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Volume 16, No. 4 • Fall 2008 |
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The AT Bargain Basement
Marvin Williams
AT Specialist DATI New Castle County ATRC
Hello, True Believers, and welcome to another heart-warming edition of the AT Bargain Basement. I’m Marvin Williams, your host through this world of assistive technology bargains. If you are a regular visitor to the Basement, welcome back! If this is your first time joining us, welcome and what took you so long? In this column, we take a look at a variety of assistive technology bargains that often go unnoticed! Our rules of engagement are as follows: 1) I try to find you all of the assistive technology I can find for $100 or less; 2) I bring you my findings here in this happy little column; 3) I also bring you the bargains your fellow readers bring to me; and 4) everyone has fun! So with that being said, let’s get to the bargains!
Our first bargain is brand new to the inventory of the ATRCs—suction cup bath bars. We have several brands in our inventory—Get-A-Grip, Safe-er- Grip Bathtub Safety Rail, and Quick Suction Grab Bar. Unlike standard bath grab bars, these use strong suction to attach to the wall, bathtub, or whatever surface you put them on. This ease of installation makes them seemingly ideal for use when installation of standard grab bars seems difficult or impossible. However, the manufacturers do say that these are not meant to replace regular grab bars but are a supplement to them. What does this mean? Well, if you have a grab bar, one of these can be used to give you an additional hand-hold while getting into and out of the tub. Now, in my nonscientific testing, I have learned that you can only get the bar to stick if the suction cups on both ends are placed completely on a non-porous smooth surface. So if you have the bar set up over the grout line between two tiles on a tiled wall, it won’t stick. If you can get it on its own tile, it sticks pretty well. If you have a smooth surface onto which you can attach the bar, then this may be a product for you. Some of the bars have indicators that tell you when it’s got a good hold on the wall. The bars vary in size and price. I’ve seen them for as little as $14 to as much as $40. They are available from a number of manufacturers and stores. If you’re not sure if one of these quick attach bars is for you, borrow ours and try it out.
Our next bargain is the Personal Assistance Voice Dialer. I’m sure many of you have seen the “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up” commercials for the personal safety alert systems. Many of those systems charge monthly fees for the monitoring system. The Personal Assistance Voice Dialer gets rid of those monthly charges, so all you have to pay is the cost of the system and that’s it. No recurring charges. Here’s how it works. You program the base unit with up to four telephone numbers. When you press the alert button on the pendant, the base unit dials the first number. When someone answers the phone, your emergency message plays for the listener. Once that person has heard the message, the base unit hangs up and calls the second number, repeating the process. I know what you’re thinking: “Marvin, what if no one answers?” Well, the base unit hangs up after a while if no one answers. “But what if it gets an answering machine or voice mail?” you ask. Well, when the message plays, it asks listeners to press the pound (#) button to confirm that they have heard the message. The message will repeat a total of three times if that pound button is not pressed before hanging up and dialing the next number. The system also uses the existing wiring in the house to act as the antenna for the base unit, so it is difficult to get out of range of it. The unit also has a loud alarm that goes off inside of the house. So anyone within the house or passing by can hear that there is an emergency. While some monitoring services charge as much as $30 a month for alert systems, this unit costs only $49.95 (not including shipping)! You only have to pay that once to get one base unit and one remote pendant (the little help button you push when you’re in trouble). In the event that you lose electrical power in your home, there is a small back-up battery, which will allow the unit to make calls as long as your phone line is working. The Personal Assistance Voice Dialer is available for sale from X10.com. Don’t like to order on the Internet? No problem, you can call them, 1-800-675-3044. DATI has an older version of this system and a newer version from a different manufacturer available for loan from our ATRCs, so feel free to try it before you buy it.
Our next bargain is the Ameriphone Super Phone Ringer. Having trouble hearing the telephone ring because of a hearing loss? Well, this little marvel may be for you. It has an adjustable ringer volume so it can ring up to five times louder than a regular telephone. It also has a tone adjustment so you can change the ring to be higher or lower in pitch since sometimes that can help with hearing the ring. It costs $36.70 (shipping not included). The unit does not require batteries or any external power source besides the telephone line. For the cost, this is one great bargain. Now, it may not help someone with a hearing impairment outside the house when the phone rings, but it is very likely to help her hear the phone ring inside of the house. The unit can be purchased from Hear More either online, www.hearmore.com, or through a telephone order at 1- 800-881-4327. These are also available to try-out through your local ATRC.
The last bargain for this edition of the AT Bargain Basement is going on the top of my Christmas list! It is the Luggage Retriever from Independent Living Aids. This is a nice system where you press a button on the transmitter you keep with you and it causes a receiving unit in your suitcase, purse, backpack, or other personal item to chirp. Then all you have to do is listen for the chirps, and you can tell if what you’re looking for is close or far. This is nice for anyone who routinely loses something. It’s also useful for people with vision loss trying to locate something in an unfamiliar environment or for people who have short-term memory problems. The set is $24.95, and for $19.95 you can get an additional receiver unit to attach to a second item that gets lost. You will need to check to see if there is a maximum number of receivers that can be activated by the transmitter, and I don’t know if all the receivers will chirp simultaneously when you push the transmitter button. In other words, you may want to do a bit of homework before purchasing additional receivers. You can order from Independent Living Aids either online, www.independentliving.com, or by calling them at 1-800- 537-2118.
And that brings to a close another installment of the AT Bargain Basement. I’d like to thank you for reading and invite you back for our next bargain party! Of course, if you see a bargain that you’d like to tell everyone about, call, write, or e-mail me, and I’ll happily share it with the group, with due credit given for your find. So until next time, remember: just because something is a bargain, doesn’t mean that it’s cheap!
