As the predominantly Baby Boomer population continues to age, GPS tracking devices designed specifically for the elderly seem to increasingly common. The MobileHelp GPS alert system is one of the latest to hit the market, a product of Medical Mobile Monitoring. The system consists of numerous parts: the base station, a pendant that presumably is worn around the neck, a GPS/cellular help button, and 24/7/365 switchboard.
Getting someone to wear a GPS-aware pendant around their neck involuntarily will probably be tough, and the help button is a separate accessory that has to be remembered by the person being tracked. That doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me. In any case though, if the person presses the help button they’ll be connected to call center, and a loved one would be alerted via their mobile phone of the emergency (which likely would’ve helped this couple). A loved one can also track the location of the tracked person on a map online, in real-time. Sounds thrilling.
Unfortunately as well, the MobileHelp GPS alert system requires an AT&T subscription that not only costs a minimum of $39.95 per month, but only covers a fraction of the entire population and geographical area of the United States. Sounds comforting.