Choosing one, with the person#
Start with the phone they already own. Buy a device only when there’s a reason a phone won’t do — it has to be worn, or it has to work when the person is unconscious, or the hands won’t manage a keypad.
The requirement, in a shop#
One line, and it’s the only thing Escudo asks:
It must be able to call or send an SMS to a stored number.
That is genuinely the whole specification. It rules almost nothing out, which is the point: the person picks the shape that suits them rather than the shape a committee bought in bulk.
Anything advertised as teleasistencia, telealarma or a botón SOS will meet it. So will an ordinary phone. What to check on the box is narrow:
- It stores several numbers and dials them in order. The Escudo number goes first, family after.
- It takes an ordinary SIM. Some kits are sold locked to a subscription service; those are a different product, with a monthly bill and a call centre. Escudo doesn’t need either.
- One button raises the alarm. Not two presses, not a press-and-hold with a timeout, not a menu. Anything more than one press fails the person on the floor.
The shapes, and what each is good for#
| What it is | Good for | |
|---|---|---|
| A phone they already own | A dumbphone or an unused smartphone, registered as an alarm number | Anyone who carries a phone and can press one key. Costs nothing |
| A base unit with a pendant | A mains box in the house, a button worn round the neck | Someone mostly at home. Hands-free speech at several metres is the big advantage |
| A GPS pendant | A worn button with its own SIM | Someone who goes out — to the fields, to the allotment, walking |
| A watch | Worn, often with fall detection | Someone who won’t wear a pendant. Some people won’t, and that decides it |
Fall detection and voice activation come free where a device has them. Fall detection raises the alarm with nobody pressing anything, which covers the case this layer exists for. Voice activation answers a shout from the floor when the pendant is on the bedside table. Nothing in Escudo depends on either, so treat them as a bonus rather than a reason to spend more.
Chosen with the person, never about them#
This is the part that isn’t a technical decision.
No list of the vulnerable, no committee deciding who is frail. A device comes out of an ordinary conversation — usually out of Telegram onboarding, when it’s honest that a phone app isn’t the answer for this person.
And it happens one at a time, for years. This is never a village-wide installation day. Somebody’s sight goes, somebody has a fall and doesn’t want to be alone again, somebody’s hands stop managing a touchscreen. Whatever the village does has to be worth doing for one house on a Tuesday.
Escudo doesn’t sell, choose or recommend hardware. Show somebody what the requirement means in a shop, then leave the choice with them. A device the person picked is a device the person will wear.
What a device costs#
Roughly €99 for a mains base unit with a pendant, less for a plain GPS pendant, more for a watch with fall detection. Plus a prepaid Spanish SIM, around €10 a year.
The family pays. That’s deliberate: it keeps the village out of deciding who deserves one, and it keeps Escudo out of owning a fleet it would have to manage. Nobody is ever excluded for it either — the middle door, registering a phone somebody already owns, costs nothing at all and covers most people.
A word on the cheap kits#
The €99 units sold online are white-labelled: no manufacturer, no model number, and a barcode the reseller reuses across products. They work, and they meet the requirement. But there is no brand to stand behind them, no firmware updates, and the instructions are usually a bad translation.
That’s fine for a family buying one with their eyes open. It isn’t something to put in a proposal or recommend from a website, so this page doesn’t name one.