Lively (previously GreatCall, now owned by Best Buy) is a well regarded leader in design of senior-friendly products, and makes the popular Jitterbug phones, as well as the Lively Mobile mobile medical alert pendant and Lively App.
The “Urgent Response services” that work on each of the emergency devices above can optionally include some very interesting services that go far beyond the traditional emergency responder service. These extra services include 24/7 access to a doctor or nurse, and use of a caregiver connection application.
GreatCall was acquired by Best Buy in 2018, and subsequently rebranded as Lively.
UPDATE 2024: The material below was created a number of years ago, and may be out dated in some details, although we believe to be generally correct.
Services Beyond “Calling for Help”
A key differentiator of the Lively family of products is that they come with a variety of (optional) services that go far beyond the basic “calling for help” service which you find in most medical alerts.
The basic services, available on both the phones and the medical alerts, include:
- Urgent Response (“Calling for Help”);
- Urgent Care;
- Link; and
- Fall Detection.
The phones have some additional services, including a Personal Operator; “Rides”; and Brain Games.
Urgent Response
The Urgent Response service is the baseline service you have to have if you want a professionally monitored medical alert.
The Lively response time has been consistently “fastest” of the different products we have been evaluating since 2015. (See Mobile Alert Systems: Comparison Testing for more details).
Urgent Care
This is an interesting “optional extra” service. It includes 24/7 access to a doctor or nurse, and ability to “get common prescriptions over the phone”.
We have not evaluated this service.
Lively Link
This is a companion “Caregiver App” that works with the medical alert or phone.
This App worked adequately when we tried it out. It lets a caregiver do things like see when a battery needs recharging; or locate the person carrying the medical alert.
Fall Detection
This is increasingly table-stakes for a modern medical alert.
The Individual Lively Products
See detailed, hands-on reviews of some of the individual Lively products below.
- Lively Mobile2 (no detailed review available). Previous versions of this mobile alert have performed very well in our reviews.
- Lively Jitterbug