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Meet ‘That Guy’ Who Bought Every Medical Alert System

I’m Chris Kolmar and I’m the chief of staff at ConsumerAffairs.

I’m not a doctor or a nurse or a salesman.

I’m That Guy that bought 11 major medical alert systems over the past several months, wore them every day for several months, and pressed the help button more than 100 times. I also sat through 11 sales calls, read every contract and fell down over 100 times to test the devices.

I did the research so you don’t have to. Because the day you’re shopping for a med alert system you are either trying to keep yourself or a loved one living the life they want. So you deserve a real person who has already put in the 80+ hours of homework.

Chris Kolmar at a blue table with nine medical alert pendants on their chargers and a ConsumerAffairs mouse pad
Chris Kolmar, That Guy at ConsumerAffairs

Why is That Guy falling down outside a Costco?

ConsumerAffairs exists to give you an advantage when you need it most by matching you to a brand you can trust.

The best way to find a brand you can trust is to test all the major ones.

And that’s what I did. The best way to understand which of the systems work was to buy them all.

My team and I analyzed the most common sales tactics, complaints, pricing questions and features of the devices to understand which system actually works when you need it to work. We kept track of every detail and recorded it all to share with you.

Why? Because you do not want the first SOS button press to be the real SOS button press.
Chris Kolmar wearing nine medical alert pendants on lanyards around his neck over a white sweater

How That Guy compared medical alert systems

To make all the comparisons apples to apples, every purchase was the same product type. That included:

  1. The mobile pendant
  2. Paid month to month
  3. Without fall detection
  4. Bought under one mystery-shopper persona

Then I wore each of the devices over the better part of three months. All in all, I tested:

Chris Kolmar at a laptop testing medical alert devices, with several pendants and charging docks lined up on the table Chris Kolmar lifting a medical alert pendant out of its charging dock in a row of devices on a blue table Chris Kolmar's hand on a medical alert charging dock in a row of pendants and docks on a blue table Chris Kolmar at a laptop testing medical alert devices, with several pendants and charging docks lined up on the table
11
systems
11
secret-shopper sales calls
100+
SOS button presses timed to talking to a person at a real call center
60+
days wearing them, some days more than one
104+
falls to test fall detection
10+
hours on the phone and in the fine print
Eleven medical alert boxes lined up along a wall on the carpet
The boxes arrive. Eleven of them, one wall. Medical Guardian owns Lifeline and wouldn’t sell me a second device, so that took two extra phone calls and some hold time.
Eight medical alert pendants lit up on their charging cradles in a row on a blue table behind a ConsumerAffairs mouse pad
The charger farm. Every pendant has its own cradle, its own cable and its own blinking light. This corner of my house kept my wife up at night.
Hands opening a LifeProtect 24/7 Belle X2 box on a blue table
Unboxing, on camera. Every device got its own video: what it costs, how it feels, how fast a person answers.
Chris Kolmar wearing nine medical alert pendants on lanyards around his neck over a white sweater
Wearing them. To the airport, where one tried to call 911 in the X-ray line. To Target, where I talked to a dispatcher as I walked down the aisle. To bed, where my wife made me cover up the blinking charging lights at night.
Chris lying on his back in front of a Starbucks after a test fall, one hand raised
Falling around town. Costco, Target, Aldi, AT&T, Cane’s, Panera, Chick-fil-A, Starbucks, Five Guys. Does the pendant care?
Chris Kolmar's arm reaching across a lineup of medical alert pendants and charging docks on a blue table
Pressing the button. A lot. Timed every press to a human voice. The gap runs from 20 seconds to over four minutes. Some put an AI in front of you first.
Chris reading a printed multi-page contract at his desk with a laptop open
Reading the contract. Asking for the paperwork is something most shoppers don’t do. I did it on every call and read it back to the rep.
Chris Kolmar at his desk returning the Lifeline system, with medical alert devices, a device box and the contract paperwork on the table
Canceling. Because you’ll be doing it on a hard week, and the companies know that. Filmed the whole return so you know what’s coming.

Learning about the med alert ecosystem

Most of what matters about a medical alert system isn’t the physical product itself. It’s what happens in the 30 seconds after you press the SOS button. But to get there, you have to wade through the paperwork and understand what it’s like to wear the device every day.

Here’s a bit of what I learned.

Chris at the test table, explaining, with a row of medical alert pendants in front of him

Every med alert system has a contract

Most reps will tell you “no contract” on the phone. But what that really means is “no multi-year commitment.”

There is still a contract! It contains information like your refund window, your cancellation rules, the term of the agreement and how much the device costs. More importantly, it overrides anything a sales rep tells you on the call. So you need to understand it!

In an emergency, you want a real person

After you push the SOS button, several systems put an AI screener between you and the call center. It adds roughly 15 to 30 seconds to the connection.

I measured exactly how long 100 calls took to reach a real person, who used AI and what the expected time is. It’s so strange to think of someone in trouble trying to talk to an AI.

Therefore, I graded a device higher if it connects you directly to a person. The fastest human pickup I got was 20 seconds. The slowest was over four minutes.

The sales rep isn’t your enemy

Most sales reps are genuinely helpful, and it is nice to talk to a human when you’re solving a real problem for someone you love. Just remember that no matter what they say on the phone, read the contract.

Getting a full contract before paying is actually surprisingly hard. So we tried to aggregate them all into one place so you know what to expect.

Chris Kolmar adjusting the ADT On-the-Go pendant's lanyard and plastic clasp Thumb pressing the Lifeline On the Go pendant's help button until the light turns solid blue Hand setting the MGMini pendant into its charging base on a bedside table until the orange light comes on
“I’ve pushed the SOS button over 100 times, and someone always responded to me.”
— Chris, from “What People Hate About Medical Alert Devices”
Hands holding a small medical alert pendant and its charging cradle on a blue table
Small, light and it has to work the one time it matters.

Who this research is really for

The reason you get a medical alert device isn’t so it saves your life. It’s so you can keep living. Or so you can be a son or daughter without feeling guilty about not being with your aging parents 100% of the time.

I started my journey into becoming That Med Alert Guy at ConsumerAffairs by talking to past customers. Before I ever unboxed anything, I sat down with people who had gone through everything I was about to do.

I came into the first call without totally understanding what to expect. The person on the other end said their dad had just died and their mom wasn’t doing great.

This is what every one of these purchases is like. They are serious situations that can alter the course of someone’s ability to continue living the way they want.

Jim, 85

A retired veteran who wears a Medical Guardian pendant. He charges it on the dresser overnight, which means he’s unprotected on the exact trips most likely to end in a fall: the ones in the dark, to the bathroom. Nobody told him. It changed how I think about chargers, lights and where a device should live at night.

Marcie, buying for her mom

She picked ADT for her mother after her father passed. Her mom’s one hard rule was no long-term lock-in. “What if something changes? What if we need to cancel?” Canceling is actually one of the most cited complaints in the entire industry.

How the devices and systems graded out

I graded every medical alert system on a report card system with the following components:

  1. Cost
  2. The sales process
  3. Activation
  4. The hardware
  5. What happens when you call for help

These are the overall grades and how long each one took to connect me to a human being.

Hands pressing and holding the MobileHelp Elite help button until the ring lights red Overhead view of a finger pressing the red help button on the SOS All-in-One 2 pendant Thumb pressing and holding the Pearl help button until the ring lights up Thumb pressing and holding the SecuLife SOS button until the screen switches to calling
DeviceBrandOverallAvg. seconds to a human
Lively Mobile2Lively (bought at Best Buy)A+26
MobileHelp EliteMobileHelpA90
SOS All-in-One 2Bay Alarm MedicalA74
VIP X2LifeFoneA−60
Medical Alert On the GoADTA−58
MG MiniMedical GuardianB+94
PearlLifeStationB+71
Life BeaconAlert1B86
On the Go MicronLifelineB113
Bell X2LifeProtect 24/7F63
SOSSecuLifeFNever

I’m just a guy, but that’s the point

Most of what you’ll read about medical alert systems cites the same handful of sources. If you read enough ConsumerAffairs reviews or go down some very long Reddit rabbit holes, you’ll find information that should be more accessible to everyone.

That’s That Guy’s goal. I put the hours of research in so you don’t have to.

But you can’t fake being that guy.

You can’t fake almost calling emergency services in the airport X-ray line.

You can’t fake having your son run away from you when the device accidentally goes off in Target.

You can’t fake reading the contract out loud to a rep who really wished I’d stop.

This is the promise behind every page, photo and video in my series:

  • If you see a device, I’m holding it. No AI. Not a render, not a stock photo, not the manufacturer’s press shot.
  • If you see a price, it’s the price I paid for it. On a real sales call or directly from the company.
  • If you see a quote from a sales rep, it’s from a recording.
  • If you see a time to a human, I timed it. More than a hundred times, I sat there counting the seconds with a stopwatch running.
  • If it’s an opinion, it’s mine. I’m biased in the ways any person is. My wife’s a doctor. I have preferences on how to wear it, and there were brands I could not stand.
Close-up of Chris in a ConsumerAffairs cap and glasses A finger pointing at pendants charging in a tangle of cables on the carpet Chris at his desk turning toward the camera, a contract and a device box in front of him
Chris Kolmar

All in, I’m Chris, That Med Alert Guy with ConsumerAffairs

ConsumerAffairs exists to give you an advantage when you need it most, by matching you to brands you can trust.

I’m the one who bought the medical alert systems, wore them, called them, read the paperwork and fell down in the parking lot. If my face is on something, I stand behind it.

Medical alerts are the first category in our That Guy series. It won’t be the last.