your phone. On an iPhone, Apple’s steps are Settings > your name > iCloud > iCloud Backup, then plug in on Wi-Fi. On Android, Google Photos > your profile picture > Photos settings > Backup; Google notes storage is shared with Gmail and Drive, so a full account may need a tidy. A one-off job that turns a lost phone from a loss into an inconvenience.

This week

Propose the standing call. Make the test call. Start the album. The technology is the easy part; the habit is the thing worth building.

For settings and safety, start with the complete guide to tech confidence after 50; and since “Hi Mum, new number” arrives in the same chat as the grandchildren’s photos, read How to spot a scam text, email or call. A printable set-up checklist for calls, albums and a photo frame is in our Tech Confident guide.