GoButtons

For families

A way to say “come here” that costs nothing to use

Somebody at home needs to reach you. Calling out is tiring, a phone is fiddly, and a shout from another room is easy to miss. GoButtons puts a few large buttons on a device instead.

If this is the situation, it is the right thing to read

Someone in the house needs you sometimes, and neither of you has a good way to arrange it. They have stopped calling out, because it is tiring, or because they can hear themselves doing it and would rather not. You have started checking on them more often than either of you wants.

The gap is small and specific: there is no low-effort, undramatic way to say come here when you get a minute. A phone call is a whole event. A shout is easy to miss and hard to repeat. A bell says something is happening but not what.

How it works at home

One device sits where it can be reached — a table, a stand beside a chair, a wall mount. It shows a few very large buttons and nothing else. There is no menu, no notification tray, and nothing that can be navigated away from by accident.

  1. They press a button.
  2. They immediately see it was sent, and a large status line tells them what is happening — that it has gone, that somebody has seen it, that somebody is coming.
  3. Every phone connected gets a notification saying which station it came from and what the button said. “Kitchen · I need help”, not a generic alert.
  4. Whoever answers can reply in a sentence, or clear it. The others see who did, so nobody doubles up and nobody assumes.

The reply is the part people underestimate. Being told “on my way, five minutes” is a different experience from pressing something and then waiting in silence, wondering whether it worked.

Setting it up takes one number, said out loud

You make the account, you write the buttons, and GoButtons gives you a 12-digit code. Read it down the phone or write it on a sticky note; type it once on the device that will hold the buttons, and it is connected. The code works once and expires after a week, which is what makes it safe to say aloud.

This matters if you are setting it up from a distance, which many people are. You do not need to be in the room, and the person at the other end does not need to create anything, remember anything, or agree to any terms.

Their words, not clinical ones

A button that says Come and chat is a different object from one that says Assistance required, and the difference shows up in whether it gets used. The buttons are written by you, in the words your family actually uses, and they can change as often as you like.

It is worth naming a station after a room rather than a person — “Kitchen”, not somebody's name. It reads better on a notification, and it means our records hold a place rather than a person. Nothing about the person pressing is stored: no name, no email, no account.

What GoButtons is not

It matters more here than it would for most software, because the thing it looks like from a distance is a thing that people's safety depends on. It is not that, and we would rather lose the sale than be misunderstood about it.

  • It is not an emergency system, a medical alert, or a personal alarm. Nobody is monitoring it and there is no call centre behind it.
  • It does not detect falls, or notice that something is wrong. It sends a message when somebody presses a button, and only then.
  • It cannot guarantee that anyone sees a press. Phones are asleep, silenced, out of signal and left in coats. The status line says whether somebody has answered — it never promises that somebody will.
  • It is not a medical device, and no part of it has been assessed by anyone clinical.
  • It is not a substitute for care, for a carer, or for a monitored alarm service. If somebody needs a guaranteed response, they need one of those and this is not one.

What it is: a fast, dignified way to say something to people who have agreed to listen. If you need a guaranteed response, a monitored alarm or anything a clinician would sign off, you need a different product and probably a service contract.

Questions people ask

Does the person pressing the buttons need an account?
No. There is nothing to sign into, no password, and no email on that side — the buttons are simply there when the screen is on. You connect the device once by typing a 12-digit code, and after that nobody touches settings.
Can more than one of us get the messages?
Yes, and this is the part families tend to find most useful. Everyone connected is notified, and when one of you answers, the others can see who. That stops two people setting off at once and stops everyone assuming somebody else went.
What device does it need?
Any phone or tablet you already have, left plugged in somewhere it will be seen. The buttons are deliberately very large — the person pressing may have low vision or a tremor — so a tablet on a stand works better than a phone in a pocket.
What do the buttons say?
Whatever you write. Most people start with something like “I need help” and “Come and chat”, and change them once they see what is actually being asked for. You change the words from your own phone, not from the device with the buttons on it.
What happens if I stop paying?
The station keeps working and drops back to a single “I need help” button. It does not go dark. Somebody’s way of asking for help should not depend on whether a card expired.

What it costs

$9.99 a month covers one station and one person besides you, after two weeks free with no card. More stations and more people are added individually, so a setup costs what it uses. The pricing page has the sums worked out, and what happens to the money if you stop.

If a payment ever fails, the buttons do not go dark. Every station keeps working and drops back to a single I need help button until it is sorted out. Someone's way of asking for help should not depend on whether a card expired.

Where this is up to

GoButtons is not in the app stores yet, so there is nothing to download from this page. It is being tested on real iOS and Android devices. This page will say so plainly on the day that changes — until then a store badge here would be a false claim.

If you want to know when it does, write to hello@gobuttons.app. It reaches a person, not a mailing list — there is nothing to sign up for here, and nothing to unsubscribe from.