Best Medical Alert Necklaces

You can take two routes with medical alert necklaces: stylish designs with limited tech or clunky designs with excellent tech. These devices have yet to see a marriage between style and function.

We think the Medical Guardian Mini Guardian does the best job of combining powerful GPS, fall detection, and two-way talk technology with a discreet pendant. It comes in three colors.

The more stylish options (including our fave charms from Bay Alarm Medical) just house a help button and must be worn within range of the base station. We'll show you all the options on the market so you can pick the best medical alert necklace to suit your style. 

GPS medical alerts like the Mini Guardian replace an at-home base station with a small GPS device (about the size of a pager). When you’re in trouble, press the button on the necklace or GPS unit to call for help. You’ll speak to a Medical Guardian monitoring professional through the portable GPS unit.

The Mini Guardian is water-resistant, so you can wear the necklace while in the shower.

As for looks, it’s not exactly a head-turning accessory, but it could save your life when you need it. You could customize its appearance with some contact paper or maybe a cute crochet cover. 

The Icons Collection pendants are available only with the Home Guardian and Mobile Guardian kits. They cost an extra $2.99 per month. They work as a simple alert button but lack two-way communication and fall detection. They aren’t waterproof either, so you won’t be able to wear one in the shower.

Luckily, the Icons pendants come paired with other devices. The Home Guardian home unit is made of a simple base station and a wearable (your Icons Collection necklace). At 600 feet, its range is significantly shorter than that of other in-home units. However, the base has a loud two-way speaker, power outage protection, and a strong cellular signal to stay connected to the monitoring center.

The Mobile Guardian kit is the other compatible system for the Icons Collection. It is a two-piece GPS system with a GPS unit and a wearable necklace. You’ll need to stay within 350 feet of the GPS unit, but you can call for help using the Icons necklace anywhere your GPS device is. So you can go to lunch with friends, your grandkids’ recital, and take a walk in style (and safety).

We love the way the Icons Collections medical alert jewelry looks, especially if you don’t want a clunky medical alert necklace. But you’ll have to sacrifice a few features in the name of fashion.

The pendants cost around $25 each and make your med alert look like wearable art. These clips are waterproof, so you can wear them in the shower and bath like a standard medical alert necklace.

Note: The current styles in 2024 are leopard print (Gemma), tortoise (Marella), turquoise (Marina), and confetti (Stella). 

Like many in-home medical alert systems, you’ll need to stay within range of the base station. You get 1,000 feet of roaming space, which is plenty of room to move around your house and still call for help when you need it.

This pendant doesn't support fall detection technology, but LifeFone's a great company for those looking for extra support services like daily check-in calls and medication reminders.

If you'd prefer to pay an upfront fee in order to pay less over time, LifeFone's vanity pendant is also a more affordable alternative to Medical Guardian's Icon Collection.

Read more in our full LifeFone review.

Medical alert companies do not offer fall detection services with their Trelawear devices, which makes us a little skeptical about whether this device offers accurate fall detection when paired with FallCall. If you're at high risk of passing out or becoming dizzy, we recommend a proven fall detection device like the Mini Guardian.

Read our full MobileHelp review or LifeStation review to narrow down your choices.

It’s not what we’d call fashionable, but it’s small enough to wear comfortably wherever you go. The device itself is only a couple inches long, so you can slip it under your shirt or jacket and keep it out of the way until you need it.

Read our review of Lifeline medical alert systems for more information.

If you’re looking for a medical alert necklace for a loved one, Lively has a companion app that lets you keep an eye on them directly through your phone.

Like most medical alert devices, you can get fall detection built into Lively Mobile Plus. But you’ll need to pay a little extra per month for this feature. If you’ve been injured from a fall before, it’s worth the money.

The starting price for the Lively Mobile Plus is about $50 for the device and about $25 for the Basic monthly subscription. But the Basic plan provides only emergency calling services. You’ll have to pay around $30 per month or more if you want features like the mobile app or fall detection.

Read our full review of Lively (formerly GreatCall) to learn more about this device.

Medical alert devices don’t have to be clunky and unfashionable. But when you have to call for help in an emergency, practical features win over style. Take the Medical Guardian Mini Guardian, for example, which lacks in looks but wins overall for core features. In contrast, the Medical Guardian Icons Collection looks more like jewelry but is limited in function.

Look for a medical alert necklace that connects to a monitoring center quickly, whether you’re home or on the go. Automatic fall detection, waterproofing, and two-way communication should be features you look for in any medical alert system.

All medical alert companies sell help buttons that are worn around the neck on a lanyard, but that doesn’t make them necklaces. Some are downright unattractive. It’s critical for people to feel confident about wearing and using their medical alerts, so we set out to find products that combine form and function. 

There’s just one problem: most fashionable medical alert necklaces don’t include automatic fall detection or GPS tracking. We immediately knew we needed to prioritize stylish buttons that protected the wearer as much as possible. 

That’s why you’ll see a somewhat bland-looking option (relatively speaking) at the top of our list. We found a small, subtle, and lightweight medical alert that comes in three colors and boasts all the bells and whistles we like to see. 

The Mini Guardian is truly in a league of its own in terms of style and features, so we had to turn our attention to the traditional in-home medical alert necklaces next. Because they all have similar functions, we decided to list all the options and let our readers decide which medical alert necklaces best matched their style.

Brands with better policies, prices, reputations, and customer support appear higher on the page. To learn how we evaluate medical alert brands overall, visit the methodology section of the Best Medical Alerts page.

• Best Medical Alert Watches
• Best Safety Wearables for Seniors
• Most Affordable Medical Alert Systems
• Types of Medical Alert Systems and How They Work
• How to Choose a Medical Alert System