Earlier this year, Swann announced its ActiveResponse Personal Safety Alarm and having now arrived in Australia, we’ve taken a quick look. Swann is a name synonymous with security and safety, having established itself as a household name in video and audio surveillance for the home and office, so the development of a personal safety alarm really comes as no surprise.
Pitched at a range of potential users from school kids to shift workers, runners to solo travelers, the ActiveResponse Personal Safety Alarm offers two key features:
- A silent alarm, which you can trigger by unlocking the safety pin and pushing the button, and
- An audible alarm, which you trigger by pulling the main barrel of the device down hard.
Both activation methods will send an alert message within a few seconds to a nominated emergency contact which advises them that an emergency alert has been triggered, a Google Maps link to the location it was triggered at, and advice on how much phone battery is remaining.
There’s a couple of gotcha’s though which we’ve found in our testing, which users might need to be aware of in using or relying on an alarm like this.
First up, the actual mechanism is fairly simple – this is little more than a battery powered Bluetooth trigger to the Swann app on your chosen mobile phone. This means that in order for it to work, you need:
- The device has to have a charged battery. That’s not a problem, because the battery should last for ages.
- It has to be within Bluetooth distance of your phone. Not often a problem if you’re out and about, but if your phone happens to be elsewhere, or off, it won’t do anything.
- Your phone needs a data connection – without one, there will be no emergency alert message, because your phone can’t send it. This isn’t likely to be a huge issue unless you’re in an area with no cell reception – e.g. if you’re hiking – so for safety there you might need to consider other options.
- Your phone needs to be able to ascertain where it is – otherwise the location sent might be wrong entirely, or not entirely close to where you are.
Besides these points, most of which are fairly obvious, the ActiveResponse alarm does exactly what it says on the box. It supports a free SMS to an emergency contact – which comes from Swann’s cloud, rather than from your phone, so an active data connection is a must. It claims to offer a 120dB siren, though I’m not quite sure it’s that loud … but it will certainly get some attention if it goes off.
It’s small enough to carry in your pocket, attached to your keys, a loop on a bag or anywhere really. You can leave your phone securely in your pocket and silently activate the alarm without having to overtly do anything, which could be quite handy when you need to get a message out but don’t want to be seen to be doing so.
It’s worth noting though that the emergency alert message isn’t especially detailed (and nor can it be, it’s either activated or its not), so a message alone to a contact might not be enough. To address this, you need to have a bit of a plan in mind with your emergency contact – for example, on receiving an emergency alert, perhaps you might have your contact try to call you, and if they cannot get a response, call emergency services and give them your last known location. You may also agree on a protocol, e.g. the alert will only be used in the case of physical injury where the owner can’t otherwise call for help, or in the case of duress where they can’t otherwise reach for their phone.
However you use the ActiveResponse alarm is largely up to you, but as a simple means of discretely triggering a message to an emergency contact, it does the job. Yes, you can potentially do this with your Android device anyway – on Pixel phones, for example, five quick presses of the power button activates an emergency mode which you can easily trigger in your pocket without pulling your phone out.
For $39.95, though, Swann’s ActiveResponse gives you another way to trigger a call for help, and potentially it’s a lot more discrete than reaching for your phone which might be really handy in a duress situation. With a built in ear-piecing alarm, though, when you need a non-discrete option, the ActiveResponse can also make a bit of a racket.
The ActiveResponse Personal Safety Alarm from Swann is available on the Swann website and select retailers including Bunnings Warehouse, Harvey Norman, JB Hi-Fi and more, retailing for RRP AU$39.95.
