Aloe Care Health might be relatively new to the medical alert arena, but the Aloe Care Essentials package is one of the most comprehensive medical alert systems we’ve tested. That’s because its 4G cellular smart hub not only lets you connect to a 24/7 emergency response center using your voice or by pressing a button, it also monitors air quality, motion, and room temperature, and it lets you communicate with family members and caregivers without using your phone. For $29.99 per month, you get voice-activated calling, environmental sensors, a well-designed mobile app, and a hands-free two-way communication hub. That makes it our new Editors’ Choice winner for at-home medical alert systems, replacing the MobileHelp Classic.
Equipment and Pricing
The Essentials system comes with a smart hub base station that uses AT&T’s 4G LTE cellular service and a 1.5-inch-wide water-resistant pendant button with a 200-foot range that can be worn as a necklace or on your wrist. The circular smart hub measures 1.7 by 6.7 by 6.5 inches (HWD) and has a matte white finish. The center of the device holds a 2.7-inch dark gray Assistance button, an LED ring, and four smaller buttons. The Assistance button is used to connect you to the 24/7 Aloe Care emergency response center, or you can place a call by saying, “Emergency,” repeatedly until the voice assistant responds.
If you want to reach out to your primary caregiver or any member of your Care Circle (friends, family, or other caregivers), you can use the smaller buttons to request a check-in call. The phone button marked 1 is used to place a check-in request to only your primary caregiver, and the phone button with the number 2 is used to place a check-in request to all of the people in your Care Circle. Once either button is pressed, a push notification will be sent to the people in your Care Circle, and when a caregiver responds, the hub will play a chime and the LED ring will blink blue. You can then speak directly to the caregiver using the hub’s microphone and speaker.
To the left of the Assistance button is one button with a check mark and another with an X mark. Use the check mark button to confirm an emergency call or to accept a call from a caregiver (you can also say, “Yes”), and use the X mark to deny a caregiver call or cancel an emergency call (you can also say, “No”). There are two microphones, an air sensor that measures CO2 and VOC levels, and a temperature sensor positioned below the Assistance button, and a speaker located just above it. The right side of the hub contains volume up and down buttons, and there are two motion sensors on the front edge. The air and temperature sensors are used to let caregivers monitor environmental conditions in your home via the mobile app, and the motion sensors are used to send mobility alerts that let caregivers know if there’s a lack of motion during a time when you are usually up and about.
The Essentials system has a one-time cost of $149.99 for the equipment and requires a monthly subscription fee of $29.99. The company also offers a Total Care solution that gives you everything from the Essentials package, as well as a smart fall detection sensor with voice recognition, Wi-Fi connectivity for the fall sensor, and two remote motion sensors. It has a one-time cost of $249.99 and requires a $39.99 monthly subscription. Aloe Care doesn’t offer any add-on services such as the medicine reminders that you get with the MobileHelp Classic system.
The Aloe Care caregiver mobile app (for Android and iOS) is well designed and easy to use. It opens to a home screen with the user’s air quality and room temperature at the top of the screen, along with the current weather conditions. Below that are panels that display the most recent motion activity, the system status (online/offline), a history of check-in calls, and a history of mobility (all motion activity).
At the bottom of the screen are buttons labeled Home, Messages, Check-In, Health Care, and Menu. The Home button takes you back to the home screen from wherever you are in the app, and the Messages button takes you to a screen where you can converse with other members of the Care Circle. The Check-In button lets caregivers initiate a call to the user’s smart hub or to their phone, and the Health Care button takes you to a screen where you can create a Health Card with vital information such as a Lockbox code (if you have one), preexisting medical conditions, allergies, and where medications are stored. The Menu button opens a screen where you can invite other caregivers into the Care Circle, create a list of medications, edit device and account information, and create a list of emergency contacts.
Installation and Performance
Whether you’re an elderly person installing the device yourself or a caregiver installing it for someone else, configuring the Aloe Care hub is easy. When you place your order, you provide all of your vital information such as your email address, password, home address, and phone number. (If you’re a caregiver you’ll also enter the user’s address and number.)
Once you receive the unit, you simply need to plug it in and follow the voice prompts to press the Assistance button. This will connect the hub to your account and restart it. After a few seconds the voice prompt will tell you that the system is fully set up and ready to use. If you’re a caregiver, you can then download the mobile app and log in in using the email address and password that you supplied when placing the order. At this point you can now use the app to communicate with the user and monitor system status (online, offline), motion activity, air quality, and average room temperature.
The Aloe Care system worked well testing. It garnered an average response time (the time it took to connect to a live agent after initiated an emergency call) of 35 seconds, and the live agents were always friendly and professional. Audio quality was superb. I received push alerts on my phone whenever an emergency call was placed, and also received a follow-up alert telling me why the call was placed and the resolution (typically no further assistance was required).
Push alerts arrived within seconds of a check-in request, and two-way communication between the app and the hub were crystal clear. The Aloe’s motion sensors never failed to detect movement in the room, and the temperature sensor was spot-on, matching the reading from an Ecobee thermostat in the same room.
Conclusions
The Aloe Care package is a medical alert system that does more than just connect you to a live response agent. It has motion sensors that let caregivers know that you are up and about during the day without the need for an intrusive camera, and its temperature and air quality sensors monitor environmental conditions and send alerts if things aren’t as they should be. Moreover, you can get connected to a live agent by tapping a button or by using your voice, and you can reach out to people in your Care Circle to request a check-in call that can be placed directly from Aloe Care’s thoughtfully designed mobile app. It’d be nice if Aloe Care provided a few add-on services such as medicine reminders or access to medical professionals, but it impresses nonetheless and earns our Editors’ Choice award for at-home medical alert systems.
