Medical Alert At Home No Landline Review

Medical alert systems provide a fast and easy way to get emergency help with the touch of a button, and with the Medical Alert At Home cellular system ($29.95 per month), you can have that peace of mind even if the phone lines go down.

That's because it uses AT&T's cellular service to connect you to a live agent.

The system offers loud two-way audio and comes with two wearable waterproof pendant buttons with good range.

However, its response time is a bit longer than other systems we've tested, and it doesn't offer any extras such as medicine reminders and online caregiver tools.

For that, you'll want to check out our Editors' Choice for in-home medical alert systems, the MobileHelp Classic.

Design and Features

The Medical Alert At Home's cellular base unit looks identical to the Bay Alarm Medical In-Home unit, with a white Mytrex MXD enclosure that measures 2.0 by 7.9 by 5.2 inches (HWD).

It has a big red help button on top, along with a microphone and a speaker, and around back is a small Reset button that will cancel a call if the help button is accidentally pressed, and a T/L button to test the range of the wearable pendants.

While it's nice to have a Reset button, it would be even nicer if it were a bit bigger and more conveniently located.

An adjustable cellular antenna juts out of the back panel, and there's an internal battery that provides up to 30 days of power in the event of an outage.

The Help button has a small status LED that is green when the unit is in ready mode, and blinks green when it is running on battery power.

A solid red light means that the help button has been pressed and a call is in progress, and a blinking red light indicates a weak cellular signal.

Missing are the volume control and the LCD status panel that you get with the MobileHelp Classic, but you do get a wrist pendant and a lanyard pendant, both of which are rated to send a signal to the base station from up to 600 feet away, and both of which are waterproof and can be worn in the shower.

Pricing for the Medical Alert At Home system is nearly identical to the MobileHelp Classic pricing.

There's no contract involved and no activation charges, and monthly fees go for $29.95.

If you pay semi-annually, the price drops to $27.95 per month, and if you pay annually, the price is reduced to $25.62 per month.

The annual plan also gets you a free lock box that holds your house keys and uses a combination that is on file with the Medical alert response team.

Simply hang the box on an outer doorknob and emergency responders will be able to enter your home without having to break down the door.

Medical Alert also offers a portable solution with GPS, the MobileElite, for $37.95 per month, as well as a landline-only option for $19.95 per month.

You don't get many extras with this alert system.

It doesn't offer the medicine reminder and wellness call services you can get with the LifeFone At Home Medical Alert System, and it lacks the caregiver web portal and mobile app you get with the MobileHelp Classic system.

However, you can order fall detection for an extra $10 per month, wall buttons for $2.99 per month, and a choice of two Protection Plans.

With the Basic Protection Plan ($5 per month), Medical Alert will replace one system and two buttons per year in case they are lost, stolen, or damaged.

The Premium Plan ($10 per month) provides unlimited replacements.

Additional pendants go for $19.99 each (a one-time fee), and there are no additional fees for spouse coverage.

Installation and Performance

The Medical Alert At Home is ready to use out of the box.

Simply plug it in and wait a few seconds for the voice notification to tell you that the system is initializing.

If you hear "insufficient cell service," you'll have to relocate the unit to an area where the signal is stronger.

Once you hear "system ready," you're good to go.

Perform a test by pressing the help button to make sure the system cant connect to a live agent.

It's also a good idea to use the T/L button to test the range of the pendants throughout your home.

In our testing, the system provided an average response time (the time between a button press and when a live agent comes on the line) of 61 seconds.

While not an unreasonable amount of time, it's longer than what we saw with the Bay Alarm Medical and Philips LifeLine HomeSafe systems, both of which averaged a 35-second response time.

The MobileHelp Classic averaged 36 seconds and the Medical Guardian Classic Guardian averaged 46 seconds, putting the Medical Alert at the bottom of the pack.

The pendants provided excellent range throughout my entire single-story house, including my basement and my front and back yards.

As with the Bay Alarm pendants, they continued to work at up to 400 feet while outside my home.

Hands-free communication with live agents was quite loud but not in any way distorted, and the agents were always polite and professional.

Conclusions

The Medical Alert At Home Cellular system is a solid choice for the sick, elderly, or anyone who may require emergency services at a moment's notice.

Its large red help button is hard to miss, and its hands-free audio is loud and clean.

Moreover, it uses a cellular radio to connect to a response center, which means you never have to worry about downed phone lines.

The system is competitively priced and comes with two waterproof help pendants, and it never failed to connect to a live agent in our tests, although its response times could have been a little faster.

That said, the Medical Alert At Home does not offer any extra services such as medicine reminders and wellness checks, nor does it offer a web or mobile app that caregivers can use to track help calls and other activities.

The MobileHelp Classic does, and provided faster response times in testing, which is why it remains our Editors' Choice for in-home medical alert systems.