A smartwatch or a medical alert pendant
If you are choosing between a medical alert pendant and a smartwatch for someone you look after, it helps to know that the two solve different problems, and that one of them will suit your family a good deal better than the other. This page lays them side by side so you can choose the one that fits, and it says plainly when the pendant is the better buy.
The short version
| Medical alert pendant | Smartwatch with Lanturne | |
| What it looks like | A medical device on a cord or a band | An ordinary watch |
| Who answers an alert | A monitoring center, then usually the family | You, straight away, and your emergency contact if you do not answer |
| Works if they cannot press anything | Only models with fall detection | Fall detection, a missed daily check-in, a silent watch, and a worn watch with no pulse and no movement |
| A daily "I'm OK" | Rarely | Every day, at a time you choose |
| Hardware | Bought or rented from the service | A Galaxy Watch4 or newer, or another Wear OS watch, refurbished from $89 |
| Monthly cost | Commonly $25 to $50, plus equipment | $30 a month or $120 a year, no hardware from us |
When a pendant is the better choice
- Nobody in the family can respond. If there is no one who can act on an alert, a staffed monitoring center is worth every penny, and you should have one.
- They will not charge anything. A pendant battery lasts a long time. A watch wants its charger far more often, and a watch that never sees the charger cannot help anybody.
- There is no Android phone anywhere. Lanturne needs an Android phone for you, and one to set the watch up the first time.
When a smartwatch is the better choice
- They refuse to wear a pendant. A watch they like gets worn, and a watch that is worn is the whole point. See when they won't wear a medical alert.
- You want to hear from them every day, not only in an emergency. The morning check-in tells you, every single day, that they have checked in.
- You want to know when nothing happens. A pendant waits to be pressed. Lanturne notices a missed check-in, a watch that went silent, and a worn watch with no pulse and no movement, and none of those needs anybody to press anything.
- You are the one who would get the call anyway. Lanturne skips the middle step and tells you directly, wherever you are.
What a watch needs to work well
- Its own mobile plan, ideally. A watch with LTE works anywhere there is a signal. Without one it needs Wi-Fi it knows, or the phone it was set up with nearby.
- A charge every night. Charging the watch at bedtime and putting it on again in the morning is the one habit that matters, and it is an easy one to keep.
- About ten minutes of setup. You pair the watch with your phone using a six-digit code, and the setup guide walks you through the settings the watch needs.
