RAZ Care

Having a family member recovering from brain surgery and impacted memory recall, I needed a way to not just keep in touch but for my parent to not feel isolated and forgotten. I purchased the regular AZ Phone and installed/configured the AZ Caregiver on my phone. Setup was easy for me at least and only two contacts are needed on it. My Dad was absolutely thrilled as he had asked for a phone so he could call and now I have one in his hands that he cannot corrupt thru his confusion that he goes thru and starts clicking and playing with things. I have been sharing this product info with the Memory Care facility directors because this is a life changer for millions of families who have loved ones with Dementia or Brain Surgery recovery who are in long term care facilities.

The simplicity of the phone is great, but as others have said, the battery life is AWFUL. The worst part if that there is an emergency button on the screen, which is absolutely ridiculous, as mostly people with dementia aren’t going to remember not to press it and don’t even have the wherewithal do so, even if they needed help. Raz offers an emergency service to intercept the unnecessary calls, which we found quickly that we needed to purchase so firetrucks and ambulances wouldn’t be dispatched every time my father inadvertently presses this (ALL THE TIME). Now, they are raising the price on the service due to overuse and if the user goes over 20 calls a month (my dad can do that in less than a week), they actually dispatch 911 services)!!! How crazy. I have asked if they can have an app update that would enable the emergency button be an optional feature (caregiver can determine if user needs access) and they are hopefully coming up with a solution this month (July of 24). If not, this phone will not work for us. In my opinion, this is such a major design flaw and makes this phone unusable for my dad. I’ll report back. if these two things could be addressed, I could definitely give them four stars—maybe five!

The good Simple. Nice to have pictures. Customer service is quick to respond. Not so good For such a simple phone, battery life is bad. That makes it a problem when you’re relying on the person with the memory problems to keep the phone charged so often. No way to adjust screen brightness. I was hoping to do that to try and save some battery life. No wireless charging option No way to video call. And it’s not clear that that is not a feature. The phone has cameras, and the caregiver app mentions video calls. But not available yet! This is another key fail. Instead of two screens to enter contacts and Allowed, it should be enter everything once. I had to enter the contact names, phone numbers, and pictures twice. One for the contacts, one for the allowable list. You should just have a toggle on Contacts that says, allowable? Yes or no. The phone is only 4G, and only cellular. No Wi-Fi capabilities. If you’re only going to use the cellular network, offer 5G, so that cell reception is better. Or better yet, include an option for Wi-Fi. Allow greater flexibility on phone features for the phone user and caregiver. Perhaps greater flexibility in the beginning (texting, voicemail, apps), then as the mental capacity declines, the options can be adjusted/removed.