We all know the famous line:
"I've fallen and I can't get up."
Luckily, medical alert systems have come a long way since.
And, thanks to advances in GPS tracking,
voice activation, and mobile apps,
seniors are able to live independently
at home for longer.
Today, I'm talking to Cathy Habas,
who is a staff writer on SafeWise.
She recently reviewed Aloe Care Health,
a medical alert system with Alexa-like qualities
designed to give caregivers peace of mind
and seniors more independence at home.
My name's Cathy Habas, and I'm a staff writer
for SafeWise.com, and I focus on family safety.
Family safety encompasses best smartwatches for kids,
medical alerts for seniors, just in general,
how to keep your home safe.
If you've got toddlers or babies or aging parents,
a medical alert system is a really quick way
to get help from
911.
But instead of putting you directly in contact with 911,
you talk to a professional monitor first,
and they have all of your health information on file.
They have your location.
If you use a mobile GPS unit like this,
they'll have your location pinpointed,
and they relay all of that information to 911.
Equipment from Aloe Care lands between $100 and $300.
Its packages range from a simple wearable GPS unit
with a call button and a speaker
to a whole suite of motion sensors
with a wall-mounted fall detector.
Depending on the devices you or your loved one needs,
monitoring fees can range between $25 and $50 a month.
Just like a home security system,
medical alerts use monitoring professionals to check in
when they've been alerted to an emergency,
like someone falling in the bathroom.
You can find Cathy's full review on Aloe Care
on SafeWise.com.
But first let's hear from her about her testing experience.
Aloe Care comes with a base station
for in the home, which most systems do.
It's got this big button that you push when you need help.
(upbeat music)
The kit Cathy tested included a base station,
mobile companion GPS unit, and a wearable button.
This setup is pretty standard for medical alert systems.
Most come with at least a GPS button
that lets caregivers call their loved ones
or wearers call for help when they're away from home.
Well, I was very, very curious
about how accurate it was going to be
with the voice activation.
And I went through the full setup process.
So, I got it out of the box, plugged it in.
How's this gonna set up?
I have difficulty with devices wanting
to connect to my Wi-Fi.
So I was a little bit skeptical that this is gonna work.
I didn't have to put in any password
or anything to use this hub.
I believe it just connected to my cellular network.
So that was really nice and it took, I wanna say
it was less than three minutes,
but it was just three minutes of me standing there
and waiting for the device to kind of finish thinking.
After setting up her base station,
she ran a few tests with her system,
including pairing it with her Amazon Echo,
performing a test call, and, maybe the most eye-opening,
what she called the bathroom test.
Okay, now I'm gonna go from the kitchen
to the bathroom and try to use the voice activation.
Emergency!
It's voice-activated.
So, you can call the emergency center by using your voice.
You have to say emergency four or five times in succession.
And not only do you have to say it,
but the system has to recognize that you say it.
So, sometimes you can end up saying emergency
multiple times up to like 10 times,
and then you can get a little bit flustered.
Despite yelling for the Aloe Care base station loud
and repeatedly, she had trouble getting its attention.
Good thing her dogs were there to help.
I do not consider myself a shouter.
Like I don't have that loud of a voice.
This hub cannot hear me.
And I'm literally one room over, and I'm thinking,
okay, most older people probably don't have
the loudest voices either.
And that's a biggie.
A weak microphone in the base station means that
calling for help from far away won't be as easy.
Thankfully Cathy's Aloe Care kit came with a wearable button
that she was able to test without shouting.
So after all of this testing,
what did Cathy think about Aloe Care?
Don't get the wrong impression from Cathy's bathroom test.
She did walk away from her experience with a lot of good
to say about this medical alert system.
First, she was able to easily cancel any false alarms,
which is especially useful during testing.
One thing I like about it is that
it's really easy to cancel if you accidentally
have a false alarm, like if the grandkids are like,
hey, what's that button,
or you just press it on accident or you decide,
you know what I don't really need help.
I'm gonna call somebody instead of talking
to the professionals; I'm gonna call family member.
It also makes it easier for users to call family
and caregivers through the device itself.
The check mark and the X are for accepting calls
from caregivers.
So they can actually, through the app,
do a check-in call and the button,
the light around the button will glow and let you know
that someone's calling in.
And if you don't answer,
the call is put through automatically.
But if you really do not wanna talk to somebody,
you just hit the X button and say,
I don't wanna talk.
Next, she enjoyed the Aloe Care mobile app,
especially for folks watching older loved ones
with onset dementia or memory issues.
And I have to say, I really was impressed
with the app for this.
Because it shows you not only street view
but satellite view.
And you can export their location into Google Maps,
Apple Maps, and get directions to their location.
Which other medical alert devices like this,
that I've tested, don't want you to do anything like that.
And finally, the system's GPS unit
or mobile companion was a hit.
I wanted to talk about the GPS capabilities
of the mobile companion,
because I was really impressed by this.
If you have a loved one who maybe is just starting to show
some of the warning signs of dementia
and they just get confused,
they're still able to live their normal life,
but maybe they go out for groceries and they get in the car,
And they're like, I don't remember how to get home.
(Katie giggles)
If they push the button, the button only goes
to the professional monitoring center,
but caregivers have a way of tracking location too.
As you saw from Cathy's footage,
the microphone in the Aloe Care base station,
wasn't able to pick up Cathy's voice
from the next room over.
That's not a great sign.
Emergency!
But that wasn't the only gripe our tester
had with the system.
How long would the backup battery last?
It only lasts six hours,
which is not great for the medical alert industry.
A lot of them last 32 hours.
So, this is really only good for,
"we're just kind of cleaning up the house
or reorganizing things,
and we had to unplug the hub and move it,
and then we're gonna plug it back in really soon."
There's a planned power outage on the street.
Don't worry, mom, your system will still work.
Compared to other medical alert systems,
a six-hour backup battery is pretty puny.
She tested others that claim to last on reserve
for at least 24 hours.
This is especially helpful for folks who live alone.
If the power goes out and they have an accident,
a system with a functional backup battery
can still get help.
So we've gone through Cathy's testing process,
what she liked, and what she didn't about Aloe Care.
So who is this system for, anyway?
And would Cathy recommended it?
And I would recommend Aloe Care to people
who really want to keep track of their loved ones' location.
Their activity around the house.
The caregiver app tells you stuff like
when your loved one last walked past the hub.
There's motion detectors on the hub
and it will tell you, oh, so-and-so was last seen,
you know, one minute ago in the kitchen.
So I really, really like it for caregivers.
I think it's really robust.
It's got a lot of features.
You just have to find a system
that you feel comfortable with.
So, even though I'm really impressed with Aloe Care,
if you are more comfortable with another system,
that's fine.
Just get something that you're comfortable with.
And just, the important thing is just to have one,
if you feel like you need one,
or if even a caregiver thinks that you need one,
just go ahead and get one.
Learn more about Aloe Care from Cathy's
full review on SafeWise.com.
You can also find lists of our
favorite medical alert systems
along with the best for fall detection
and the most affordable.
And don't forget to like and subscribe
for more product testing here on YouTube.
Thanks for watching, and stay safe.
(upbeat music)