Compared with wired nurse-call systems
An installed system answers to somebody. This does not.
If you are being quoted for nurse call in a small setting, the useful question is not which is cheaper. It is whether your requirement is practical or regulatory — because that decides it before any feature does.
These are not two versions of the same thing
A nurse-call system is fitted equipment. It is specified against standards, commissioned, inspected, maintained under contract, and it keeps working when the internet does not. In many settings it is a condition of registration and an inspector will ask about it by name. GoButtons is an app running on ordinary phones and tablets over your normal internet connection. Nothing about it is certified, nobody inspects it, no standard applies to it, and it is not a nurse-call system by any definition that a regulator, an insurer or an architect would accept.
Work out which question you are answering first
Small settings get quoted for nurse call and reasonably ask whether an app would do instead. The answer splits cleanly, and not on features:
- If somebody external expects a nurse-call system — a regulator, an inspector, an insurer, a commissioner — then you need one, and nothing on this page changes that. Do not spend a month evaluating apps to arrive back at the quote.
- If the requirement is practical — people in rooms who need to reach staff, and nobody outside the building has an opinion about how — then an installed system is one option among several, and it is worth asking what the wiring is buying you.
Settings in the second group are the ones GoButtons is built for: workshops, day services, supported living where the requirement is coordination rather than compliance, and small teams who want to stop shouting down a corridor.
Used alongside, in the rooms the system never reached
An installed system covers the rooms it was wired for, and every building has places it was not: a workshop at the back, a garden room, a converted space, an office where somebody sits alone two days a week. Extending the wiring there is a quote; putting a tablet there is not.
That is a real use and it is worth naming, but it comes with the same warning as everything else here — the covered rooms are covered by something certified, and these ones are not. Do not let a tablet in a back room quietly become the reason a proper call point was never fitted.
When to buy a nurse-call system instead
This is meant plainly rather than as a rhetorical move. If any of these describe you, stop reading and go and look at a nurse-call system — we would rather you did that than bought this and discovered the gap at the worst possible moment.
- Your regulator, inspector, insurer or commissioning body expects a nurse-call system. This will not satisfy them and it is not worth the conversation.
- The setting provides personal or nursing care and calls need to be logged, timed and auditable as evidence.
- It has to work during an internet outage, a power cut, or a Wi-Fi failure. An installed system is wired and backed up; this is neither.
- You need pull cords in bathrooms, over-bed units, door lights, or anything else physically fitted to the building.
- Calls must escalate on their own when nobody answers within a set time. GoButtons never escalates.
Side by side
Where the honest answer is “a nurse-call system”, the row says so. A comparison in which one side wins everything is an advertisement, and this page would rather be useful.
| Nurse call | GoButtons | Verdict | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Standards and inspection | Specified, commissioned and inspected against recognised standards. | None of that applies, and none of it has been done. | Better: Nurse call |
| When the internet is down | Wired, with its own power. Independent of your broadband. | Stops working. It is an app on a network connection. | Better: Nurse call |
| Escalation | Unanswered calls escalate on a timer, to a second recipient or an alarm. | Never escalates. A press that nobody answers just sits there. | Better: Nurse call |
| Fitted call points | Pull cords, bed units, corridor lights — physically part of the building. | A tablet on a surface. Nothing is fitted to anything. | Better: Nurse call |
| Auditable records | Response times logged for inspection, by design. | Presses and answers are stored, but nothing here is built or warranted as evidence. | Better: Nurse call |
| Cost to start | Installation, hardware and a contract. Usually thousands. | A monthly fee on devices you already own. Nothing to fit. | Better: GoButtons |
| Changing what a call says | Call points mean what they were wired to mean. Changes are an engineer. | Any connected person rewrites the buttons from their phone, in seconds. | Better: GoButtons |
| Moving or reorganising | The system belongs to the building. Moving it is a project. | Pick the tablet up and put it somewhere else. | Better: GoButtons |
| Who is dealing with a call | Varies widely; many systems show only that a call is active. | Everyone connected sees who answered, as it happens. | Better: GoButtons |
What GoButtons costs
$9.99 a month covers one station and one person besides you, after two weeks free with no card. The pricing page has the sums worked out for a few ordinary setups.
There is no hardware to buy, no installation, and nothing to fit to a wall — it runs on phones and tablets you already own. That is a genuine difference in what the money buys, and it cuts both ways: nothing has been installed, so nothing has been checked.
If GoButtons is the right shape, which situation is yours?
- families — Someone at home who needs to reach you without shouting, phoning, or learning an app.
- schools and classrooms — A pupil who cannot reliably get an adult’s attention across a room.
- workshops and day services — People at benches or stations who need a supervisor, across noise and distance.
- front desks and counters — Someone on a desk who needs a colleague from the back, without leaving it.