Guardian Alert 911 Emergency Phone - Personal Safety Device for Seniors & Kids | Home Security & Outdoor Protection

First, let me say that I think the Guardian 911 phone is overpriced. It should cost $50 or less. Such is the beauty of selling a product with zero competition. Maybe once other companies realize there's a market for this type of phone, they'll jump on board and drive the price down. Having said that, we probably would have paid double the asking price. We bought this for an elderly family friend who needed a simple phone with one button (and ONLY one button) to call 911. Anything more complicated would have useless for his particular circumstances.Chances are, if you're woken at 3:00 a.m. by the sound of a burglar alarm or of someone crashing into your home, you'll suddenly discover how bereft you are of the wits to dial 911 -- or to even locate the speed dial button on your house phone, when you're shaking like a leaf and fumbling around in the pitch-black dark.The ideal is to have a telephone with one single button that you can push, which will automatically connect you with the 911 operator. All the better if this phone is small enough to be worn like a pendant around your neck, carried in your pocket, clipped onto your belt or, alternately, set on your bedside table. It's such a simple concept, really, that you'd think the market would be flooded with such gadgets. Yet, only one exists.I know this because I did a lot of research before buying this. Sure, there are neck pendants and hand-held gadgets on the market (complete with annual contracts) which will enable you -- at the push of a button -- to contact a 3rd party, who will then call 911 or whoever. Here, the potential for 3rd party pitfalls, such as slow response times, can be the same as with professional security systems contracts. There are also gadgets on the market that will allow you to push a button and send a pre-recorded message, such as "I need help." But what kind of help? An ambulance? Police? Fire Department? What is the nature of your emergency? And where should the emergency crew look for you? Have you severed a femoral in the workshop? Are you having a heart attack in the garden? Did you fall down the basement steps? Is your kitchen on fire? Is there a intruder bashing in your front door?Whatever the nature of your emergency, if seconds count, you want to have the Guardian 911 phone at your fingertips because it is the simplest, easiest, most direct way to contact 911 and explain the nature of your emergency. Simply press the blue button for at least 1/2 of a second and, within seconds, the 911 operator will answer. A built-in speaker and microphone allow you and the 911 operator to easily hear each other, without having to put the phone directly up to your mouth or ear. (NOTE: Some reviewers reported that the speaker volume was too low. Ours thankfully worked fine from both ends. We did a test call to 911 to be sure).There are no 3rd parties and no contracts, because the Guardian is simply a small, cordless house phone (NOT a cell phone), which has only one button and one function: to dial 911 and allow you to speak to the 911 operator. But, should you be unable to speak, the good news is that -- because the Guardian (unlike a cell phone) is integrated into your home phone system -- your address will automatically be displayed to the 911 operator.There are two parts to the Guardian phone set: the base and the phone. It takes about 10 seconds to install the base. Simply plug it into a phone jack, and you're done. The phone, itself, requires a single AAA battery, which is included and takes less than 5 minutes to install. A screwdriver is also conveniently provided with the set for removing the screws on the battery compartment. The battery has a life of 6 months (the recommended replacement time) to 1 year in stand-by mode. In other words, if you make zero calls, the battery should last from 6 to 12 months. In the event you use your phone to call 9-11, the battery is good for a 30 minute call, by which time the emergency services have hopefully arrived.Unlike most cordless phones, the Guardian phone never needs to return to the base for recharging. You can keep it on your person 100% of the time, 365 days of the year. This is because the phone is powered by the AAA battery, not the base. The only function of the base is to communicate your 911 call through the phone line. To ensure that the phone and base are communicating (from, say, the distance of your garden) the phone has a nifty feature -- a small, inconspicuous test button. Press this, and a built-in, recorded message will tell you in plain English whether or not the base and phone are communicating from that distance. This same button will also activate a recorded message to report on the battery strength.ONE LAST IMPORTANT STEP: The only extra step you need to take when setting up your phone is to do a test call to 911. When the operator answers, you can say something to the effect that, "This is a non-emergency call to test our 911 phone system. Can you hear us clearly? And do you have our address in your system?"That's it. From here, you can take some security in knowing that -- should you find yourself in need of help while out in the garden, down in the basement, or woken from a sound sleep -- all you have to do is keep your wits about you long enough to press that blue button for more than 1/2 of a second. It doesn't get any easier than that.UPDATE: So much for peace of mind. After 10 days of use, the phone malfunctioned. It took another 4 days to figure this out, during which time the entire phone service to the house was seemingly dead. How wonderful for a vulnerable, elderly person to go without phone service for 4 days! Here's what happened: by all appearances, the phone line went dead overnight. Thinking it was a problem within the lines, we called for repair service and, after waiting in vain for 4 days for the repair crew to arrive (Note to self: Write scathing review on AT&T/BellSouth. Oh, but of course what's the point? Monopolies have no competition, therefore no incentive to aspire to anything beyond crappy indifference.) it occurred to me that I should check to make sure the house phone wasn't the culprit. Long story short, through a process of elimination, I determined that the culprit was a glitch in the Guardian 911 Phone. It had decided, out of the clear blue, to put itself into "phone off the hook" mode, which meant that the phone was off the hook for 4 days. No way to remedy this, so the Guardian 911 is going back. We'll get a replacement and see how long that works. What a shame. Such a good idea, such substandard product integrity. But, then, haven't we all come to basically expect nearly everything we buy to break down, fall apart or be recalled due to some malfunction or toxicity issue? I've amended my rating from 5 stars (great product!) to 2 (shoddy workmanship!), pending the performance on the replacement phone, which I'll never really be able to trust anyway. I will update my review and rating within a month or two after giving the replacement phone a chance to prove (or not) its worth.UPDATE 4 MONTHS LATER (OCTOBER 2010): Okay, I've upgraded the rating to 4 stars. The replacement phone has worked like a charm, no problems. I'd give it 5 stars but, like I said earlier, it's difficult to restore my original trust in this product after the first phone malfunctioned.UPDATE 2-1/2 YEARS LATER (APRIL 2013): the Guardian 911 phone is still working like a charm. Every so often, I check on the battery strength (by pressing the little "test button"), which also lets me know that the base & phone are communicating properly. No problems at all in 2-1/2 years!I recently purchased a Guardian Alert 911 unit to replace the monthly fee system I have now. When I tried to install the Guardian, I discovered a few problems. First, the pendant: the battery compartment door on the pendant is held in place by two incredibly tiny phillips type screws. They do supply an appropriate screwdriver to use, but heaven help you if you lose that and don't have a jeweler's type screwdriver on hand. Even so, the screws were in there so tightly that to open it to install the battery, I had to use my trusty pliers to grasp the barrel of the screwdriver to get enough leverage to get one of the screws to turn. A person with less than good vision, and/or hand strength and dexterity, would have a very difficult time with this, especially since the battery would need to be replaced every six months or so. Why not just a simple snap-in cover like my tv remote has?Then there's the main problem: in the enclosed instructions they tell you not to install it near any other type of electrical appliance or cordless phone. I only have one phone outlet, to which are connected my cordless phone, computer modem and fax line. I also have the computer and printer in the same area. When I connected the Guardian, my fax line plug wouldn't fit in the line splitter they supplied, and worst of all, my cordless phone suddenly developed persistent and unacceptable static. For the present I have reconnected my old system, which fortunately I hadn't cancelled yet.I can't actually evaluate how well the Guardian system works, as I haven't been able to leave it installed to use it.I still like the Guardian idea of direct contact with 911 if you need it, via the pendant, versus an out-of-state call center that may not be able to hear me unless I'm close to the base unit. Also, a one-time purchase beats heck out of ever-increasing monthly monitoring fees. However, it looks like I'm going to have to get another phone jack installed in another room before I can use the Guardian 911. It would've been nice to have known all that up front. Barbara F.January 2009 update - I have since gotten another phone jack installed in another room, which has solved the interference problem. In something less than a year that I've had the system, both components have had to be replaced. The base unit lost its power within days of installation, the pendant went bad a month or so ago. On the plus side, their tech support was very accessible and helpful. In both cases, they said they would (and did) send a replacement unit immediately, with the request to return the defective one in the same box. The box also included a return address label and postage sticker, so there was no cost to return them. On the down side, I am a little uneasy as to the quality and dependability of a product in which both components failed within less than a year. I note other reviewers have also had product failures. I would strongly recommend doing the self-test with the button on the end of the pendant on a regular basis, say every week or two. That's how I found out my pendant had gone bad.Second point, IMPORTANT: having worked in the emergency response field, I will strongly recommend that if you want to do an actual test by activating the system (as I did too), PLEASE call your responder's non-emergency number first, explain what you want to do, and ask if this is a good time. Emergency dispatch centers can get incredibly hectic at times, and a call coming in that is not an actual emergency could interfere with handling of one that is. In my own case, when I asked about making a test call, the response was a harried-sounding, "Not right now, please, check back in an hour." Which I did, and at that time they said fine, and thanked me for checking first. It did test fine at that point, by the way; the dispatcher and I could hear each other clearly.2nd one we got for our Mom over the years ... easy to use and reliable!Total waste of money. Did not work at all. I was hoping for some extra security when I fall in the home. Very disappointed.