PresenceShipped
Which door, which room
A press says help is needed. The house can also say the front door opened at ten, the kitchen has been quiet since breakfast, or nobody is in.
Guide
Alternatives to a pendant alarm
A pendant alarm and a local smart home hub answer different questions. Here is where a pendant is the right answer, what a hub can add beside it, and where HuZe is honestly not a substitute.
Shipped running on production boxesIn beta on test boxesNext in development
First, honestly
When a pendant alarm is right.
A pendant alarm exists to do one thing well: get a trained response, quickly, when someone presses a button or does not get up. If that is the need, it is the right tool, understood by the person wearing it.
Nothing in a hub changes that. If your parent needs a press answered by an operator, keep the pendant; this page is about what a hub adds beside it.
What a hub adds
Context, and the ordinary day.
SensorsShipped
The small signals
Zigbee door and motion sensors, plus a wearable beacon, show the shape of a day without a camera.
NotificationsShipped
The carers, first
Alerts by Telegram or SMS reach the carers you name before a dashboard or an app is opened, and the attention list lists anything that has gone quiet, is tampered with or has a low battery.
Runs in the houseShipped
Broadband down, home still runs
The box keeps the home's routines running without the internet. Reaching your phone from outside still needs a connection, and the box tells you when it has lost one.
Side by side
Who answers, and what it knows.
A pendant alarm is built to summon help: one press, a response, a process behind it. A local hub is built to run a home and tell a family what it sees: which door, which room, whether the day looks ordinary. One is an emergency route. The other is everyday awareness, with the house's automation attached.
A hub is not a cheaper pendant, and a pendant is not a smarter hub. Buying one expecting the other is how families end up disappointed.
In development
What HuZe is building next.
Routine awarenessNext
Noticing the exception
The box is being built to learn the ordinary day, the kettle and the landing light, so a break in the pattern can be noticed and passed to the family. It is in development and not offered as an emergency service.
The limits
Where HuZe is not a substitute.
HuZe has no call centre, no operator watching a screen and no promised response time. It cannot dispatch help, and in an emergency you should always call 999. Its routine features are in development.
If the requirement is a guaranteed response, the pendant remains the answer. If the requirement is knowing that Mum got up, made tea and opened the back door, a hub does that without a camera and without pretending to be something else.
Next step
Read both sides.
The Care page covers support, backups and power around the box, and the Household Wellbeing page explains the routine engine and its status. For a question about your own situation, write to hello [at] huze-automation [dot] co [dot] uk.
Questions
Choosing between them.
Is a smart home hub a replacement for a pendant alarm?
No. A pendant alarm reaches a trained response; HuZe tells the family what is happening at home. They answer different questions and can be used together.
What can HuZe do that a pendant alarm cannot?
It can say which door opened, which room has been quiet, whether the house is empty, and it keeps the home's routines running when the broadband is down.
Does HuZe have a call centre?
No. Messages go to the people you choose, from your own devices. In an emergency you should always call 999.
Can I keep my pendant alarm and add HuZe?
Yes. The pendant stays the emergency route, and the hub adds context and reassurance day to day.