If you’re buying a medical alert system for yourself or an aging loved one, your first choices might be from brands you recognize. In that area, Life Alert and Medical Guardian are two of the biggest competitors. However, in our years of testing medical alert systems, we’ve learned that it’s always best to look past the company’s reputation and deeper into what they offer.
The top priority is giving you or your loved one the best protection you can get, so we compared Life Alert and Medical Guardian based on that merit. We looked at their equipment, their features, and even how quickly they respond to medical emergencies. On top of that, though, you also want to get good value for money. So, we compared their packages, pricing, and contract terms. In the end, Medical Guardian came away with the victory, but if you want to find out how we came to that conclusion, you’ll have to keep reading.
Key Takeaway:: Medical Guardian is currently our top-pick medical alert system provider for 2025. They have the latest in technology, including the MGMove smartwatch we reviewed recently. Even if you’re looking for a simpler medical alert system, though, Medical Guardian is still our preferred choice. The MGHome Landline is more affordable than its Life Alert counterpart by more than $20 per month, while offering as good — if not better — protection.
Our medical alert system specialist testing the MGMove smartwatch.
Overview of the Life Alert vs. Medical Guardian Comparison
Life Alert and Medical Guardian are long-time industry leaders. You might remember Life Alert from their catchphrase, “Help! I’ve fallen, and I can’t get up!” that is still popular in pop culture to this day. Meanwhile, the younger but more vibrant company, Medical Guardian, is always making headlines for their innovation.
Today, these two companies offer similar life-safety solutions for seniors, from simple, at-home medical alert systems to on-the-go systems. In fact, a quick glance at their websites might make you think they offer the same products. That couldn’t be further from the truth, though.
Our tester holding up the MGHome Cellular base station.
Here are some key points of comparison between Life Alert and Medical Guardian:
- Both companies offer cellular and landline options for at-home medical emergency monitoring, but Medical Guardian’s at-home devices have some of the longest ranges in the medical alert system industry (up to 1,400 feet).
- Both also offer on-the-go systems with GPS. Medical Guardian includes GPS features in all its mobile systems (three options total), while Life Alert offers only one mobile option that has GPS features (HELP on-the-go + GPS).
- Both companies also offer smartphone apps. However, Life Alert’s app hasn’t been updated since 2018, while Medical Guardian’s apps manage to stay on the cutting edge with frequent updates (including new functionalities for caregivers, like location tracking).
- In the technology department, only Medical Guardian offers a medical alert smartwatch between the two, although Life Alert has a well-functioning mobile medical alert system.
- While both tend to have higher prices than most other brands, Medical Guardian made our list of the most affordable medical alert systems thanks to its budget-friendly equipment. LifeAlert doesn’t charge an up-front equipment fee, but they require a much higher monthly fee and a one-time membership/activation fee.
Life Alert vs. Medical Guardian: How They Compare
For this comparison, we’ll look at five key areas to help you determine which of the two is the better option for you or your loved one. These are the main things we considered:
- At-home equipment and pricing
- On-the-go equipment and pricing
- Add-on features
- Emergency response time
- Mobile apps
Let’s get started.
At-Home Equipment and Pricing
At-home systems are pretty simple. You get a base station that connects to either a landline or cellular network, plus a help pendant that triggers the base station to send out an alert when pressed.
Price-wise, here’s how the at-home systems from Life Alert and Medical Guardian compare.
| At-Home Medical Alert System Features | Life Alert | Medical Guardian |
|---|---|---|
| Equipment Price | $0 | $149.95 |
| Monthly Monitoring Fee | Starts at $69.95 | $31.95 (Landline) to $38.95 (Cellular) |
| Optional Fall Detection | No | +$10 Per Month |
| Activation Fee | $197 | No Activation Fees |
FYI: Both Life Alert and Medical Guardian offer at-home medical systems with landline or cellular connectivity. We recommend cellular connectivity, unless you live in a rural area where cellular coverage is sparse.
Life Alert’s $0 equipment fee sounds enticing, but the truth is that the equipment is not really free. You’ll lease it, and the price is charged together with your monthly monitoring fee. That’s why there’s such a huge disparity between Life Alert’s monitoring fee and Medical Guardian’s monthly cost. And, take note, Life Alert also charges a one-time membership fee — $197 in our case. So, all in all, we think Medical Guardian is more affordable.
Another thing to note is that Medical Guardian lets users add a medical alert button with built-in, automatic fall detection for $10 per month. Among older adults in the U.S., 1 in 4 experience accidental falls each year,1 so we believe fall detection is a must-have feature. Unfortunately, Life Alert doesn’t offer fall detection, which is odd given its “Help! I’ve fallen, and I can’t get up” catchphrase.
>> Also See: Our Top-Pick Medical Alert Systems With Fall Detection
Our Medical Guardian at-home and on-the-go systems before unboxing.
Where Life Alert has a leg up on the competition is with its voice pendants. The Micro Voice Pendant (add-on), in particular, is a help button you can wear around your neck. It connects to the at-home base unit, and, during emergencies, you can use the wearable device to speak with the monitoring center. We find this kind of feature useful in certain situations, but, if the wearer falls unconscious, it’s still of no use. That’s why we prefer Medical Guardian’s fall detection.
We’d also like to compliment Medical Guardian for having an impressive range. The cellular-connected MGHome system we tested has a 1,400-foot open-air range. While walls in the house did intervene with the signal, we were able to trigger the system from anywhere in our 2,000-square-foot home. The farthest the signal reached was our neighbor’s front porch. Of course, Life Alert’s 1,000-foot range is nothing to sneeze at. But, overall, Medical Guardian takes the cake.
Winner: Medical Guardian
Expert Take: Because of Medical Guardian’s range, we recommend it to more active seniors who stay mostly at home. It’s also good for users who have epilepsy or other conditions that allow them to stay mobile but make them prone to emergencies.
On-the-Go Equipment and Pricing
On-the-go systems are more varied, but, essentially, you’ll get an emergency button that is either connected via cellular signals or to a mobile base station that can provide cellular connectivity. Both Life Alert and Medical Guardian offer the latter, although Medical Guardian offers a more advanced mobile medical alert system in MGMove — a smartwatch.
| Mobile Medical Alert Systems | Life Alert HELP on-the-go + GPS | Medical Guardian MGMini | Medical Guardian MGMove |
|---|---|---|---|
| Equipment Fee | $0 | $149.95 | $199.95 |
| Monthly Fee | Starts at $89.95 | $39.95 | $42.95 |
| Fall Detection | No | +$10 Per Month | +$10 Per Month |
| GPS Tracking | Yes (Included) | Yes (Included) | Yes (Included) |
| Activation Fee | $197 | $0 | $0 |
When it comes to price, the on-the-go systems from both brands follow the same structure as their at-home counterparts. That means, with Life Alert, there’s no equipment fee, but there is a much higher monthly fee than Medical Guardian and a membership/activation fee.
When it comes to hardware, Life Alert is actually ahead in terms of battery life. It claims that the voice pendant never needs recharging and can last up to 10 years that way. We were unable to confirm this because we’ve only been testing it for over a month, but we have yet to charge the device. Meanwhile, we charge the MGMini every four or five days, and the MGMove smartwatch every night.
Quick Tip: Life Alert also claims that its mobile pendant can use any major cellular network, whereas Medical Guardian relies on AT&T, which has one of the largest coverage areas in the country.2 But, in case you live or frequent outside AT&T’s coverage, Life Alert is worth considering.
We recommend the MGMove to users looking for a stylish (yet safety-focused) mobile medical alert system.
On the other hand, the MGMini is smaller than Life Alert’s mobile pendant, and the MGMove smartwatch is much sleeker. We recommend it to those who don’t want to be seen wearing a medical alert button or simply have a strong fashion sense.
We also found both the MGMini and MGMove more high-tech. They both have fall detection built into them — you just have to activate it for an additional $10 per month. The MGMini, just like Life Alert’s Micro Voice Pendant, supports two-way talk right on the device.
The real winner, in our opinion, is the MGMove smartwatch, because it’s not just a medical alert system. It doubles as a fitness and weather tracker, plus it has optional voice messaging and reminders function (useful for seniors who take medication) if you pay an additional $5 per month. Don’t expect it to be as good a smartwatch as the Apple Watch, but it’s certainly one of the most advanced mobile medical alert systems right now.
>> Read More: The Best Medical Alert Smartwatches of 2025
Winner: Medical Guardian
Expert Take: Life Alert might be the better option for users who tend to be forgetful because of its 10-year battery life. For most older adults, however, we recommend Medical Guardian’s MGMini or MGMove because they offer fall detection and have more advanced features.
Add-On Features
Most medical alert system providers offer additional features for additional cost to those who need them. Unfortunately, Life Alert doesn’t offer many add-ons, but the main add-on they offer for their at-home systems is quite interesting. It’s a wall-mounted help button for places where a fall might occur, like in the shower or the bottom of the stairs. It’s not the only wall-mounted help button we’ve tested, but it’s one of the few that has built-in two-way talk so you can speak with emergency responders during a fall.
FYI: Life Alert’s help button is also water-resistant, so you can keep it in the shower. Just don’t submerge it in the tub. The two-way talk feature won’t work. Learn more about the best waterproof help buttons here.
We had to pay an extra $5 per month for voice messaging and reminders functions, despite these features being built into the MGMove smartwatch.
As for Medical Guardian, there are several add-ons available depending on your system. We saw that fall detection ($10 per month) is available no matter which type of system you have, which is a great thing. On top of that, some systems support:
- Voice-Activated Wall Buttons ($4.99/Mo): Water-resistant wall buttons you can activate by pressing or yelling “help me, help me.”
- Elite 911 ($9.99/Mo): A mobile, cellular-connected voice box with two-way talk you can carry around the house or outside, with one-button activation to reach emergency response.
- Wireless Wall Button ($2.99/Mo): A simple, water-resistant, wall-mounted help button without two-way talk.
- Lockbox ($2.99): A lockbox to go near your front door where you can keep spare keys so responders can enter your house without breaking the door during emergencies.
- OnGuard Alerts ($2.99/Mo): An alerting feature that sends email and text alerts to your circle during emergencies, including information about your whereabouts if you have a mobile system with GPS.
- Messaging and Reminders ($5/Mo): Useful add-ons exclusive to the MGMove smartwatch.
Overall, we think Medical Guardian offers more (in sheer numbers) and more useful add-on features.
Winner: Medical Guardian
Emergency Response
When we tested Life Alert and Medical Guardian, we made sure to run some emergency simulations to see how fast and how well they respond. This is crucial — you’ll want to make sure you or your loved one gets the help needed during emergencies as quickly and efficiently as possible.
With Life Alert, the experience was hit or miss. They responded as quickly as about 30 seconds after pressing the help button, but there were also a couple of times when they responded after almost two minutes. That’s a really long time for emergencies, in our opinion.
Meanwhile, Medical Guardian’s response time was about 20 seconds. Not only was it faster, but it was also more consistent. Out of the 10 times we tested their response, the response time never exceeded 30 seconds.
Winner: Medical Guardian
Mobile Apps
Lastly, let’s talk about their mobile apps.
We like that the Life Alert app is simple. The home page features a large, red emergency button that calls for help when pressed for three seconds. We also like that it’s linked to the user’s account, which means that when the alert comes in, the monitoring center will know the user’s identity, medical history, and other relevant information.
On the downside, though, we find the app clunky, old, and — quite frankly — in desperate need of a revamp. The last time it was updated was in 2018, and there’s still no Android version. We also didn’t see mentions of the app anywhere on Life Alert’s website, so it’s likely that it’s no longer part of their main offerings.
MyGuardian app
We found the Medical Guardian app way more useful during our Medical Guardian testing. To be clear, it doesn’t have a “call for help” function like the Life Alert app. It’s mostly a management app that seniors and their caregivers can use to monitor their medical alert systems. But, it has useful tools such as activity planning and group chats. These, in our opinion, are more needed than a virtual help button.
FYI: If you’re providing care for a loved one, you can use the MyMedicalGuardian app to monitor the battery life of devices such as the MGMove and MGMini. This way, you can remind them to charge their devices when needed.
Winner: Medical Guardian
Recap: Life Alert vs. Medical Guardian
After testing both systems, we can confidently say that Medical Guardian is better overall than Life Alert. It outdid Life Alert in almost every key area. It’s more affordable long term, its at-home systems have wider coverage, all its systems support fall detection, and it has an innovative app for seniors and caregivers alike. We also found Medical Guardian more responsive. Plus, it gives you more options than Life Alert for at-home and on-the-go use.
Life Alert is not by any means a bad medical alert system. But, if you ask us based on our experience with both systems, Medical Guardian is clearly the better choice for most users.
Medical Guardian vs. Life Alert FAQs
- Does Life Alert require a contract?
Unfortunately, yes. Life Alert requires a contract because the equipment is leased, not owned. Most users are required to sign a three-year agreement.
- Does Medical Guardian require a contract?
Most Medical Guardian systems don’t require a contract, but that means you’ll have to pay for the equipment upfront. We think that’s better than leasing if it means you won’t have to tie yourself down to a contract.
- Which has better at-home systems, Life Alert or Medical Guardian?
Overall, we think Medical Guardian offers better at-home systems. For one, the monthly fee is cheaper by more than $20. While there is a one-time equipment fee ($150), you break even after just seven months of use compared to Life Alert’s no-equipment-fee systems. On top of that, Medical Guardian offers more add-on features (including fall detection) and a broader wireless range.
- Which has better mobile systems, Life Alert or Medical Guardian?
We think Medical Guardian offers better mobile systems overall. It offers two options: an all-in-one system with built-in two-way voice and GPS tracking in MGMini, and a medical alert smart watch.
- Does Medical Guardian offer spouse monitoring?
Yes, Medical Guardian offers free spouse monitoring with its at-home systems. Additional pendants are available for a small monthly fee. If you have a second pendant, Medical Guardian will monitor it for free.
