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Let’s face it: it can be tough for the elderly to come to grips with new technology. If the old blocky flip phones of years past weren’t already difficult enough, we’d find it hard that they’d have an easy time with the smartphones of today. That’s why GreatCall wants to team up with Samsung to help bridge the gap.
The company today announced the GreatCall Touch3, a small smartphone derived from the “Galaxy” family, except this isn’t quite like what you’d expect from any Samsung smartphone. The Touch3 provides a simple and intuitive user interface to help technology-crippled folks perform their most important tasks (whether that be making a phone call, sending a text message or taking a photo).
GreatCall’s value isn’t just in an easy user interface — anyone can do that. It’s their selection of medical helper apps that’ll be especially key to pulling the elderly. Here are just a few of the apps and services pre-loaded:
- Users get instant access to GreatCall’s 5Star service and its team of NAED-Certified Response agents. These U.S.-based agents use the phone’s GPS and information provided in the user’s Personal Profile, to confirm the user’s location and effectively evaluate the situation. Agents provide the connection to whichever emergency services are required, from medication questions to emergency dispatch services.
- Users get instant access to Urgent Care which provides 24/7 unlimited access to speak with registered nurses or board certified doctors anytime, anywhere without having to travel to a doctor’s office or make a copayment.
- The MedCoach medication reminder app enables users to easily follow medication schedules as prescribed by their doctors.
Sounds like something I wouldn’t want to be without ongoing health is an unpredictable and major concern. It’s easy on the wallet too — the device itself can be had at $169.99 before a $20 introductory discount.
Plans with unlimited 5Star and Urgent Care access start at $25 per month, while data can be had starting at $2.50 per month for 20MB. Not the largest pool of data in the world to choose from, though we imagine grams won’t be lighting up Instagram and Facebook or going on binge YouTube sessions while away from home. You’ll be able to find the device over at GreatCall’s site at some point later today.
Or we can not be douche grandchildren and just set up their phones to be easily accessible. I know how to theme a smartphone without root. I can set up a phone for my grandfather, so it’ll be easy for him to navigate and do things.
I’m just a lazy mofo. All that work. =.P
This is why I’m going to see Hades. LoL!!
When you coming over?
In curious what theme you use for him that makes things easy for him.
I would just make everything on my own. I’d follow other ideas, but it would be my own. I’d use something like bar size. Somewhat similar to the design of the phone being shown.
Wish I still watched TV. I’m sure there’s a Jitterbug commercial for this somewhere.
My grandmother only gets Verizon reception at her house, and something tells me this won’t be available on Verizon….
ok if i just keep my RAZR MAXX HD?
Or I’ll just buy a used galaxy s3/4 and turn on simple mode..
Its cheaper to just put grandma on the family plan, they should bundle this with a 3g enabled lifealert style pendant system (at&t and a few others offer these already)
It’s great to see more options coming out for seniors. At 39 I can already feel my eyes starting to strain with the ‘normal’ setups most phones come with. I always end up making the icons and text bigger (Nova setting) to help my aging eyes a bit =)
My dad wants a smartphone but I ended up talking him into just keeping the flip phone and I bought him a Tablet to complement it. The bigger screen is much better for his 70 year old eyes.
This reads like you just paraphrased the press release. Good job!