If you’re looking for a medical alert system that does more than just put you in touch with an emergency call center, the WellBe Medical Alert Plus system from HandsFree Health ($199.95) is worth checking out. This unique system offers at-home and mobile emergency monitoring and comes with a voice-enabled smart speaker that serves as a virtual health assistant to provide medicine reminders, appointment reminders, and prescription refill reminders. It’ll even play your favorite tunes and control smart home devices. In addition to the speaker, the system comes with a smartwatch that features an emergency call button with two-way talk and has a built-in heart rate monitor and a pedometer. It’s one of the more feature-packed medical alerts systems we’ve tested, earning it our Editors’ Choice award.
More Features Than the Competition
The WellBe Medical Alert Plus system consists of a voice-activated smart speaker and a smartwatch. The tapered, cylindrical speaker looks similar to the Amazon Echo Plus. It sports a matte black textured finish, stands 7.7 inches high, and is 4.0 inches wide at the base and 3.2 inches at the top.
The top of the speaker is surrounded by an LED light ring that glows white when it is turning on and when it is listening for a command, is green when setup is complete, flashes green when there is reminder notification, and is orange when in mute mode. Also at the top are volume up and down buttons, an action button, a mute button, a red Emergency Call button that will place a call to the 24/7 emergency response center, and four far-field microphones. There’s a power button on the front of the speaker and a micro USB power port on the back.
Under the hood are two subwoofers and two midrange drivers, along with a 4G cellular radio, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi radios, and a rechargeable lithium battery that will provide up to two days of power in the event of an outage.
Much like an Amazon Alexa or Google Assistant smart speaker, the WellBe speaker can play music and audiobooks, give you the latest news, sports, and weather, answer general questions, and make hands-free calls to people in your contact list. It can even answer pet care questions. It uses the WellBe Voice-Enabled Virtual Health Assistant platform to provide access to a huge database of medical information and is activated with the phrase, “OK WellBe,” followed by your command. For example, you can say, “OK WellBe what are the symptoms of COVID-19,” or, “OK WellBe, is there a generic option for Lipitor?”
You can set medicine and medical appointment reminders in the mobile app and the speaker will flash green to let you know that you have a pending reminder that hasn’t been answered. You’ll also receive push notifications on your phone. When the speaker LED flashes green, say, “OK WellBe, what are my reminders,” and it will tell you what action is pending and ask if you’ve already completed it (such as taking your medicine). You can also ask it things like, “When is my next doctor appointment,” or, “Where is the closest urgent care center,” and if you enter your insurance information in your profile, you can ask about specific coverage information and deductible amounts.
You’ll also be able to control many smart home devices with the speaker and app, but this feature wasn’t available at the time of our review. That said, there are lots of third-party integrations on the way, including support for devices such as thermostats, locks, and lighting systems from companies like TP-Link, Philips, LIFX, Schlage, Ecobee, and Honeywell.
The smartwatch is black, with a black rubber wristband and a black 1.5-by-1.2-inch touch screen. It has an IPX7 water-resistance rating, which means you can wear it in the shower. The left side of the watch holds a speaker and a SIM card slot (covered by a rubber gasket) and the right side has a microphone, an emergency call/menu button, and an on/off button. Inside are a GPS radio to help emergency responders pinpoint your exact location, a Wi-Fi radio, a built-in heart rate monitor, a pedometer, and a rechargeable battery that provides 24 hours of power and has a speedy one-hour charge time. A magnetic charger port is located on the back to the watch.
The watch connects to the same cloud account and uses the same WellBe Voice platform as the speaker, and can do pretty much anything that the speaker does with the exception of playing music and audiobooks. You can ask it about your medical insurance and doctor appointments, and get the news, weather, and sports. It will also allow you to make hands-free calls to people in your contact list, although this wasn’t enabled at the time of our review. The only other feature we’d like to see included is fall detection.
Pressing the menu button once opens the watch’s on-screen menu, which includes an emergency call button, a microphone button for communicating with the WellBe Voice Assistant, a heart rate monitor button, and a pedometer (step count) button. There’s also a settings button that you can use to put the watch into Airplane mode, select a watch face (digital or analog), configure Wi-Fi, and adjust sound and display brightness levels.
WellBe Pricing and App
The WellBe Medical Alert Plus system has an upfront price of $199.95 for the hardware (speaker and watch), and will cost you $44.95 per month for the service, which includes access to a 24/7 emergency response center, 4G LTE cellular connectivity powered by T-Mobile, the mobile app, and all of the above-mentioned voice functionality, reminders, medical advice, and notification features. You can purchase the speaker and watch separately for $189 and $179.95, respectively, but it’s much more cost-effective to get the bundle.
The WellBe Mobile app for Android and iOS opens to a home screen that displays the local weather and pending scheduled reminders or appointments. Tap any schedule entry to edit that entry. Tap the three-bar icon in the upper left corner to configure your profile, where you can update account information such as your email address and phone number, change your password and PIN, enter personal information (birthday, gender), and view your history of notifications and WellBe voice commands. Here you can also create a contact list by manually entering name and number information or importing it from your phone’s contact list.
Use the My Health settings to enter your insurance information, healthcare providers, pharmacies, and medications. You can also choose any applicable medical conditions that apply from a list. Other settings allow you to create schedules and reminder notifications, configure smart devices (when they become available), purchase audiobooks, and link the speaker to your Spotify account. Use the Voice Training setting to train the WellBe Assistant to recognize your voice commands without having to use a PIN; you can train the system to recognize up to six different voice patterns.
Installing and Using the WellBe Medical Alert Plus
To install the WellBe system, you have to download the mobile app and create a profile where you can include your medical history; medication, pharmacy, and doctor information; emergency contacts; and insurance policy details. Power up the speaker and press the power button for three seconds until the light ring turns red, then press and hold the action button until you hear, “Device registration has started.” After a few seconds, the speaker will give you an activation code to enter in the Setup section of the app. Once the device is registered, it will restart and say “Hello” when it is ready to use.
Setting up the smartwatch is also easy. Just charge it for an hour, turn it on by pressing the button on the side, go to the Settings menu, and select Devices. Tap the Add New Device button, select the user name, and tap the Start button on the watch. Enter the five-digit code displayed on the watch in the mobile app and add your home phone number and address if it isn’t already displayed. Select your Wi-Fi SSID when prompted, enter your Wi-Fi password, and when the confirmation screen appears, the installation is complete.
The WellBe system delivered blazing-fast emergency response times in testing, which is the amount of time it takes to be connected to a live agent once the button is pressed (you get a 10-second window to cancel the call if the button is accidentally pressed). The speaker system averaged a 10-second response time and the watch averaged 15 seconds. The response agents were always professional and friendly, and two-way communications were loud and clear. For comparison, the next fastest times were recorded by the GreatCall Lively Mobile Plus, at 15 seconds.
The speaker always responded instantly to my requests for notifications, reminders, the weather, and sports scores. It also delivered relatively good sound quality, with strong bass, when streaming music from iHeartRadio. The smartwatch is comfortable to wear and works as intended.
More Than Just a Medical Alert System
The WellBe Medical Alert Plus is a solid choice if you’re looking for a medical alert system that can connect you to an emergency response agent with the touch of a button. It’s loaded with features including medicine and medical appointment reminders, access to a large database of medical information, GPS tracking, and a companion app that lets you track your insurance activity, create an emergency contact list, schedule appointments, and more. You can even have the WellBe voice assistant provide the latest news and weather information, answer general questions, and play your favorite tunes. You’ll have to pay around $200 upfront to cover the cost of hardware and $44.95 per month for service, but in return you get one of the most versatile systems out there and our latest Editors’ Choice winner for the category.
