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[Meansdarling]

I'm not sure if this is the right place for this topic but...

My Dad is trying to get something cheap set up for my Grandma (who lives with us) to be able to contact us easily if she needs help.
Those Med-Alert things are usually set up to call the emergency services and they are expensive-ish.
The things that contact cell phones are usually blue tooth so they don't work over distance.
I've been trying to look around online for a cheap solution and haven't found a good one yet.

Requirements:

• some device that can either connect to a cell phone or get a signal to an internet service like twitter
• the device needs to look very simple because my Grandma is Pentecostal and won't use most technology (like TV)

I thought I'd ask for help here because I have found the people of these forums to be tech-savvy and intelligent as well as nice, helpful, fix-it, and "do it yourself" people.

Any ideas?

Edit: Thanks for the replies. My Dad ended up using a service called Iris. It's through Lowes a US hardware store.

[sackhead]

i believe a company called "bupa" ofers somthing similer to what you want but i dont know if they operate outside New Zealand and Australi
 

[quinnr]

device that can either connect to a cell phone or get a signal to an internet service like twitter

Hmm, no ideas at the top of my head, but I'll think about it, I'm sure there's something you could do. Would the range of a Wi-fi router be okay? Or does it need to work even when outside the living area?

But I just wanted to say right now that the mental images this line made me crack up a little bit. Kind of like how in the commercials the elderly people are all "Help, I've fallen and I can't get up!" but, a Twitter post saying the same thing.

[gimlet]

My aunt has either "Medical Alert" or "Life Alert" - I'll find out which one, it's the one *without* the minimum required months in the contract (some of them have cancellation fees even if you end up hating the service so watch out).  It is the old style "wear a box with a button that connects wirelessly to a device on your conventional phone line, it phones a monitoring center who you can talk to through the box".  And yeah it's not cheap - it's at least $30 bucks a month.

If it was me, I'd carry a cell phone in a waterproof pouch around my neck (prepaid for emergencies works out to about $3 a month over 5 years - actually if you're just gonna dial 911 you don't even need a plan but I want to be able to call a tow or a cab or whatever), but if I was a lot older I could see that might not be so simple - she already has huge trouble seeing, dialing and hearing on a cell phone when she's OK, I wouldn't count on her being able to get it working in any reasonable time after a fall or stroke.  For around the house my 2nd choice would have been a cordless handset, but  I could not find an easily carryable cordless phone - they don't usually fold like cell phones so the buttons are exposed to accidental presses.  I *could* put it in a hard shell box, and jury rig something to protect the keys, but the dang things are huge.  The few small ones I found by searching have awful reviews and low battery time

There are "no plan" alternatives to the Life Alert type service - basically you buy the dialer/pendant, program in some phone numbers, and it will dial through those until somebody answers.  The "Logicmark" one seems to get generally decent reviews (plus some frighteningly bad ones :p), but the family didn't look too hard at these 'cause nobody lives near enough plus a lot of us are Luddites who don't ALWAYS have our phones on so they went with the service plan.

EDITED: misremembered "Logicmark" even after JUST re-reading the reviews page :p

PS - whatever you get, test it ALL over the house/yard, walls/basements do funny things to wireless signals.

[Meansdarling]

Thanks for the replies. My Dad ended up using a service called Iris. It's through Lowes a US hardware store.

I think this is going to be a problem a lot of people are going to need to worry about soon.
I was surprised by how little choice there was in looking for solutions.