What To Look For in a Personal Emergency Medical Alarm System

These days there are plenty of options when it comes to choosing the best personal emergency alarm system. In this short article let’s examine these further.

1. Should work anywhere there is mobile network coverage, not just at home. Most personal emergency medical alarms only work in the vicinity of the home. These are pretty old school, requiring the use of the home landline or NBN. They consist of a base station with a speakerphone and microphone built in which is usually a pretty large and unsightly box sitting near the landline phone. A small pendant wirelessly connects to the base station which usually calls someone in a call centre if help is needed. Unfortunately, 2 way conversations with these systems can only occur if the wearer has an emergency within several metres of the speakerphone and microphone within the fixed base station. “When in doubt, send the ambos out”, seems to be the mantra when the operator is unable to be reassured that the emergency alarm wearer is safe.The Live Life 4GX personal emergency medical alarm system works everywhere in Australia where there is available Telstra mobile coverage. With a loud and crystal clear speaker and microphone built into the mobile alarm, 2 way voice is as good as a high end mobile phone on the loudest speakerphone setting. The Swiss designed, Austrian built u-Blox 8 GPS chip combined with Bluetooth and wifi location tracking means reliable location accuracy almost everywhere in Australia. Being 4GX, you have the best available indoor and outdoor coverage possible.
2. Inbuilt fall detection. Most personal emergency medical alarm providers are reluctant to provide an inbuilt fall detection capability in their personal alarms. Perhaps they’ve not yet figured out a clever inbuilt fall detection algorithm, or maybe they’re more concerned about one person suing them for a fall detection failure than they are concerned about the 1000’s of people who could be saved by such a feature. Often medical alarm companies, if they do have an auto fall detect feature, will charge extra on top of the monthly fee. Be aware of that. The Live Life 4GX personal emergency medical alarm has a reliable inbuilt fall detection feature included, with our own algorithm. The mobile alarm is good at detecting impact or deceleration. You can check out some examples here When a fall is detected the mobile alarm will, in a loud and clear female Aussie accent declare “A fall has been detected. Click the SOS/Heart button to cancel the fall alert.” This happens for 15 seconds and if the SOS/Heart button hasn’t been clicked in that time then the inbuilt fall detection emergency sequence begins. The mobile personal alarm will start calling up to 6 friends and/or family one by one and at the same time send a text message to each of the family members showing that a fall has been detected as well as the alarm wearers position on Google Maps. As soon as someone answers they can talk to the wearer of the alarm no matter where either person is, so long as there is mobile network coverage. The “smart voice guide” feature in the alarm walks the wearer of the mobile alarm through the emergency sequence, constantly telling the wearer where they are in the call sequence and giving them opportunities to cancel the emergency alarm sequence.
3. No monthly monitoring fees. Instead of being monitored by a stranger in a call centre, many people prefer to be monitored by the people who love them and know them best, their family and friends. (000 can also be a contact). Some personal emergency medical alarm companies will charge a hefty monthly fee for the privilege of having a “trained professional” answer their emergency call. Anywhere from $35 to $100 per month seems to be the norm for such a service. $450 to $1200 per year for such a service, year after year, is a lot of money for some people. The Live Life 4GX personal emergency medical alarm pendant has no monthly monitoring fees. This is because it’s not being monitored by a stranger in a call centre but rather by up to 6 friends and/or family who won’t charge you for such a service.