V.ALRT Wireless Personal Emergency Alert Device

Best $12 I ever spent. Bought a couple more to give to friends who I believe also needed one. Yes, this statement is true. As for many of the complaints, I had the same problems in the beginning... false alerts and such. What I found was to change the battery. Lasting a year is an exaggeration, 3-4 months is more turn. That solved most of the false alert problems and I suggest changing it soon after you get it because you don't know how long it has been sitting in the box. The other issue with false alerts was finding a safe place on my body where I didn't accidentally set it off. In the pocket, around my neck or on my wrist was not good for me. I now hang it on my belt but you just have to find a safe spot. I hope this helps.

The fall detection (the primary reason I bought this device) is absolutely useless!Cons:• You have to really slam the device to get it to register a fall, and I would certainly not trust anyone's safety to this thing. This comes from a poor sensitivity setting by the manufacturer. Obviously it would be far better to have some false alarms than to miss real ones.• Even if a fall IS detected, there's a 60-second delay before an alert is activated, and you cannot alter this. It's unlikely that someone in the target audience is going to be able to (or know to) reach the paired phone within one minute to cancel an unnecessary alert anyway, and this long delay could have serious consequences. Again, this is favoring the avoidance of false alarms over utility. If you're going to include delays in the functions, let the user decide how long they will be!• There can be a long delay before the alert SMS and phone call are received by the emergency contact, which could be completely avoided if the paired phone called the emergency contact directly instead of going through the manufacturer's gateway. Why must it do this?!• The callback feature (emergency contact to paired phone), which also goes through the gateway (why?!), never, EVER works. It appears from the calling end to ring a few times, but then hangs up with nothing being received by the paired phone. But if you call the paired phone directly it works perfectly, so it's not a cellular problem. This is another fatal flaw in the gateway requirement.• Sometimes the gateway number rings busy, which means that the cheapskate manufacturer has bought insufficient incoming lines to handle their call volume--and the more people who use this device, the greater the problem will become. The device does not try again when this happens, which means that alerts can be lost completely. This is, of course, yet another a fatal flaw (perhaps literally...), and it alone would render this device undeserving of any trust.• The "Find V.ALRT" function is useless for an older person, because the pitch of the alert is far too high and the volume too low. Even my 49-year-old wife cannot hear it unless she holds the V.ALRT close to her ear--which, of course, defeats the purpose. This is again cheapness on the part of the manufacturer, because there are small piezoelectric buzzers like the one used here that produce a far more audible tone.• In my opinion, the fact that the alert button must be held down for at least two seconds is a serious mistake. Those two seconds can be a long time for an injured elderly person to keep pressing, and the button is stiff enough that someone with arthritis may have difficulty activating it at all. Didn't these guys test this product with elderly people?!• What are you going to do when this obviously-flakey manufacturer goes out of business, since the device is completely dependent on their gateway service?Pros:• Sending map coordinates to the emergency contact is an excellent feature.You might think that the lack of ongoing fees is a "pro", but I would much rather pay a fee than have the required (WHY?!) gateway service be this unreliable.There is no technological reason why the gateway is required, because the paired phone and the emergency contact phone could communicate directly without decreasing any of the functionality of the product (actually, it would INCREASE the utility, because Caller ID would then work correctly and not require that a contact be created on the receiving end). It is obviously included by the manufacturer because they want to track usage for their own purposes, and perhaps find a way to monetize this "free" service. The gateway requirement with its flakey execution is responsible for most of the serious flaws in this product (unreliable fall detection being the only exception), so in my opinion it makes the product unacceptable. Mine is going back to Amazon.Notice how the manufacturer responded to many of the earlier negative reviews by requesting that the reviewer call their technical support for assistance? This might give you the impression that they have good customer service, but don't be fooled into thinking that they're going to fix anything!Bottom line: look elsewhere for a way to protect your loved ones.

Our daughter has a seizure condition and we are searching for something like this to help keep her safe. The concept is good as it is a device that can be worn and a button pushed to indicate that you need help. It will send out text messages and can even make phone calls to your configured emergency contacts and it will even give location information for where you are. It doesn't have a monthly subscription that you need to pay and is all self contained (it keeps contact with your phone to send text messages and make calls).The downside is that it really isn't there yet on the delivery. The first time our daughter wore the watch version, it fell off without her even feeling it (luckily the phone indicated that it had lost connection after they got far enough away), so the watch has to be more like a regular watch that won't fall off and can go into the shower. Second, even though she doesn't take baths (just showers), it does look like the interior of the alarm ended up getting wet (there is no good way to know if it is properly sealed or not). It also looks like it is too easy for the alarm and cell phone to lose connection and not reacquire it when they are close, and though this could be because of the lost connection, the battery can run out very quickly (we went through two batteries in about 14 days). For the watch portion, it needs to make sure that the alarm portion is very secure in there and that the watch should not be able to fall off at all without someone purposely taking it off, and they should have more than just a plain black rubber watchband to choose from.So basically, the unit matches what features are the most important (quick alarm that can be pressed, sends out messages/calls emergency contacts, wearable so that it can be pressed quickly if needed, no monthly subscription, etc), but it just needs some redesigning to make sure that it meets up with the features that it should be providing. Otherwise, it seems to be about the only really good solution out there on the marketplace for anyone with seizures (or other medical conditions where they have enough time to press a button for help), so hopefully they are able to make the product improvements to take over that market.

Range is somewhat limited. This can be an issue since old folk don’t generally tend to carry their phones with them around the house.The call feature doesn’t work on every phone as far as I can tell. I presume it needs Bluetooth 4.0 at least.Otherwise it works well, the watch is not too bulky and the alert is comprehensive with location and contact info.