Home Panic Alarms for the Elderly in Ireland: House Alarm Fobs, Pendants, and What They Cost

In short: a home panic alarm for an elderly loved one is a button that works in the house. In Ireland it takes one of three shapes. If the home already has a monitored burglar alarm, the alarm company can add a panic fob to it, and that is the quickest to arrange. If it does not, a pendant on a base unit does the job, free for many people over 65 through the Seniors Alert Scheme or for a monthly fee privately. And a plain call button with no centre behind it suits a home where someone else is usually in earshot. All three stop at the edge of the garden. Everything below is as each provider published it on 1 November 2026, with the links.

The three shapes of a home panic alarm

People say "panic alarm" and mean three quite different things, and the difference decides who answers and how far it reaches.

1. A panic fob on the house alarm. The home already has a monitored intruder alarm. The company adds a fob, or a panic function to the keypad, and a press goes to the same monitoring centre that watches the house.
2. A pendant or wristband on a base unit. A small box in the house, usually by the phone, and a button worn on the person. A press opens a call through the base unit to a monitoring centre, which speaks to your loved one and rings the family. This is what the free scheme provides, and what the private personal alarm companies sell. Our guide to pendant alarms in Ireland goes through them.
3. A plain button with nobody at the other end. A siren, a receiver in another room, or an alert to a phone app over the home wifi. Cheap, no monthly fee, and only any use if someone is there to hear it.

What they share: they cover the home, usually the garden, and nothing beyond. For the wider picture, the kinds of panic button and where each one falls short, see our plain guide to panic buttons for the elderly in Ireland.

A panic fob on the house alarm

If the house is already monitored, this is the fastest home panic alarm to put in place, because the connection, the centre and the monthly fee are already there.

• PhoneWatch does not sell a standalone pendant. An SOS can be raised from the keypad, or by holding two buttons on its remote control fob, which works up to 150 metres from the panel. The alert goes to PhoneWatch's monitoring centre in Dublin, which rings the contacts on your list. Prices are by quote, and monitoring fees apply.
• Action24 sells a key fob with a panic function and a Panic Response Fob worn on the neck or wrist, both to its monitoring team. Its Medical Emergency Fob mode alerts a family member or carer instead of the team, which is worth knowing if your family would rather take the call. Its plans start from €49, €148 and €498 depending on the package, with a monthly monitoring fee on top; the fob itself is not priced on the site.
• Beacon Security offers the RE:SURE panic fob, which can notify designated contacts or a monitoring team when it is connected to its system. No prices are published.

Three honest limits. The fob covers the house and the range around the panel, not the walk to the shops. The centre that answers is a security centre, trained for break-ins first; it will ring your contacts, but it is not a care line. And a fob on a keyring lives in a pocket or on a hook by the door, not always on the person, so ask for the wearable version if there is one.

Suits: a home that already pays for a monitored alarm, and a loved one who will keep the fob on them.

A pendant on a base unit

For a home with no monitored alarm, or a family who wants a centre that is used to older people, the base-unit-and-pendant route is the standard home panic alarm in Ireland.

Free, for many over 65. The Seniors Alert Scheme, funded by the Department of Rural and Community Development and the Gaeltacht and run by Pobal, covers the base unit and pendant, the installation and the first year of monitoring for people aged 65 or over of limited means who live alone, with another eligible person, or alone for much of the day. After the first year there is a yearly monitoring fee, around €70 with most providers. It is arranged only through a local community group registered with Pobal, and it is not an HSE scheme. The scheme's two contracted suppliers are TASK Ltd for Dublin and Munster and Care Direct 24/7 for the rest of the country. Our Seniors Alert Scheme guide covers how to apply.

Privately, for a monthly fee.

• Radius Connect 24: a base unit with its own SIM, so no landline is needed, with a pendant or wristband, 300 metre range, answered by its 24-hour response centre in Holywood, Co Down. €18.45 a month in the Republic, no set-up fee, no minimum contract. The one home pendant provider that publishes its price.
• TASK Community Care: base units for a landline, a broadband connection or the mobile network, pendant range up to 300 metres in line of sight, answered by a trained operator in its 24-hour centre. Monitoring prices on request.
• Tunstall Emergency Response: the Lifeline home unit and pendant, normally on a landline, or the Lifeline Dual on the mobile network, with a range Tunstall puts at about 50 metres indoors and garden, answered by its 24-hour centre. No prices published.

A home with no landline is not a problem any more: the scheme can fund a mobile-network base unit (with a small yearly SIM charge), and Radius and TASK both sell SIM units. Our guide to personal alarms without a landline goes through it.

Suits: a loved one mostly at home, happy to press a button, where the family wants a staffed centre answering first.

A plain button, with nobody at the other end

The cheapest home panic alarm is a button that rings a receiver in another room, sounds a siren, or sends an alert to a phone app over the home wifi. Beacon sells standalone siren alarms with no ongoing cost, and the shops and online marketplaces are full of caregiver pagers for a few tens of euro.

They work only while someone is in the house to hear them, or while the wifi and the phone are both working, and nobody checks that they are. They suit a home where another adult is usually around, as a way of calling from the bathroom or the garden. On their own, for a loved one who lives alone, they are not a safety net.

Side by side

Published figures as at 1 November 2026.

None of these is a guarantee. Each depends on the button being on the person, on the base unit or panel having power and a connection, and on someone pressing it.

When a home panic alarm is not enough

Every home panic alarm shares two quiet assumptions: that your loved one is at home, and that they press the button. A great many of the moments families worry about fail one or the other. The fall on the way to the car. The walk home from the shops that takes longer than it should. The bad turn in the night when nobody presses anything.

For the first, only a device with its own mobile SIM comes with them: a GPS pendant such as Radius's Home & GO, or a watch. For the second, a device that can sense a heavy fall and raise the alert itself, with the limits we set out plainly in how fall detection actually works. Plenty of families run both: the scheme pendant in the house, and a watch on the wrist. Our honest guide to every kind of personal alarm in Ireland lays the routes side by side.

A short checklist before you buy

• Is the house already monitored? If yes, ask that company for its panic fob and its wearable version. Fastest and cheapest to add.
• Does your loved one qualify for the scheme? Aged 65 or over, limited means, mostly alone. If yes, claim it before paying anyone.
• Where will the button live? On the person, or on a hook by the door. Be honest; a button they do not carry is a button that is not pressed.
• Who should answer? A security centre, a care line, or the family. Action24's medical mode and the 4G watches ring the family; the rest ring a centre first.
• What happens at the garden gate? If your loved one goes out alone, a home alarm is half an answer, and the other half has a SIM in it.

Where Norse fits

We make a 4G watch for the other half: the loved one who is still out and about. It has its own SIM, so the SOS button works at home and out, it rings the family in turn with two-way voice from the wrist, and the family app says, calmly, when they have gone out and when they are home again. We say plainly what it is not: it is not a guarantee, it depends on mobile signal and on being worn and charged, and if your loved one is mostly at home and qualifies for the free scheme, that is the right first step. For everyone else, the watch and the family app are here to look at.

Whatever you choose, it depends on mobile signal and on the device being worn and charged. It is reassurance, not a guarantee.