Aloe Care Review

Aloe Care Health combines the tried-and-true approach of an old-school medical alert button with newfangled motion, temperature, and fall sensors placed around your home. If you’re feeling a little too stubborn to summon help or you simply can’t, Aloe Care Health’s smart technology tells loved ones something’s wrong.

We love Aloe Care’s fresh take on the medical alert industry and believe it’s worth the price. Curious what it's like to use this system with a loved one? See our testing experience below.

See Aloe Care in action and hear from our tester and reviewer, Cathy Habas. You can catch more from us every week when you like and subscribe to our YouTube channel. 

Aloe Care costs about $30 to $50 per month based on your equipment package. It’s also one of the few medical alert companies to charge an up-front equipment fee, which ranges between about $100 and $300. 

Aloe Care’s neither the most affordable medical alert system nor the most expensive, but we appreciate its basic pricing structure. Many other companies nickel and dime their customers with monthly add-ons, charging extra for every wall button, pendant, or feature you want to add to the system. Aloe Care’s pricing is refreshingly straightforward. 

We hope this doesn’t change in the future when the company adds à la carte options.

Aloe Care may be right for you in these scenarios:

• You want an in-home system. This is where Aloe Care Health shines. Although Aloe Care does sell a mobile system, other companies offer the same tech in more discreet devices. 
• You don’t want to wear a help button. They’re optional, thanks to Aloe Care’s motion sensors, voice-activated technology, and wall-mounted fall detection sensor.

• Your fall risk is pretty low. Aloe Care Health assumes you’ll slip and fall in the bathroom, since this is where they recommend installing the automatic fall detection sensor. If you have a health concern that makes you pass out or feel dizzy when getting up from a chair, for example, we recommend wearing the Phillips Lifeline AutoAlert or one of our other top picks for fall detection. 

• You want your friends and family to quit worrying about you (at least a little). The Aloe Care Health app keeps everyone up to speed. You don’t even have to log into the app yourself—it provides automatic updates to the people in your Care Circle thanks to the hub's smart sensors.
• You’re hesitant about “bothering” professional monitors and first responders. First, know that you’re not bothering anyone. People like being helpful, and you deserve to be helped. Second, Aloe Care Health gives you the option of directly contacting your friends and family instead of using the monitoring center as a middleman.

You don’t have to sign a contract with Aloe Care, so you can cancel at any time without worrying about termination fees. Service is offered on a month-to-month basis, with the option of paying for a full year up front.

Aloe Care does have a few fine-print policies worth noting:

• Your monthly rate can increase at any time. The only way to lock in your rate is to purchase a full year’s service in advance. Even then, the rate may increase for the next year of service. 
• Aloe Care charges late fees. You’ll be hit with a 1.5% late fee per missed month, plus a 5% administrative fee per late payment. 

On a positive note, Aloe Care offers a 30-day trial period and a one-year warranty.

Aloe Care sells four equipment packages. There’s currently no à la carte shop, but the company hopes to provide that in the future.  

• Emergency button: black button in the center 
• Request check-in from primary caregiver: button in the 2-o’clock position
• Request check-in from any caregiver: button in the 5-o’clock position
• Yes: button in the 10-o’clock position
• No: button in the 7-o’clock position
• Volume controls: on the right side of the device, with the “up” button furthest away from you and the “down” button closest to you

There’s also a light around the emergency button. When you walk by the hub at night, the light turns on and reduces your risk of tripping. When one of your loved ones calls to check in, the light will turn blue. 

Finally, you’ll see two grey nubs on the front of the base station. These are motion sensors. The Smart Hub also houses a temperature sensor and air quality sensor, which detects volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and carbon dioxide levels.

There’s no microphone or speaker in the help button, so staying close to the Hub makes it easier to hear and talk to the professional monitors or your loved ones.

The device also tracks your location via GPS, Wi-Fi, and cellular data, which is the same technology used in our long-time favorite mobile alert device, the Medical Guardian Mini. 

The fall detection option can be toggled on or off in the Aloe Care Health app. Keeping it off allows the battery to last up to five days between charges. The mobile device should be worn around your neck for more accurate fall detection.

Two motion sensors and a wall-mounted fall detection sensor/wall button round out Aloe Care’s equipment line. The motion sensors not only detect your movement but also learn your daily routine. If you stop walking past the motion sensors at your usual times, the app alerts your Care Circle so someone can check on you. 

The wall-mounted fall sensor is totally unique among medical alert systems. It uses radio waves to determine if you’re on the floor and not moving. It also features voice activation and a help button.

With extra features comes a slight learning curve. Here’s how to use your Aloe Care equipment.

There are four buttons that connect you to the monitoring center:

• Press the big black button in the center of the Smart Hub. If you press this by mistake, just hit the X button in the 7-o’clock position to cancel. 
• Press the wearable button on your wristband or pendant. If possible, move closer to the Smart Hub so the monitors can hear you. 
• Press the gray button on the Mobile Companion.
• Tap the gray button on the wall-mounted fall sensor.

• Keep saying “Emergency” until you hear a chime from the Smart Hub or wall-mounted fall sensor. The device will ask you to confirm that you need help.
• Say “Emergency” one more time to connect to the monitoring center. 
• If you want to talk to your loved ones instead, say “Cancel” after the Hub asks you to confirm that you need help. Then, say, “Call my family.”

Our main criticism here is that it would be easier to say, “Call my family” right off the bat.

The device also has to recognize the word "emergency" five times before it will trigger an alarm, which seems like too much. Before we figured this out, we shouted it just three or four times before pausing and grumbling a bit. Don't do that. Stay calm and speak as loudly and clearly as you can. 

Update: It seems like we weren't the only ones annoyed by the lengthy voice activation procedure. Aloe Care Health recently announced that you can now adjust the hub's sensitivity so you can say "emergency" fewer times.

• To ask your primary caregiver to check in, press the Smart Hub button in the 2-o’clock position, which has the image of a phone receiver and the number one.
• To call all of your caregivers until someone picks up, press the button in the 5-o’clock position, which has the image of a phone receiver and the number two.
• Wait for your caregiver(s) to call you through the Smart Hub. Accept their call by pressing the checkmark symbol in the 10-o’clock position. If you’re unable to press the button, the call will automatically connect after five rings.
• You can reject a check-in call and prevent the automatic connection by pressing the X button in the 7-o’clock position.

Loved ones can start a three-way call with the monitoring center from the mobile app if they decide you need prompt attention.

Setting up the Aloe Care Smart Hub is as simple as plugging it in and pushing a button. Seriously. It takes about three minutes from start to finish, and most of that time is spent just waiting for the hub to give further instructions. 

Once it's plugged in, the hub light starts pulsing gently. Be patient: in our case, it took exactly 70 seconds for the Aloe Care hub to say, "Welcome. Let's get started." 

Next, the hub says, "If a caregiver is present to help with install, please have them open the caregiver smartphone app."

Whoops, we hadn't set that up yet.

Fortunately, it wasn't necessary to have the app ready to go. After a brief pause, the hub continues by saying, "If you're installing for yourself, press the center button on this device to continue." Easy. 

The hub spends the next 15 seconds or so connecting to LTE and says, "You have successfully connected your Aloe Care Smart Hub. Finalizing setup. Your Smart Hub may need to restart during this process." 

Wait for another 40 seconds. Finally, the hub will say, "Your smart system is fully set up and ready to use." 

What happens if a caregiver sets up the hub?

On the Aloe Care app, your caregiver can choose to connect the Smart Hub to Wi-Fi right away. They'll need to know the network name and password. Our hub connected without a hitch (and with our track record of Wi-Fi woes, that's impressive). 

Setting up the Aloe Care Mobile Companion and other devices

The Aloe Care Health app makes remote caregiving a breeze. It provides a central location for your friends, family, and medical professionals to stay up to date on your activity. Here are some of the things they can do through the app, depending on their permissions:

• Call you through the Smart Hub
• See your check-in call requests
• View fall detection or emergency alerts
• See whether the Smart Hub is connected properly
• View data like home temperature and air quality
• See when you last walked past the motion detectors
• Share quick updates with other caregivers
• See which caregivers have checked in with you and when
• Pay your Aloe Care bill

We had the opportunity to test the Aloe Care Essentials Plus package, which includes the central base station, a wearable in-home button, and the Mobile Companion.

The hub easily recognized the wake-word "Emergency" if I stood in the same room. But as soon as I ducked around the corner to my bathroom, the hub's microphone had a hard time hearing me. It failed to start a call two out of three times during my bathroom tests. 

Aloe Care recommends installing its second voice-activated hub—only available in the Total Care package—in the bathroom to ensure you can be heard if you slip in the tub and yell for help.

Aside from simply not hearing me, the hub wouldn't initiate a call until it heard me say "Emergency" five times. This is way more time-consuming and difficult to say than GetSafe's "call 911, call 911."

Since the hub often didn't hear or understand what I said, I ended up saying "emergency" closer to 10 times. 

Update: Aloe Care Health now lets you adjust the hub's sensitivity so it picks up on quieter voices. You can also adjust how many times you have to say "emergency" to trigger a response. Hooray!

It took just 30 seconds for a professional monitor to answer my test call. This includes the time it takes for the hub to confirm that you have an emergency. 

The monitor was easy to understand, spoke in a calm manner, and knew my name. Her voice came through the base station too loud for my liking, but it was easy to turn down the volume using the buttons on the side of the hub.

The Mobile Companion's GPS tracker wasn't as accurate as my iPhone's location tracker (which pinpointed the exact room I was standing in), but it nailed down my location within 50 feet. 

Still, it looked like I was hanging out at my neighbor's house. In the image below, the blue dot is the actual location of the Mobile Companion. The marker that says "Elizabeth" is the Mobile Companion's self-reported location. 

Best of all, the caregiver app let me export the Mobile Companion's location to Google Maps or Apple Maps so I could instantly get directions. 

When my co-tester "caregiver" placed a check-in call, the audio sounded clear and sharp in both directions. But in my role as the person needing help, I ran into some trouble.

First, I was surprised the "call my primary caregiver" button on the base station doesn't place a phone call. Instead, it sends a push notification to the caregiver, letting them know that their loved one has requested a check-in call. 

Pushing the "call all my caregivers" button does place a phone call. It's supposed to cycle through all caregivers until someone answers the phone. But when the first caregiver didn't pick up during our test, the call ended. 

We consider Aloe Care Health the best medical alert system for caregivers thanks to its high-quality mobile app. It's easy to navigate and bursting with information like indoor temperature, motion activity around the hub, and the last time someone checked in with the user.

When I placed the test call to the monitoring center, my phone lit up with a text message to let me know an emergency call had been placed through the Aloe Care hub. The app also gave a play-by-play of what happened when the monitoring center was contacted so that all caregivers could stay in the loop. 

Aloe Care is one of the few medical alert systems embracing smart home technology and equipment integrations.

Echo-owning caregivers can check on their loved ones without opening the Aloe Care Health app thanks to a free Alexa Skill. 

After downloading the Aloe Care Alexa Skill, say, "Alexa, ask Aloe Care for an update." 

Alexa will tell you whether the devices are working properly and will share temperature, air quality, motion activity, and check-in information. It will also gently remind you to check in on your loved one. 

The Aloe Care Health Smart Hub can use either Wi-Fi or 4G LTE as its primary internet connection. There is no landline/Ethernet option. 

If you use Wi-Fi, 4G can be used as a back-up option during internet outages.

Note that the automatic fall detection sensor requires Wi-Fi and doesn’t work with 4G.

Aloe Care can be linked to other equipment—including other personal emergency response systems (PERS)—using Zigbee, Bluetooth, or radio frequency. This allows you to expand your medical alert system or create smart home automations that simplify your life.

Aloe Care is too new to have a profile on Trustpilot or Better Business Bureau. There are also hardly any Google reviews or app reviews to consult. So we’re not sure how easy it is to cancel the service or whether there are persistent problems with the equipment. But the few reviews that do exist are all positive. 

We like seeing article libraries, community help forums, and more than one way to contact a company, all of which Aloe Care provides. But the community forums are a ghost town, probably because the company doesn’t have a substantial customer base yet. 

We used the chat feature to clarify a few policy questions, and we were happy with their speed of service and precise answers.

We like Aloe Care’s caregiver-centric approach for better health care collaboration. We also think the motion sensor system offers a clever alternative to more intrusive check-ins. Compared to other medical alert systems, Aloe Care seems to offer a lot of value for your money and leaves your dignity intact. We don’t see any red flags that would make us steer clear.

For our Aloe Care Health review, we did hands-on testing to simulate a caregiver/older-adult experience. We connected to the monitoring center, checked GPS-tracking accuracy, used the app, and tried all the main features. 

We also looked at the company’s technology, policies, and pricing structure and compared it to industry leaders, including those on our Best Medical Alert Systems page.

We also spoke with Aloe Care representatives, watched an Aloe Care demo, and used their customer service portal as mystery shoppers. 

Learn more on our methodology page.

• GetSafe vs. Aloe Care Health
• How to Choose a Medical Alert System
• How to Talk to Your Parents About a Medical Alert System
• Ultimate Guide to Aging in Place
• How Smart Home Tech Can Help Older Adults
• Room-by-Room Guide to Senior Home Safety