The LifeStation In Home No Landline Medical Alert System ($32.95 per month) is a desktop medical alert system that will put you in touch with an emergency response agent within seconds of pressing its big Emergency Call button. It uses built-in cellular connectivity and comes with a long-range help button that you can wear around the house and yard, though it doesn’t offer any add-on services or a mobile app. It earns high marks for its speedy response times, but if you require a system that provides things like medicine reminders, wellness checks, and instant medical advice, the MobileHelp Classic or WellBe Medical Alert Plus might be a better choice.
Cellular Connectivity and a Long-Range Pendant
The LifeStation In Home No Landline Medical Alert System comes with a base station, a wearable lanyard button, and a getting started guide. The base station is the same one used by many other medical alert systems, including the GetSafe Medical Alert Starter Kit, the Medical Guardian Classic, and the LifeFone At Home system. It has a dark gray finish, measures 2.8 by 6.0 by 6.0 inches (HWD), and can be hung up on a wall or placed on a desktop surface. A 2-inch round gray Emergency Call button with Braille lettering is positioned in the center of the device, above which is a Reset button that also contains Braille lettering. There’s a speaker in the upper left corner, while a microphone and status indicators for power, cellular connectivity, and alarm activity are along the bottom edge of the device. A power switch is located on the back panel.
This system doesn’t rely on telephone landlines; instead it uses AT&T’s 4G LTE network to connect you to a 24/7 emergency response center. The base station has a built-in backup battery that will continue to supply power to the device for up to 24 hours in the event of a power outage.
The round wearable help button is waterproof and can be worn in the shower or out in the rain. The device is 1.5 inches wide and has a small 0.7-inch button in the center that will initiate a call to the emergency response center. It has a 600-foot range and can be worn around your neck as a pendant or on your wrist as a bracelet.
The LifeStation In Home No Landline system doesn’t require a contract, but at $32.95 per month, it’s more expensive than the MobileHelp Classic ($29.95 per month) and the GetSafe Medical Alert Starter Kit ($24.95 per month). On the plus side, it doesn’t require a contract. Add another $10 per month if you want fall detection and another $2.95 per month for a wall button or a lockbox.
As is the case with the LifeStation At Home, this system doesn’t offer the daily check-in calls or medicine reminders that you get with the MobileHelp Classic and LifeFone At Home. It also doesn’t offer a mobile app that lets family and caregivers input medical information and monitor help button activities.
Using the LifeStation In Home No Landline Medical Alert System
Preparing the system for first-time use is easy. Simply plug it in, turn the power switch to the on position, and wait around 30 seconds for the voice prompt to tell you your cellular signal strength and for the signal strength indicator to turn solid green. If for some reason you can’t get a good signal, you may have to relocate the base station to another part of the house. Sometimes positioning it close to a window will help.
We measure medical alert response performance by timing how long it takes for a live agent to come online once the help or emergency button is pressed. The LifeStation In Home system’s average response time of 12 seconds makes it one of the fastest systems we’ve tested, coming in just two seconds behind the speedy WellBe Medical Alert Plus (10 seconds). In comparison, the Aloe Care Health System averaged 35 seconds, the Medical Alert At Home No Landline System averaged 61 seconds, and the MobileHelp Classic averaged 36 seconds.
Two-way audio was loud and clear, and the live agents were always friendly. Additionally, the wearable help button showed excellent range in our tests, connecting to the base station from as much as 500 feet away.
Fast Response Times and Excellent Range
If you need a medical alert system that will continue to work when the power and landlines go down, the LifeStation In Home No Landline is worth considering. It delivered very fast response times in our tests and provides clean two-way audio communications with the 24/7 emergency response center, and it comes with a waterproof wearable help button that offers excellent range and a battery backup that’ll keep you connected when the power goes out. However, LifeStation doesn’t offer any add-on services such as medicine reminders and wellness checks, nor does it offer a companion mobile app like our less expensive Editors’ Choice winner, the MobileHelp Classic. For a medical alert system that comes with a smartwatch, offers a wealth of services, and will play music and control your smart home devices, check out the WellBe Medical Alert Plus system (also an Editors’ Choice winner). It’s more expensive than the LifeStation, but it’s easily the most versatile medical alert system we’ve come across.
