Quality and Warranty
Protect America uses Alarm.com equipment and mobile app support for its home security and medical monitoring system. Its Simon XT Pushbutton and Simon XTi control panels are excellent in usability, compatibility with home automation devices and performance. Most of Protect America equipment has a lifetime warranty, but you don’t own it. If you cancel your subscription, you have to return the equipment.
Unlike most of its sensors and control panels, its medical pendants and wristbands are produced by Resolution Products and come with a two-year warranty, waterproof casing, and a non-replaceable battery with a 4-6 years lifespan.
Features
Protect America home security system can connect to emergency monitoring stations via cellular, broadband or landline network. Its Life Safety module includes smoke and carbon monoxide detectors, disaster sensors, and a medical panic pendant.
The medical alert button is portable, water-resistant and has a reliable RF signal. It comes in two formats – a pendant and a wristwatch:
- It’s sleek at 1.5×1.2×0.6 inches. You can wear it as a bracelet, pager, wristband, or necklace.
- You can program the panic button to set off a silent or an audible alarm.
- It is easy to use, with a single red button with ergonomic feel.
- Its casing is sealed and water- and shock-resistant, so you can wear it in the shower. It can also withstand 0F to 120F temperatures.
- Its “Heartbeat” LED light blinks every minute to assure you it’s fully-functional.
- It sends hourly supervisory signals.
- You must be “near your alarm system” to be able to trigger a medical alert by using your medical pendant or wristwatch.
When you press the red emergency button on your medical pendant, it sends low battery signals to your Simon control panel. Once the panel receives the alert from your pendant, your monitoring station gets notified.
From there, a Protect America monitoring specialist tries to contact you via your Simon control panel’s two-way audio to confirm if the medical response is necessary. If the agent is unable to reach you or someone on your emergency contact list, medical responders are dispatched.
Besides the medical pendant, Protect America has a few nifty gizmos you can use for medical alerts – a two-button panic device, a miniature pin-pad, and a small GPS tracker.
Its two-button panic device is small, discreet and you can use it to arm and disarm your system from inside your house. But you can also press both arm and disarm buttons to send a distress signal. The device is meant to be used inside your home and has a 50-feet range of the main control panel. It can be a useful little gizmo when placed strategically around your house – in a drawer, cabinet, or in your home office under your desk, or next to your bed.
The keychain remotes from Protect America can also be set to work as a panic button. You can use it from outside your house at 100-feet range from your control panel.
The miniature pin-pads are smaller versions of your panel pin-pad. They allow you to arm and disarm the system, but also send the distress signal. You can place several of these around your house so that you don’t have to rush to your control panel in the event of an emergency. Pendants and keychain remotes can be misplaced, lost or stolen, so additional pin-pads can come handy.
The GPS tracker is primarily for vehicle tracking if your car should ever get stolen. But you can potentially use it to track family members prone to wandering.
Finally, your Simon XT panel has three panic alarm buttons near the keypad. One is for Police Panic, the other is for Fire Panic, and the third is for Medical Panic with a cross sign that, when pressed for 3 seconds or pressed multiple times, alerts your monitoring station.
Price
Protect America home security packages with medical panic alert start at $19.99 per month. The activation fee is $19.95, while the equipment fee is $99 for the basic setup:
- Copper $19.99/mo is landline-only. No mobile app is included.
- Silver at $37.99/mo bundles ten sensors and one motion detector.
- Platinum at $42.99/mo features 15 sensors and one motion detector.
Medical pendants are not included in the basic setup, but you should be able to replace a few entry sensors with medical pendants or panic buttons – inquire with your sales agent.
Support
Protect America operates three 24/7 professional medical and security monitoring stations for redundancy, and the average response time is around 12 seconds.
When an alarm is triggered, the monitoring station first contacts you or anyone on your emergency contacts list. Then it dispatches the appropriate first responders.
Its tech support is available from 8:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. CT Monday through Friday, and from 9:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. on weekends. Customer reviews suggest the company needs to improve its sales techniques, as agents sometimes fail to disclose important contract details.
Installation
Protect America does not offer professional installation, but you can rely on their phone tech support to guide you, as well as an extensive knowledge base and manuals. The DIY installation is overall straightforward.
Things to Consider
- First-time customers have to sign a three-year contract.
- After three years, you can switch to a monthly subscription, provided you give the company a 60-day notice.
- Your three-year contract automatically renews unless you give the company a 60-day notice.
- The early termination fee is 100% of your remaining contract.
Important Tips
- Protect America has several panic button options worth considering – a medical pendant, two-button panic devices, a keychain remote, a mini pin-pad, and a GPS tracking beacon for vehicles (or senior customers prone to wandering). But the GPS tracker has no panic button.
- You can cancel your agreement during the first 15 days of shipment, not activation.
