by Neil Bauman, Ph.D.
Has this ever happened to you?
You “buried” your cell phone somewhere nearby and because of your poor hearing, you did not hear it ringing or see it blinking. And you didn’t feel it vibrating either. Result? Missed phone calls and/or missed text messages.
You depended on your cell phone’s alarm to wake you up for an early flight the next day, but you slept on your “good” ear and as a result you didn’t hear your phone’s alarm vainly trying to wake you up, so you missed your flight.
You wanted to be alerted whenever a phone call or text message came in, but you missed your cell phone’s “rings” because of your poor hearing and all the racket around you. As a result, you missed an important call (and now your boss is mad at you).
You were sleeping and your phone received a severe weather warning that a tornado was bearing down on you—but you were in such a deep sleep that your phone’s alarm failed to arouse you. (If that was the case, you’re unfortunately not reading this article now either.)
You’re concerned about the microwave radiation from your cell phone (see article in this issue). As a result, you want to keep your phone at a “safe” distance from your body. However, you realize you probably won’t hear, see or feel it ringing from that distance. What can you do?
If you relate to any of these (or similar) scenarios, you don’t have to worry anymore. Serene Innovations has done it again. They’ve come out with a cool new product that makes sure you won’t miss any more phone calls (or messages or alarms) while you sleep or are engrossed in something at your desk.
The Serene Innovations RF-200 Cell Phone Ringer/Flasher is one cool device. This new gizmo is a desktop or bed-table signaling device for landline and cell phones (at the same time if you want). It will notify you when you have incoming calls by phone, Skype, FaceTime and text messages.
You may find it so useful that you’ll want one for your bed-table at night (with bed shaker) and one for your desk (or wherever you spend most of your time) during the day.
The RF-200 is just so easy to use. All you do is set your cell phone in vibrate mode and place it in the cradle. The RF-200 does the rest. When the ring alerter “hears” (actually “feels”) a signal, it flashes lights, sounds a loud alerting signal, and if you have the bed shaker plugged in, shakes your bed or chair. This makes it easy to know someone is calling you and is really hard to ignore.
Even if you do miss a call—perhaps you were out of the room—the missed call lights stay on to alert you to that fact when you return. Just press the “reset” button on the top right corner to turn the lights off and its ready for the next call.
I love the fact that the RF-200 works with both landline and cell phones at the same time. You don’t need two different alerting gizmos to do this one job. (To use it with landline phones, simply plug the included 7′ long phone cord into the back of the RF-200 and into any phone wall jack.)
When one of your phones rings, it is easy to tell whether you should answer your landline phone or your cell phone because of the distinctive light and sound patterns.
When your cell phone rings, the two “side” lights and the two top corner lights flash consecutively in a clockwise rotating pattern. When a landline phone call comes in, the top “corner” lights on the RF-200 flash together.
The ringer pattern for cell phone calls is a lower-pitched tone that warbles 3 times, then pauses, then warbles 3 times, etc. The ringer pattern for a landline call is a higher-pitched tone that warbles 5 times, pauses, warbles 5 times, etc.
Another feature of the RF-200 is that it isn’t just for alerting you to phone calls. It can also alert you to text messages if you have a smart phone. How cool is that?
To use the text messaging alert, plug in the short coiled cord between the base unit and the earphone jack on your smart phone. Better yet, if you have an Android or iPhone, you can program them with a special text vibration pattern so you don’t even need the short coiled cord! You just place your phone on the cradle. It’s just that easy.
If you live in an area that has severe weather such as tornados, and you have Wireless Emergency Alerts (WEA) sent directly to your cell phone, the RF-200 will immediately alert you to any warnings in your area. When your cell phone receives an emergency alert, the RF-200 will immediately emit a unique ring and flash pattern. The ring sound is a high-low, high-low emergency vehicle sound that you’ll instantly recognize as an emergency “sound”. At the same time, the lights will flash in a repeated criss-cross pattern. There is no mistaking that this is an emergency alert and not a regular phone call alert!
One cool undocumented feature is that you can use the RF-200 with any cell phone app you have that vibrates your phone such as count down timers, wake-up alarms, etc. This doubles the functionality of the RF-200 at no extra cost. The ring and flasher pattern for such alerts/alarms are identical to those for cell phone calls/messages. After each alert/alarm, you need to hit the RESET button to turn off the lights.
Note: If you miss a cell phone call or text message (do not answer) all 4 flasher lights will stay on until you press the RESET button. This feature does not work with landline phone calls.
The lights and loud alarm will get your attention if you are up, but what happens if you are in a deep sleep? Not to worry. Get the optional bed shaker. With the optional bed shaker plugged in, you’ll not sleep through any more phone calls, messages, alarms, or alerts. Just put the bed shaker under your mattress or under your pillow and you WILL wake up when it begins vibrating.
If you are a “couch potato” you can slip the bed shaker module under a cushion on your sofa or lazy-boy chair—and again, you won’t miss another phone call or alert!
The bed shaker vibrates in two different patterns—for incoming cell phone calls/messages it is a pattern of a long vibration followed by a very short vibration. For incoming landline calls it is a series of long vibrations.
Another neat feature of the RF-200 is that it has a USB recharging port so you can recharge your phone while you work or sleep. Simply plug the recharging cord that came with your phone into the USB port. That way your cell phone will always be fully charged whenever you grab it. No more awaking to a dead cell phone (and missed calls).
The ring alerter is quite loud. It sure gets my attention, even with my severe hearing loss (when it is set on “Hi”). For people with normal or near-normal hearing, there is a “Lo” setting. And if you don’t want to wake up the baby (or disturb your boss), you can set it to “Off”. You will still be alerted by the bright blue flashing lights and (optional) bed shaker.
One more thing. The RF-200 is A/C powered, but gives you uninterrupted operation even if the power fails with its built-in battery backup. Just install 4 AA alkaline batteries (not included) and you’re all set.
If you’re already drooling over this cool gizmo, purchase the RF-200 Cell/Phone Ringer/Flasher for yourself. For daytime use (no bed shaker) it is only $68.50. For night-time use (includes bed shaker) it is $93.45.
I need a wearable patch that will alert me my cell phone is ringing only.