What to buy for safety, and what to skip
The short answer
- Buy for a problem you have this month, not one you fear. Most families need a few things here, not all of them.
- Start with a door chime and a lock box. About $25 for both, and they solve the two most common emergencies.
- Pick things that need nothing from the person. Anything they must wear, charge, remember or agree to eventually fails.
- Count the monthly fee. Subscriptions can triple the sticker price.
- Try the free fix first. Removing a throw rug beats a fall pendant; a closed garage beats a GPS tracker. Area Agencies on Aging lend equipment, and Medicare covers some of it.
The whole shelf at a glance
| Item | Solves | Cost | Ongoing fee? | Hands-off? | Buy when |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| If they might wander | |||||
| Door chime | Know the instant an exit opens | $10–25 | No | Yes | First, before anything else |
| GPS tracker (worn) | Find them fast if they get out | $0–130 device + $8–65/mo | Yes | No (worn) | Real wandering risk |
| GPS shoe insole | Track someone who strips off wearables | $229 + $49/mo | Yes | Partly (it's their shoes) | Refuses a watch, wears the same shoes |
| Apple AirTag | Cheap stopgap (not live GPS) | $29 | No | No (not live) | As a backup only |
| If the stove worries you | |||||
| Smoke-alarm shutoff | Cuts stove power at the first smoke | $250 | Optional | Yes | First burned pot |
| Motion stove monitor | Cuts the stove when no one's in the kitchen | $199 (new model) | No | Yes | Lives alone and still cooks |
| If the pills go wrong | |||||
| Locking auto-dispenser | Double doses & skipped doses | Quoted by phone | Yes | Yes | First med mistake |
| Weekly organizer | Mild dose confusion | $12 | No | No (they check it) | Start here |
| If you worry about falls & nights | |||||
| Motion nightlights | Night falls on the bathroom route | $10–20 each | No | Yes | Today |
| Bed-exit pad + pager | Know they're up, without listening all night | $26–80 | No | Yes | Night wandering or fall risk |
| Fall pendant / watch | A fall when no one's in the room | $20–50/mo | Yes | No (worn) | Only if they'll keep it on |
| Radar presence sensor | Falls, with nothing worn and no camera | $60–85/room | No | Yes | Pendants get taken off |
| Recordable voice sensor | The 3am re-settling loop, in your voice | $20–40 | No | Yes | Night waking |
| The car: see the car page | |||||
| OBD car tracker | Live location if they drive off, plus trip history | $90 + $9/mo | Yes | Yes (it's in the car) | Still driving in early stage |
| Security: see Lock boxes | |||||
| Lock boxes | Keys, medicines, firearms, papers | $15–120 | No | Yes | Keys become a fight; guns & papers, day one |
| Clocks, music, phones, dressing, hearing, under $30: see what to buy for everyday life | |||||
Hands-off = nothing for the person to wear, remember, charge or agree to. Prices verified mid-2026.
“They might wander”: knowing, then finding
Door chime buy first
- Pro
- You can cook, shower and sleep instead of standing guard. Settles most early wandering worry alone.
- Con
- Tells you they left, not where.
- Best pick
- Any hardware-store magnetic chime
GPS tracker (worn)
- Pro
- Live location and leave-home alerts. AngelSense adds a tamper-resistant attachment and a speakerphone that answers itself.
- Con
- The priciest subscription here, and anything worn can be refused. Jiobit is smaller and cheaper, but removable.
- Cost
- AngelSense: device free with a 12-month contract, $45–65/mo by plan · Jiobit ≈ $130 + $8–17/mo by plan
- Best pick
- AngelSense for real wandering risk; Jiobit for early-stage backup
GPS shoe insole
- Pro
- People who take off watches still put on their shoes (habit memory). (GPS SmartSole, sold by MetAlert; cheaper billed yearly.)
- Con
- Charging every 1–2 days, and it only works in those shoes.
Apple AirTag
- Pro
- Sews into a coat hem.
- Con
- Not live GPS. It shows "last seen near someone's iPhone," which can be hours old exactly when it matters.
MedicAlert's Safe & Found plan adds a 24/7 wandering response team to the ID bracelet (about $75 a year: 1-800-432-5378). Leaving now? The Trying to leave card.
“The stove worries me”: kitchen & fire
Smoke-alarm stove shutoff best value
- Pro
- Cooking equipment is involved in nearly half of US home fires, and unattended cooking in half of cooking-fire deaths (NFPA). A 10-minute install, and they keep cooking normally. (FireAvert, electric or gas.)
- Con
- It stops the fire, not the forgotten pot. Skip the monitoring plan unless you want the alerts.
Motion-sensing stove monitor
- Pro
- One family credits the original with an extra year of independent living.
- Con
- New model: the radar-based iGuard replaced the iGuardStove. Only the 4-prong electric plug-in is on sale (listed at $549, shipping extra, October 2026); other models are waitlist only.
Cheaper first: knobs off or knob covers on when no one is watching, and a kettle with auto-shutoff (≈ $30).
“The pills are going wrong”: medications
Locking auto dispenser best for dementia
- Pro
- Looks like a weekly pillbox, opens only the current dose, and escalates from flashing to beeping to phoning them to alerting you.
- Con
- A monthly fee, forever. MedMinder no longer posts prices: call 1-888-633-6463 and get the quote in writing.
The $12 version
- Pro
- You fill it each Sunday; keep it where they eat breakfast, with a phone alarm or Alexa reminder.
- Con
- Someone has to check it every day.
“I worry about falls, and about nights”
Motion-sensor nightlights buy first
- Pro
- No switch to find, and shadows stop looking like holes and strangers. The cheapest fall prevention there is.
Bed-exit pad + pager
- Pro
- It chimes your room. A pager beats a phone app at 3am (no unlock, no pile of notifications). Pairs with the sleep tool.
- Con
- Pads wear out; buy one with a replaceable pad.
Fall-detection pendant / watch
- Pro
- Modern ones detect the fall and call for help with no button press.
- Con
- It only works if worn, and people with dementia remove, lose and resent wearables.
Radar presence sensor nothing to wear
- Pro
- A small wall box that senses by radar when someone is down. Nothing to charge, no camera (it sees a shape, not a picture), and it works in the dark. (Aqara FP2 is the known pick.)
- Con
- One room per sensor. Alerts go to a smartphone (a far-away relative's works: a good distance job). It says something happened, not how bad.
- Best pick
- Bathroom and bedside, after nightlights and cleared floors
Recordable motion-sensor alert didn't know it existed
- Pro
- Plays your recorded voice when they get up: "It's still nighttime, love. Come back to bed." A familiar voice redirects where a beep startles, and the machine takes the 3:15, 3:40 and 4:05 shifts.
- Con
- A cue, not a guarantee. Pair it with a door chime, mount it out of their sight-line, and re-record if the message stops landing.
- Best pick
- Any model sold as a "recordable motion sensor alert". The whole night plan: the 3am loop.
Side-sleeping positioners (body-pillow wall, tennis-ball shirt, bumper belt): the sleep page.
Clocks, music, phones, dressing, dining, hearing and sight have their own page: what to buy for everyday life. So do the finds under $30, including the STOP-sign door decal and pill-bottle timer caps.
Skip these: famous, and wrong for dementia
- Brain-training apps (Lumosity, Peak…): the FTC fined Lumosity's maker $2 million for claiming its games stave off memory loss: "they simply did not have the science." Game skill doesn't carry over to life, and timed, scored games demoralize. Failure-free activities: the activities page.
- Hero pill dispenser: its own support pages and terms say it's not for people with dementia (an alert can't confirm they understood it), and it needs a monthly plan ($30–60/mo by commitment). MedMinder above is built for dementia.
- ElliQ companion robot: not intended for dementia (New York's own senior program screens dementia out).
- Apple Watch as their fall alarm: the wearer must answer the "Are you OK?" prompt, keep it charged and keep it on: three things dementia takes. Fine for you.
- PARO the $6,000 robotic seal: a trial found a plush toy nearly as effective. Buy the $160 cat or the $15 plush first.
- Multisensory "Snoezelen" rooms ($10,000+): the Cochrane review found no efficacy evidence; the calm likely comes from one-to-one attention, which is free.
- Memory "cures" by the bottle: supplements and "detox." The more dramatic the promise and the more it requires buying the seller's product, the harder you should walk away. (How to sort the hype from the help → Clinic programs such as ReCODE have their own plain guide, with pros and cons. Worth money instead: blood-pressure control, hearing care, sleep and respite.)
Free help, and paying less
- Call your Area Agency on Aging (Eldercare Locator, 1-800-677-1116). Many lend equipment free and run home-assessment programs.
- Ask the doctor for an occupational-therapy home evaluation (often covered by Medicare). A professional walks your actual home and often knows equipment programs.
- Call the fire department's non-emergency line: most U.S. towns install free smoke alarms.
- Subtract before you add: the room-by-room home-safety walk-through makes most homes much safer before the first purchase.
- Use FSA/HSA dollars. Bidets, bed pads, amplifiers and more often qualify.
- Buy used for one-time devices (day clocks, music players and frames turn up barely used).
- Prefer one-time purchases over subscriptions, and compare any specialist item against the Alzheimer's Store and a general retailer (prices on identical items swing widely).
If a link has died, search the category instead (“bed exit pad pager,” “stove shutoff”).