As a woman who has lived in both urban and rural areas, I'm always very aware of my personal safety. However, I can still appreciate the usefulness of having a physical panic button on your person in the event of an emergency.
The Silent Beacon is one such device that I recently got the chance to try out for myself. And let me tell you, a physical panic button would have certainly come in handy in a number of situations I've found myself in over the years.
From going out to a concert by myself to the one time a car very slowly followed my sister, my children and I up a dirt road when had no reception at all, the Silent Beacon would have been worth having by my side.
Alongside these use cases from my own past, I thought of dozens of others. Maybe you're an outdoor enthusiast that travels to remote areas, a night shift worker, someone with a high risk profession or even someone that has dealt with stalking or domestic abuse in the past. There are so many interesting uses for a device like this that can make someone feel safer just by having it nearby.
I’ve been wearing the Silent Beacon for the past 48 hours and here are my first impressions on what it's been like to set up, use, wear and work with.
Not your typical wearable
The Silent Beacon is a small, lightweight device that somewhat resembles the size and shape of one of the best smartwatches.
The front has holes like a speaker and a tiny light, and each side has a small rubbery-feeling button. The Silent Beacon can be worn like a watch or clipped onto an article of clothing or a backpack using the included accessory clip.
There's a water-resistant speaker and microphone inside for two-way communication and the best part, it lasts up to 40 days on a single charge. The Silent Beacon also pairs with your phone via an app. which can be used with or without the device. to connect to your emergency contacts.
As a physical panic button, the Silent Beacon acts as your own personal, portable emergency alert device. For instance, it can send out your GPS location to your contacts, call 911 for you, or place an emergency call to a number of your choice.
There are also different alert modes like Check-in which lets your emergency contact receive notifications with your GPS locations, Footsteps which sends real-time GPS tracking to your emergency contact person, or Emergency Alerts which will send your contact alerts and can even send out one if your phone is low on battery.
From wrist, to waist
In practice, wearing the Silent Beacon on my wrist – even alongside one of the best Fitbits – was entirely unobtrusive. I barely noticed it at all, until it had been several hours and then the double wrist bands began to rub on my wrist a bit.
That's definitely long enough to last through a concert, a long hike or an evening out and if I was wearing the Silent Beacon regularly, I would probably wear it on the other wrist or switch how I wore it so that this wouldn't become an issue.
The Silent Beacon accessory clip was impressively secure. I snapped it in place and then clipped in onto my hoodie pocket and wore it around for an afternoon. It didn't fall out, even when I vigorously shook it attempting to get it to dislodge.
Getting the Silent Beacon set up was, likewise, fairly easy. I let it charge, downloaded the app and registered my phone number.
From there, I created a passcode, added my location, Bluetooth devices and imported some key contacts. Then I got to select which features I wanted to alert my contacts about.
On my current plan I'm only permitted a single emergency contact. However, if you upgrade to a premium subscription, you're allowed up to eight emergency contacts.
I liked the Community feature in the app which lets you report and search or filter for local emergencies or events.
As someone who has been evacuated from forest fires, that's a great feature to have but I'm curious to know if that data is only coming from other Silent Beacon users or if it also includes information from local emergency services.
When it came time to trying out the alert function, I wasn't quite sure where to press and for how long which was a bit awkward.
I was able to activate the alert but it didn't get sent to my contact's phone even though I was standing right next to them. They didn't get a notification, or have their mobile game interrupted at all.
I then realized I hadn't toggled on Emergency Calling. After doing so, the Silent Beacon called them right from the device which was very neat. However, there was no indication that this was anything other than a regular phone call which could be easy to ignore or worse, sent right to voicemail.
I'm definitely going to play around with all of the Silent Beacon's features a bit more so that I can master the ins and outs of this personal panic button.
Why I'm still carrying it
So far, there's a lot I really like about the Silent Beacon. It's small and unobtrusive enough to tuck into a pocket or purse or clip onto a variety of different things. The device itself is also lightweight enough that you don't notice you're wearing it and the battery life is great.
I like how the smartphone app can be used without the device and there are some really useful features within it that can easily be toggled on or off.
Some of these features like having multiple emergency contacts are only available to subscribers which is a bit of a drawback. However, at least there are four paid plans available that start at $3 a month.
I'm looking forward to continuing to test the various features of the Silent Beacon, particularly in areas with poor cell service. There are not a lot of other devices out there that can do what this device does. Though there are similar panic buttons, none of them offer this kind of functionality.
Even if it takes a few trial runs to get the hang of the Silent Beacon, I still feel safer and smarter knowing that I have this tiny device with me and that help is just the push of a button away.
