Quality and Warranty
Vivint proprietary equipment comes with a 120-day warranty. It’s sleek, robust, and stands out from the crowd of generic lookalike devices you will find with many other providers. Its medical pendants are also discreet and inconspicuous, and you can wear them any way you like.
Features
Vivint’s medical monitoring feature consists of medical pendants and Vivint’s wireless alarm control panel.
SkyControl is the provider’s 7-inch touchscreen panel that allows you to pair your sensors with your security system, arm/disarm your system, lock doors, view live and recorded video feed from your security cameras, and control your Z-Wave-powered smart home automation devices. It also lets you activate emergency services directly.
Vivint’s customizable remote not only allows you to arm and disarm the system remotely but comes with a panic button. It’s customizable because you can assign it different functions based on your needs – adjust lights, lock doors, or call the emergency services.
Your control panel also comes with the two-way voice communication. When you press the panic button, your monitoring station contacts you directly via your panel to confirm whether police or medical responder is necessary.
The Panic Pendant has a 300-feet range around your control panel and is temperature- and water-resistant. It withstands humidity and temperatures 32° F to 120° F, but you shouldn’t submerge it in water.
It is compact at 1.65×1.20×0.5 inches weighing less than an ounce, but also discreet enough to come across as a fitness tracker. You can wear it as a necklace, belt, wristband, or lanyard. Alternatively, you can attach it to a wall or car visor.
Price
Contract and contract-less options are available with Vivint:
- No-contract – if you buy your equipment up front, you can choose to pay for your security and medical monitoring on a month-to-month basis. No early cancellation fees are involved.
- FlexPay is Vivint’s way of luring you into a 42-60-month contract. You can pay for your equipment in monthly installments, but the cancellation fee is 100% of whatever is left on your contract.
Vivint has two monitoring plans:
- Smart Home at $39.99/mo – 24/7 monitoring, mobile app, alert notifications
- Smart Home Video at $49.99/mo – adds full home automation integration on top of security monitoring
Medical pendants are listed under the additional equipment you can buy for $34.99 each.
Support
Instead of contracting a third-party monitoring company, Vivint owns and operates its monitoring stations. Its emergency support is live 24/7/365.
When you press the panic button for at least 3 seconds, your medical pendant sends an emergency alert to the monitoring station. LED illumination confirms your signal was sent.
Once the monitoring station receives your alert, a Vivint agent contacts you in under 10 seconds – the standard set by the company. The monitoring specialist calls you directly through the two-way voice communication in your control panel to assess the situation and dispatch help.
If you do not respond, the monitoring station dispatches police to your home.
On a side note, Vivint customer service responsible for technical troubleshooting, installation and sales has generated numerous negative customer reviews. The company’s misleading sales tactics have earned Vivint quite a few lawsuits in several states. Lengthy queues on tech support can be daunting, too.
Installation
Vivint technicians install your system, and the installation fee is $49.99. Any technical issue that requires troubleshooting by a Vivint technician will set you off another $49.99 if you can’t solve the issue by yourself.
To add a medical pendant to your system, you fill out a form on the company website to have it shipped to you. Once you have it, you must contact Vivint Smart Home Specialist by chat or phone to have it added to your system. That’s a little convoluted and more complicated than allowing the customer add a preconfigured pendant without waiting for the tech support.
Using your medical pendant is hassle-free. In older models, press the panic button for 2-3 seconds and wait for the LED light on the top of the pendant to come on at least for one second to confirm the signal transmission. Next-gen pendants have LED lights on their top and bottom and flesh red when activated.
Once your signal is sent, your control panel siren should sound, and Vivint 24/7 monitoring station is alerted.
Things to Consider
- The Vivint medical pendant only works within the 300-feet range of your touchscreen panel. If there are walls or floors in the way, the range is smaller. Some companies have GPS tracking in their pendants and can track you anywhere you are when you trigger an alert.
- The pendant is water-resistant, meaning you should not submerge it in water. Some competitors offer waterproof pendants you can wear while having a bath.
- Vivint requires excellent cellular signal strength – not ideal for rural areas.
- 100% cancellation fees paired with 3.5-5-year contracts may be off-putting.
- Vivint offers no money-back guarantee.
Important Tips
- If your pendant is triggering false alarms, check it to ensure the panic button is not stuck. If your pendant has gotten wet or has been dropped, it may be damaged, hence sending false alarms. A replacement costs $60, which is $40 more than the cost of the pendant when you buy it.
- If you are not interested in owning the equipment, you should qualify for a monitoring-only contract.
- You can upgrade your Vivint contract or add extra equipment, but you can’t downgrade it.
