Fall detection devices in Australia: every type, compared honestly.

The five types of fall detection device

Everything sold in Australia fits into five categories. Search for falls detection, fall alarms or fall detection devices in Melbourne or Sydney and the same national options come up, so choose on fit, not postcode. Here is each one with the trade-offs stated plainly.

1. Pendants and personal alarms with fall detection

The classic fall alarm for the elderly: a button worn on a lanyard or wrist, with newer models able to detect a hard fall and call for help without a press. Many are linked to a 24/7 monitoring centre, others ring family directly.

What they do well: proven, simple and familiar. The wearer can call for help for any reason, not just a fall, and monitored versions mean a trained person always answers.

The honest catch: a pendant only protects while it is worn and charged. They come off in the shower, which is exactly where help is often needed. They sit on the bedside table overnight. Some come off because they feel like a badge of frailty, and never go back on. And most monitored services are subscription-based, so the fee runs for as long as the protection does.

2. Smartwatches with fall detection

Several mainstream smartwatches can now detect a hard fall and call an emergency contact if the wearer does not respond.

What they do well: a watch is not a medical accessory, so there is less stigma in wearing one. One device covers calls, messages and fall detection, at home and out of the house.

The honest catch: they need charging every day or two, and a flat watch is no watch. They assume a comfort with small touchscreens that not every older person has. And false alarms from a hard sit or a dropped arm are common enough that some wearers turn the feature off, which quietly removes the protection everyone thinks is there.

3. Smartphone apps

Apps that use the phone's own sensors to detect a fall, or that raise an alert when a regular check-in is missed.

What they do well: cheap or free, quick to try, and a reasonable extra layer for someone who genuinely carries their phone everywhere.

The honest catch: the phone has to be on the person at the moment they fall. Most older people do not carry a phone from room to room at home, and a phone on the kitchen bench cannot detect a fall in the bathroom. As the main safety net, this is the weakest option on the list.

4. Camera-based systems

Indoor cameras with software that recognises a fall in the frame.

What they do well: they can confirm visually what actually happened, which cuts down false alarms and helps whoever responds.

The honest catch: acceptance. Falls happen most where privacy matters most, the bathroom and the bedroom, and most families rightly refuse cameras in those rooms. Many older people refuse them anywhere in the house. A camera that gets unplugged, or was never agreed to in the first place, protects nobody. If you do consider one, get straight answers on who can view the footage, where it is stored and for how long.

5. Passive in-home sensors (non-wearable monitoring)

Fixed sensors mounted in the home, often radar-based, that read movement and the signature of a fall. No camera, nothing worn, nothing to charge or remember. Because they are always on, they cover the shower and the middle of the night, the exact moments wearable devices tend to be off. For someone with memory loss who will never wear or press anything, this is often the only category that works at all.

The honest catch, because this category has one too: each sensor covers a defined area, so covering a whole home takes several sensors, not one. It needs proper placement and set-up rather than something you wear out of the box. And it monitors the home, not the person, so it does nothing on the walk to the shops. A pendant or watch travels; a home sensor does not. Some are sold as subscriptions. Others, including the system we install, are owned outright.

This is the category we work in. The deep dive on how radar monitoring works and what funding may apply is in our full fall monitoring guide.

What none of these devices will do

A few honest limits that apply to every category on this page.

None of them are medical devices. They do not diagnose, treat or prevent anything. No device prevents the fall itself; the job is to shrink the time between the fall and help arriving, because the long wait on the floor is where much of the harm is done. No system detects every fall, whatever the marketing implies, and anyone promising otherwise is overselling.

And none of them replaces people. The device is the safety net, not the relationship. Keep the phone calls and the visits.