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Philips Lifeline GoSafe 2

 Philips Lifeline, GoSafe 2 : Review

By:  Editorial Team   |  Posted: May 16, 2019   |  Updated: December 20, 2023

The Basics

  • Product: GoSafe 2
  • Company: Philips Lifeline
  • Review Date:  Q2 2019. Updated Q1 2022. 

Where to buy it or learn more*:

Go to: Vendor’s Website

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Analyst Summary: Philips Lifeline   |  GoSafe 2

“Go anywhere” medical alert product. GoSafe 2 is a stand alone mobile medical alert. Philips Lifeline is a leader in the medical alert system space, with a large number of users. Includes fall detection, 2 way voice through pendant, and waterproof.

The GoSafe 2 was one of our top picks in the mobile alert category, however after the acquisition of Philips Lifeline by Connect America, this product is no longer available.

Update Q1 2022: Instead of the GoSafe 2, Philips Lifeline now markets a different “mobile” product, called the “On the Go” mobile solution.

We have not evaluated the on the Go solution. However, we note that it claims a battery life of “up to 5 days” and suspect it does not have the same long battery life we found in the Go Safe 2″.

This page is archival and is no longer being updated.

 

GoSafe 2 vs GoSafe

In the past we reviewed the “GoSafe” which combines a mobile alert pendant with a home communicator (see GoSafe review). The newer GoSafe 2 appears to use the identical mobile pendant as the GoSafe, but without the home communicator. So most of the review above of the GoSafe still applies to the GoSafe 2.

The new GoSafe 2 is designed to go head to head with the other entrants in the mobile alert category.

To keep things in perspective, the home communicator provides a degree of extra “perfection” in the ability to call for help at all times. However the primary competitors to the GoSafe work very much like the GoSafe 2, and lack the extra features of the home communicator (see GoSafe review for more discussion of the role of the home communicator). Having a home communicator is mostly important if you have poor cell coverage in your house. If you have good cell coverage everywhere in your house, the home communicator is much less important.

The big advantage of the GoSafe 2 over the GoSafe is price.

The GoSafe was one of our top recommendations when we acquired it and did an extensive comparative evaluation of this and several other “go anywhere” medical alerts. See the comparative evaluation at the link below. In our updated recommendations the GoSafe 2 is also a top pick.

 

Key Differentiating Features

Pluses

  • As discussed in more detail in the GoSafe review, the GoSafe and GoSafe 2 mobile alert pendants are extremely well engineered and have the feel of a precision piece of engineering.
  • They also have several unusual features not found in competing products, such as a siren that can be triggered to help find you if you are not immediately seen by the first responders (see GoSafe Review).
  • The audio from the GoSafe 2 is very loud. This helps a lot if you have imperfect hearing, for when the responders talk to you from the pendant. We felt this pendant had the loudest and clearest sound of any alert we have tried thus far.

 

Excellent Battery Life

In our testing of the GoSafe 2 in Q2 2019, we found truly excellent battery life, significantly better than other mobile alerts. In our testing of the GoSafe 2 we routinely get 2 weeks between charges of the battery in the pendant. And when we forgot to wear it for a few days during one testing period, it took 3 weeks before the battery needed recharging.

This is in contrast to the other products in the mobile medical alert category which get at best a few days of battery life, and in most cases really need charging every day.

 

Minuses

There are only two potential negatives of this product, apart from price (it is among the more expensive of the mobile alert products).

  • It looks a bit “clinical” for the taste of some people. But honestly, we are finding this less bothersome than when we first evaluated this category of product. And in a recent (Q2 2019) “look and discuss session” with our Longevity Explorers, many of them said they rather liked the look and feel of the product. Now that “white accessories” have been popularized by Apple, perhaps the clinical look has turned into a plus.
  • The response time is still disappointingly long compared to competing products. In our Q2 2019 testing, we found the time between pressing the alert button and getting a responder on the line averaged 77 secs, compared to an average of 20 secs for the Lively Mobile, which we evaluated at the same time. Whether or not this matters really depends on the situation you are trying to protect against. See more discussion of the importance (or not) of response time in our best of breed mobile medical alert article and the Learning Module (especially the online courses that discuss this topic in more detail).

 

Pricing

The GoSafe 2 we purchased (in H1 2019) had a monthly fee of $44.95, a one time purchase fee for the pendant of $99.95, and an installation fee of $19.95. We got a “promotion” discount so the entire initial payment to acquire it and pay for month 1 was $138.90.

The second bill was for the $44.95 for month 2, plus some “extra fees” adding to a total of $52.27.

So, the one year cost would be $714, and the two year cost would be $1,341.

Because pricing varies, we try not to focus too much on price in these reviews, and encourage you to do your own price comparisons. At the time of last updating of this review (July 2019), these total costs were higher than a number of the other mobile medical aleerts we reviewed. If you are seeking “the cheapest”, this product is not the right choice. If you are seeking “the best”, this product should be on the short list.

 

 

Where to buy it or learn more*: (this takes you away from our website)

Philips Lifeline GoSafe 2
Go to: Vendor’s Website

Discount for Tech-enhanced Life readers:

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*Disclosure: The research and opinions in this article are those of the author, and may or may not reflect the official views of Tech-enhanced Life.

If you use the links on this website when you buy products we write about, we may earn commissions from qualifying purchases as an Amazon Associate or other affiliate program participant. This does not affect the price you pay. We use the (modest) income to help fund our research.

In some cases, when we evaluate products and services, we ask the vendor to loan us the products we review (so we don’t need to buy them). Beyond the above, Tech-enhanced Life has no financial interest in any products or services discussed here, and this article is not sponsored by the vendor or any third party. See How we Fund our Work.

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8 thoughts on “Philips Lifeline, GoSafe 2”

  1. First, thanks for doing such

    First, thanks for doing such a great job in trying to analyze and distill information that's useful for caregivers like myself.  

    When I look at the GoSafe2 website, I'm assured that the product will work in and out of my parents' home "where the AT&T Wireless Network is available at the time of the alarm".

    I'm going to call the company and ask this question, but wondered if I could get a more objective answer from you/all:  what does this really mean for people who are not AT&T customers?  My parents already had an unsuccessful experience with a company where I was told that AT& T service was 'dropping' and not penetrating their house somehow.  Their pendants wouldn't hold a charge and took forever and a day to charge in the first place.  The only times one of them was in contact with an operator was over false positives; no one had fallen.  Thank you!

    • Hi Kathryn:

      Hi Kathryn:

      There are a few things to mention here:

      1. Whether or not your parents are ATT customers is not relevant. The Philips system works with ATT but it does so using its own account and does not require your parents to do anything other than interact with Philips. There is no need for your parents to have an ATT account of their own. It does NOT use their cell phone account in any way.

      2. The key issue with these products is that for them to work there needs to be a “signal” from the cell carrier that the product uses (in this case ATT). Just like you don’t get cell phone reception everywhere, these pendants don’t get reception everywhere. So if ATT’s network does not have a strong signal inside your parents house, then the GoSafe 2 pendant will not work well in their house.

      3. There is a solution to this however. The GoSafe (not the GoSafe 2) comes with the same pendant but also with a home “base station” (I think they call it a home communicator). This base station is designed to connect to the pendant when it is in the house. The base station can be set up to connect via the cell network or (I think) via a landline. This avoids the need for the pendant to connect via ATT in your house. But then when you go out and about it still works over the cell network.

      So, … if there is poor cell reception in your parents house, using the GoSafe instead of the GoSafe 2 might be the right answer.

      Watch out you don’t get steered toward the Philips “HomeSafe”. This is a quite different product that works in the home but NOT when you leave the home.

      Hope that helps.

  2. I just talked to Philips and

    I just talked to Philips and they said that the product's battery only lasts for 2 years!  They don't offer a service to replace the battery.  You have to purchase a new unit!!  This could get kind of expensive over the long run IMHO.

    How about including in your reviews the battery life and if it can be replaced?

    • Thanks for adding that bit of

      Thanks for adding that bit of information. It may help others, assuming it is correct.

      To put it in context, all the mobile alerts have rechargeable batteries, and the time between charges is what is most relevant, and we think that is an important differentiator.

      The time at which the battery needs replacing is an interesting piece of data. We think it would be important to compare how this differs from product vendor to product vendor befor deciding what is good and what is bad, and we have not done that.

      The framing of your comment makes it sound like the overall lifetime of the battery in the Philips product is somehow a bad thing. The right question to ask is how this compares with the competitors. I note you dont mention that at all. I think you should do that before drawing any conclusions.

  3. I want a watch to wear at
    I want a watch to wear at night in bed so if I fall getting out of bed at night the fall protection feature will work. I need a mobile system as usually I am out and about in my car or in my garden. Why doesn’t the Philip mobile system show a watch too? Can’t find a watch on their site.

    • Our research on watches that

      Our research on watches that work as medical alerts is here. We recommend you select one of those.

  5. You should be aware that
    You should be aware that Philips is not currently shipping the GoSafe 2 system (info from 8/31/21). We ordered one in early July, 2021, and were told it would take 4-6 weeks for delivery. Received a call about 3 weeks ago saying it would be shipped in a few days. It never arrived. Called last week (8/25/21) and were told by a supervisor that they were having problems, we should NEVER have been told it was arriving soon, and that they weren’t sure when they could ship. Called yesterday (8/31/21) and were told that the units were on indefinite hold and they couldn’t give ANY indication at all when it would be available. It could be weeks, months, or a year. Meanwhile, they keep trying to sell you their “at home” unit instead. If we hadn’t called, we would never have known. Company has made NO efforts to update their customers, either by email or by phone.