LifeFone Review

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LifeFone has two great at home options and two fantastic options for the on the go. Their coverage works for a landline or you can opt for cellular service.

We Love!

• Amazing in-home range
• Options for cellular and landlines
• Two way voice-in on-the-go pendant option
• Online bill pay

We Don’t Love…

• Pricey add ons
• You have to pay for shipping if returning the product(s)

Pricing and Costs

LifeFone has a great monthly price for each of their options and does not charge for any equipment up front. They offer monthly, quarterly, and annual plans for payment options. They offer free shipping and a free lock box with their annual plan as well as a free month. If you pay quarterly, they still offer a savings on top of the savings that adds up to one free month per year. The best deal is the annual plan, which has a cost savings overall but also gives you a free month per year. 

Additional pendants or other devices for the system are available as secondary option or for an additional user. Adding fall protection to one of these systems is an additional cost, however, adding an additional user (your spouse) is free, unless you want to add a second fall pendant or a Voice In Pendant option.

There are no sign up fees, contracts, installation or activation fees. Additionally, there is an easy cancellation policy. As long as you return all equipment (at your expense, unfortunately, but shipping isn’t too much) they will refund a prorated amount for the remaining year. They make it easy to cancel via phone, email, or mail. 

Should you choose to become a lifelong LifeFone customer and sign up for the annual plan, they won’t increase your cost. They offer a price lock guarantee to keep your fees the same unless you decide to change or upgrade your system. That’s a great reassurance that costs won’t go up suddenly.

*Prices in green are equivalent cost per month.

Add on products and services can be a tad confusing, though once you decide what kind of base unit you will need, going through the checkout and adding items is very easy. Take a look at the grid below for added features and services.

Equipment Details

At Home Landline and Cellular

The standard equipment for both the LifeFone Landline and Cellular options are comparable. The landline has a telephone jack for connection and the cellular option does not. Both pieces of equipment come with a base unit with an emergency button and two way communication. The ancillary devices, such as the necklace pendant, wrist watch, or other devices that can link to the base unit, all work within a very wide range of 1,300 feet. This is one of the longest ranges of any at-home system we’ve seen and provides quite a bit of coverage. 

The necklace offered with this package can include fall detection for an additional $5 a month. The wristwatch option, (and consequently the Vanity Pendant) do not have fall detection built into their devices. You have the option of either the pendant/necklace or the wristwatch with either the landline or cellular base units. 

Note: The Vanity Pendant, at $71.95, seems like a hefty fee for an additional pendant, but it boasts the same coverage as the standard pendant and looks so much better! This pendant could be used as daily jewelry and has a 2 year battery life that is monitored by LifeFone. They’ll let you know when the battery is coming up on needing to be replaced. Unfortunately, this pendant doesn’t have built in fall protection, but for someone concerned about what the pendant looks like, they likely would be out and about and not necessarily in need of that extra feature. The Vanity Pendant and standard necklace (as well as the wristwatch) all are waterproof, which is a great feature. 

The Cellular option uses AT&T’s cellular service and provides a great coverage nationwide. The only caveat to AT&T is that you need to make sure your service is good in your area, otherwise the Landline option may be best. 

At-Home & On-the-Go GPS

The At-Home & On-the-Go GPS unit uses cellular coverage and offers both an in-home base unit combined with an on the go GPS device. This device comes with a charging cradle and has GPS built into it. With a two way speaker, you can summon help, speak aloud, and if needed, the GPS can be activated for location services. 

This package comes with the option of a standard necklace/pendant or a wristwatch in white or black. For additional add ons, such as an additional wristwatch or pendant, simply add it to the cart during checkout. These add ons are available to other packages as well as appropriate. 

Additional add ons are available such as the Wall-Mounted Help Button, Hanging, and/or Wall Mounted Master Lock Boxes. For $29.95 you can add on an additional on-the-go Mobile Device Charging Cradle if you would like an extra one, but one does come standard with the package. 

The Necklace with fall detection for this plan is $10, because it sends signals to the in-home device and the GPS mobile device. With the Cellular and Landline base unit devices, there is only one pendant with fall detection built in, hence the price of $5 in those cases. 

This package overall works well for the user who spends time at home and goes out fairly often. The GPS mobile device can be tucked into a purse or the leather carrying case provided to stay handy while out and about. At home, the wristwatch or pendant can be used while the GPS mobile device is charging and not needed.

At-Home & On-the-Go GPS – Voice-In-Pendant

LifeFone’s option for an all-in-one is this small pendant that comes with a charging cradle and can be used anywhere at home or out and about. It comes in white or black and has an available lanyard to be worn around the neck. While the necklace can be put into a purse, fall detection is the most successful when worn around the neck. This also allows easy access should there be an emergency. 

The Voice-in-Pendant comes with either AT&T or Verizon cellular coverage to ensure a greater range of coverage. You can choose from either, though having your own service or even a cell phone is not required. 

Battery life without fall detection lasts up to 30 days, which is impressive! Simply charge the battery overnight, or as needed. If fall detection is enabled, the battery life is about 5 – 7 days, which is still really great for this type of necklace device. 

Of course the pendant offers GPS location services to locate a user if needed. This really is the all in one device designed for the active user who likes to feel safe and secure while going about their day without any limitations on range or coverage.

Customer Service and Support

I reached out to Customer Service for several questions that I had. I love that they have a phone number to call and a quickly-answered website chat feature. I found Customer Service to be very knowledgeable and helpful. They kept offering to call me, or email me more information, which I declined because I do prefer the chat feature so I can multitask. That being said, I knew they were trying to be thorough and communicate with me in the easiest and most efficient way possible. I appreciated that they were willing to broaden their communication methods to fit whatever needs they thought I might have. 

Cancelling the service proves easy. Simply let them know and they will take care of you. LifeFone does a nice job of refunding a prorated amount for the remaining service agreement. It is important that you return the equipment, however, and they will continue charging you for the service until it’s sent back, so stay on top of returning things. Shipping back to the company isn’t covered, but it isn’t too expensive. If you want a label to print out for shipping back to them, they will provide it and take the cost out of the final refund. If you opt to ship it yourself, getting a tracking number would be best for confirmation that they received the returned equipment.

Bottom Line

Of all the medical device units we tried, tested, read about, and learned about, LifeFone was my favorite. Their monthly cost (broken down monthly, quarterly, or annually even) were on par with other companies but they have the most easy to understand and use equipment. Four options made it very easy to choose what would be best and easiest for our needs. In the end, we opted to go for the At-home & on-the-go GPS Voice-in Pendant. We liked it because it was $39.95 when paid annually, and had all the things we could need for our one user. I didn’t mind paying the annual fee, knowing that if we were to cancel the service, we would be refunded for unused months. 

Additionally, by paying annually, we have the price locked in for the lifetime of the unit we were using. Unless we change plans or services, our cost annually will be the same. There won’t be any surprises down the line. An easy $40 a month gives us the needed security we needed to be home and out – in the garden and out in the pasture. We were also reassured that Mom could go to the grocery store or for a walk in the woods without having to tell us every time. That level of security and freedom was really worth every penny for us.

FAQs – Here are the questions I had

There is a free fourth month? Is there always a free fourth month?

While we were researching, LifeFone had a promotion going on where if you paid quarterly, the fourth month was free! I wondered if all fourth months were free and no. They are not. After the first quarter (or three months), the next month is free, but after that it is billed every three months. This was (and is, as of today!) a promotional offer they have, but is not always being offered. The same offer was for their annual plan. The 12th month is free right now, but that offer will be ending soon according to their customer service team. 

Why are some pendants $5 for fall detection and some are $10?

I was a little confused about why some packages had a difference in price, but again their Customer Service helped me out. In the plans where there is one pendant the cost is $5. In the plans where there are two devices that use fall detection, the cost is $10. That made sense! Additional pendants for additional users are available and the cost is per pendant. 

When do you stop charging me for the service when I cancel?

Since LifeFone does prorate refunds, I wonder when that would stop. Other companies stop it on the day you call, but LifeFone has a much better way! Instead of giving you 30 days to return your equipment as other companies do, and then charging you for that equipment if it hasn’t been returned, (which can be hundreds of dollars!!) LifeFone simply does not stop the service until they receive the units back. Let’s say you send it back on Monday and it takes five days to arrive, you’ve only paid for five days you didn’t need, instead of being charged hundreds of dollars should you forget to send the unit back. Even a delay of a month would only be the cost of the month, instead of the equipment cost. I found this to be incredibly reasonable and a great way to win my business. 

The Final Say

LifeFone’s offerings are really on par with other companies, but it’s their policies that won me over. They offer various incentives throughout the year to first time customers, but I like that even if I pay ahead of time, I am not locked in to losing money should we need to cancel the service later. Additionally, I won’t be charged hefty equipment fees at the end of our service plan. I know exactly what to expect and found all of their business practices reasonable. 

The equipment is exactly what we will need! Their offerings were thorough but simple. I would much rather a beautiful pendant that they do offer, but since it doesn’t offer two way communication or fall detection, we will stick with the base pendant that they offer. If you don’t need those extra features though, I really did like their Vanity Pendant.