Updated December 2017.
If you’re looking for a medical alert system, with or without fall detection, visit my complete guide to picking the best medical alert system, with reviews.
A lot of people want a medical alert device with automatic fall detection, and they want it to be small enough to wear on their wrist like an old-fashioned medical alarm with a lightweight wrist button.
As of this writing, this doesn’t exist.
Frustrating, right?
It looks like some might be coming on the market soon, though. A company called 112Motion appears to have a wristwatch-style fall alert bracelet, but it’s not actually for sale.
Another company (e-Domotica) has a fall detection bracelet available in Europe. In England a company called Tynetec has a fall detection button you wear on your wrist, but honestly it’s pretty ugly, so I’m not sure anyone would actually wear it.
Right now for 2018 your best bet for a bracelet style system is the Lively Wearable from GreatCall. It doesn’t have fall detection when you wear it on your wrist, but it does have other great features. If you need fall detection, you have to wear it as a pendant around your neck.
About Fall Detections Systems:
Fall detection systems work with a panic button that’s about the size of an egg (but flatter). For an illustration, see this image from Medical Guardian:
I suspect there are two reasons that the emergency fall alert pendants are still so large.
First, it’s more expensive to make sophisticated electronics tiny. By doing it in this form factor, the companies can use commonly available components and save manufacturing costs while possibly increasing reliability.
Second, an always-on automatic fall detection system requires power. This means you’ve got to have a good battery in the system, which takes space.
Third, (bonus), is that there’s probably something about the detection algorithms that has an impact. Think about how much your wrist moves around during the day as opposed to your belly. A pendant hanging around your neck will be very stable except for situations where you are falling. The device can learn how fast you move when you are walking in your house, settling into your favorite chair, etc. It can then detect sudden acceleration and deceleration that’s out of this pattern. With a wrist unit, there’s a lot more “noise” in the system.
If you’re looking for a medical alert system, with or without fall detection, visit my complete guide to picking the best medical alert system, with reviews.
Hi Joe.
Thanks for the great article and references.
I know when you wrote this there were limited choices
“As of this writing, this doesn’t exist.” But is this still the case? Things are moving pretty quickly and I saw this one recently https://www.buddi.co.uk/. I am keen to find a wrist mounted one that does the fall detection piece.
Thanks for this link, Christopher. It looks like an interesting option. I’ll try to update the article once I’ve learned more about Buddi.
There’s at least one other new wrist-mounted fall detector on the market at https://www.mynotifi.com . It is self-contained other than needing a smartphone running its app, or alternatively a hub. I also see LeGrand is offering a wristworn fall detector, though I didn’t read far enough to be able to tell if it can work without subscribing to call-center services and the like. Biggest issue with all of these may be where it stacks up against the Apple Watch (series 4 or later) whith provides self-contained fall detection (not even tethered to a smartphone of you get the LTE model, though going that route will require mobile phone service for the watch). The Apple Watch also has other unique health functions like ECG readings, with other monitoring on the way. Plus it can be use as a watch, a basic mobile phone, a music player, an ideal Apple Pay contactless payment device undeterred by masks and gloves, and many other functions. Downside is the impossible job of teaching my mom how to use it. The simpliciy of a standalone fall detector may be worthwhile.
Thanks, Lee. I’ll look into these!