One daily check-in. If you don't tap "I'm safe," the people you choose are alerted by email, SMS, and voice call — even if your phone is dead. No location tracking, no dispatcher, no monthly surveillance.
Beacon Safe is a safety check-in app for people who live alone. You confirm you're okay with one daily tap. If you miss it, your chosen contacts are alerted by email, SMS, and voice call. The deadline runs on our servers, so alerts still fire even if your phone is dead, lost, or off — and the app never tracks your location. If you used Kitestring before it shut down, Beacon Safe is the modern replacement.
Why This Is the Core Use Case
If you have a roommate, a partner, or family in the house, someone is likely to notice if a normal day suddenly stops being normal. Living alone removes that built-in safety net. A fall, a medical event, or just a phone that dies overnight can go unnoticed for hours or days — not because nobody cares, but because nobody has any way to know. Beacon Safe puts that signal back: silence becomes the trigger.
You don't have to call anyone, press an SOS button, or reach your phone in a crisis. If you simply can't check in, that absence is what alerts your contacts. The tool works precisely when you can't act for yourself.
Living alone shouldn't mean trading privacy for safety. Beacon Safe never requests location permissions and stores no GPS data. It knows one thing: whether you tapped the button on time.
Email, SMS, and voice call — sent to your contacts one at a time in priority order. If your first person sleeps through a text, the next one gets a phone call that cuts through Do Not Disturb.
Pick a check-in rhythm that fits your day — every 12, 24, 48, or 72 hours. Tap once when it's due. Most days nothing happens, because nothing needs to. That's the point.
How It Works
Choose a time and interval that fits your routine — morning coffee, after work, before bed. Default is once every 24 hours; stretch to 48 or 72 if you'd rather check in less often.
Up to 3 contacts on the free tier, 10 on Plus. They opt in before any SMS or voice calls reach them, and you set the exact order they're notified in.
That's the whole job. Miss the deadline and a 2-hour grace period passes first; then alerts escalate through your contacts, one at a time, until someone responds.
A detailed alert with your last check-in time and the missed deadline. Available to every contact, even on the free tier.
"Alex hasn't checked in. Last seen: 9:00 PM yesterday. Missed deadline: 9:00 PM today."A text lands on your contact's lock screen the moment the grace period ends. Most people read a text within minutes.
"Beacon Safe: Alex hasn't checked in. Reply 1 to confirm safe, 2 if you're checking on them."If the SMS goes unread, an automated voice call rings about 5 minutes later. Calls cut through silenced phones and Do Not Disturb.
"This is Beacon Safe. Alex hasn't checked in. Press 1 to confirm they're safe, press 2 if you're checking on them."You get a push reminder before your deadline so you don't forget. This goes to you, not your contacts — one tap and you're checked in.
"Time to check in — tap to confirm you're safe."The Part That Actually Matters
Most "safety" features are useless in the scenario you're actually afraid of, because they depend on your phone being awake and reachable. If your phone is dead, off, lost, broken, or out of signal, an app running locally has no way to raise the alarm.
Beacon Safe is built the opposite way. Your check-in deadline is tracked server-side. When the deadline passes without a check-in, our servers notice and start alerting your contacts — whether or not your phone is on, charged, or even in your hand. For someone who lives alone, that's the entire value: the alert fires precisely in the situation where you can't.
This is also why Beacon Safe works as a true dead-man's-switch: you never have to do anything to trigger help. Not doing something is the trigger.
Privacy
A safety app for people who live alone shouldn't come at the cost of being watched. Beacon Safe is deliberately the opposite of a location tracker.
The app never asks for location access, because it never needs it. There is no GPS pin, no map, no movement history, and nothing to leak or subpoena. Your whereabouts are simply not part of the product.
When an alert goes out, your contacts see your last check-in time and the missed deadline. That's it. They decide how to follow up — call you, come over, reach other people — using what they already know about you.
You add each person by name and number, set their order, and remove them whenever you like. Contacts opt in to SMS and voice before anything reaches them. No third party, no dispatcher, no call center.
Beacon Safe collects what it needs to send alerts and nothing more. Read the full security and privacy details →
Pricing
Beacon Safe's full multi-channel plan — email, SMS, and voice, with no location tracking — is $19.99 a month, and there's a genuinely usable free tier underneath it.
Prices for other services are approximate and may change. See the full Beacon Safe pricing or the head-to-head Beacon Safe vs Life360 comparison.
FAQ
If you miss your check-in deadline, a 2-hour grace period passes first, so a slow morning won't trigger anything. After that, Beacon Safe alerts the contacts you chose, one at a time in the order you set. On the free tier that's an email. On the $19.99/month Plus tier it escalates: email and SMS first, then an automated voice call about 5 minutes later if no one has responded, and further escalation after that. The moment you open the app and tap Check In, contacts get an automatic all-clear.
Yes — this is the most important thing about Beacon Safe for people who live alone. The check-in deadline runs on our servers, not on your phone. If your phone is dead, off, lost, broken, or out of signal when your deadline passes, the server still notices and still alerts your contacts. A safety tool that only works while your phone is powered on can't help you in the exact situation you're worried about.
Yes. Beacon Safe is built for exactly this. You set a recurring check-in (every 12, 24, 48, or 72 hours), tap once to confirm you're safe, and if you ever miss it, the people you chose are notified automatically by email, SMS, and voice call. You don't have to remember to call anyone or press an SOS button in a crisis. Silence is the signal: if you can't check in, your contacts find out without you doing anything.
No. Beacon Safe does not collect, store, or share your location and does not request location permissions. Your check-in is a single tap that confirms you're safe — no GPS pin, no map, no movement history. When an alert fires, your contacts learn only that you missed your check-in and the relevant times. They never see where you are.
Beacon Safe has a free tier that sends email alerts to up to 3 contacts when you miss a check-in. The Plus tier is $19.99/month (or $199.99/year) and adds SMS and voice-call alerts plus up to 10 contacts. Unlike many alternatives, Beacon Safe keeps a genuinely usable free tier, reaches contacts across email, SMS, and voice, and never tracks your location.
You choose every contact yourself, by name and phone number, and you set the order they're notified in. You can add or remove anyone at any time. Contacts must opt in before they receive any SMS or voice calls, so nobody gets surprise-added. There's no dispatcher, no call center, and no third party in the loop — just the people you trust.
Beacon Safe is not an emergency service and does not contact 911 or any emergency dispatcher. In any life-threatening emergency, call 911 directly. Beacon Safe alerts the personal contacts you choose as a supplemental check-in tool. Alert delivery depends on network availability and cannot be guaranteed.
Beacon Safe is live on iOS and Android.