Everything you need to know about ResidentCheckin.co
Minutes. Start a free trial, add up to 5 residents, and your first check-in calls go out the next morning. There's nothing to install and no onboarding call required — you set everything up yourself through the dashboard. When you're ready to subscribe, your account is already configured. Just add more residents and you're live.
During signup you enter your facility name, your email, and a password. Then you add residents — just a name, phone number, and optional room number for each. The system handles everything else: phone verification, welcome calls, and scheduling. You can add residents one at a time or in bulk.
No long-term contracts required. We have a 90 day cancellation clause. You can cancel at any time with 90 days notice.
Our system works with ANY phone type — landlines, basic cell phones, flip phones, smartphones. No smartphone or internet required. Residents just need to be able to answer calls and press "1" on their keypad.
ResidentCheckin supports English, Spanish, French, Cantonese, and Mandarin. The language is set per resident, so one facility can have some residents checking in in English and others in Spanish, French, or Chinese — each person hears calls, receives texts, and gets fun facts in their own language.
Staff set each resident's preferred language during enrollment. All automated communications — voice calls, SMS messages, and daily fun facts — are delivered in that language. Alexa check-in is available in English, Spanish, and French.
Sensor-only systems and voice assistants can work well, but they require equipment in every room, reliable WiFi throughout the building, and ongoing hardware maintenance. For many independent living communities — especially older buildings without building-wide WiFi, or facilities where residents prefer landlines — that means a costly retrofit before you can even start.
ResidentCheckin uses the phone your residents already have. There's nothing to install, no WiFi dependency, no devices to maintain, and no resident training beyond "answer the phone and press 1." It's the fastest way to add daily wellness check-ins without changing anything about your building.
And if you already have motion sensors, ResidentCheckin can use them too — as an optional passive layer (Zigbee, including K4Connect) that confirms wellbeing quietly and only calls when there's no activity. Sensors are never required; they simply augment the check-in when you have them.
It depends on the resident's contact preferences. If they have both phone and SMS, the system tries their preferred channel first — up to 3 attempts, 10 minutes apart. If there's still no response, it switches to the other channel and tries again. A resident who doesn't respond may receive up to 3 voicemails and 3 text messages over the course of an hour — the system is persistent because a missed check-in matters. If they still haven't responded after all attempts, your staff are notified. Retry intervals are configurable.
Yes! Residents can check in early by:
Yes! Any resident with an Amazon Echo, Echo Dot, or Alexa-enabled device can check in with their voice. Here's how it works:
One-time setup (takes 2 minutes):
Daily check-in (takes 5 seconds):
Each day, the resident simply says "Alexa, open daily check" and they're checked in. The facility dashboard updates instantly.
Works with any Alexa wake word — "Alexa", "Echo", "Computer", or "Ziggy". Alexa check-in is available in English, Spanish, and French.
No. Our automated phone calls work with any phone — landlines, flip phones, and smartphones. Text message check-ins work with any phone that can send texts. For residents with an Amazon Echo or smart speaker, Alexa voice check-in is also available. No smartphone, app download, or internet connection is required for phone and text check-ins.
The check-in number is (830) 992-4325 — easy to remember as 830-99-CHECK.
Residents can both call and text this number to check in early, before the automated call goes out. When calling in, the system recognizes them by caller ID — no buttons to press. When texting, they just reply "OK" or "Yes".
Important: Save the number as a contact
We recommend residents (or staff helping them) save (830) 992-4325 as "Daily Check-In" in their phone contacts. This prevents mobile carriers from filtering our calls and texts as spam.
Staff can manually check in residents directly from the dashboard when they see them in person. This immediately stops any automated calls and updates the system.
Our vacation management system makes it easy:
Every SMS check-in reply includes a fun fact from a pool of nearly 5,000 unique facts covering animals, nature, history, food, geography, science, music, sports, and more. Each resident gets a different fact each day, and the cycle doesn't repeat for over 13 years. Fun facts are delivered in the resident's preferred language (English, Spanish, French, Cantonese, or Mandarin).
Facilities can enable or disable fun facts from the settings page, and individual residents can text FACTS or NOFACTS to control their own preference.
The system understands over 70 natural responses. Single words like OK, Yes, Sure, Fine, Here, Alive, Good, and Si all work. Phrases like "I'm ok," "I'm good," "check me in," and "doing fine" also count. Even emoji replies like a thumbs-up or checkmark are recognized.
The system also detects negation — if a resident replies "I'm NOT ok" or "I need help," it does not count as a check-in and instead alerts your staff immediately.
The system uses a two-step call flow with advanced machine detection. If voicemail is detected, it leaves a brief friendly message without the "press 1" prompt — so the resident's voicemail never has a confusing recording. The system then retries on the next cycle.
Yes. The dashboard has "Test Call" and "Test SMS" buttons for each resident's contact method. You can verify their phone works correctly before any automated check-ins begin. The system shows a real-time event timeline for each test so you can see exactly what happened.
The system analyzes every SMS reply that isn't a standard check-in. If a resident texts something urgent — like "I fell," "I need help," or "I'm not ok" — staff are notified right away by email and SMS. The message also appears on the live dashboard.
For less clear messages that may need attention, the system waits one hour. If staff haven't reviewed it by then, they get a single follow-up email. Any unhandled messages are also included in the daily summary email as a backstop. The system never sends more than two notifications per message — no alert fatigue.
Important: ResidentCheckin is not an emergency service and must not be relied upon for emergency notifications. Residents should always call 911 in an emergency. This feature is an added safety layer designed to surface messages that may need a human follow-up.
When a resident replies with something non-affirmative, a “Resident Messages” card appears at the top of your live dashboard with the message body visible. The card is red-bordered if any message is urgent and amber if everything is just for review.
Each message shows the resident’s name, the time, and the SMS body — plus a one-click “Mark Handled” button for the staff member who follows up. Urgent messages also send an immediate email and SMS to staff with notifications enabled.
Ambiguous messages stay on the dashboard for an hour before triggering a single follow-up email, so quick handlers don’t generate alerts that aren’t needed.
We know elderly residents sometimes text STOP by accident. If a resident who has been checking in regularly via SMS suddenly opts out, the system flags it as likely accidental and notifies the facility administrator. Staff can then speak with the resident and help them re-opt-in if needed.
Passive Check-In is an option you add to the daily check-in your residents already get — not a separate system. When a resident is up and about, everyday movement detected by the Zigbee motion/presence sensors a community already owns (including existing K4Connect sensors) completes their check-in automatically — no call, no text. If there's no sign of activity, ResidentCheckin falls back to the same active check-in call you rely on today, with the same escalation and staff alerts. It's available now as an optional add-on.
Setup is simple and software-driven. If you already run Zigbee motion/presence sensors — including K4Connect hardware — you can use them; if you don't have sensors yet, you order off-the-shelf Zigbee sensors and have them shipped straight to you. For the hub, you order one specific plug-in Zigbee coordinator — the SMLIGHT SLZB-06, which reads up to ~50 sensors — and have it drop-shipped to us. We pre-configure it for your community and send it on ready to go; you plug it in, then use the ResidentCheckin software to pair each sensor and map it to the right resident. Turn on passive check-in for the residents you choose — everyone else keeps their normal call, text, or Alexa check-in. Most single buildings need just one coordinator; we confirm your layout during onboarding at no charge, and you can start with a few residents and expand.
No. ResidentCheckin doesn't sell, install, or mark up hardware. Passive Check-In reads from the Zigbee motion/presence sensors a community already owns — including existing K4Connect sensors — or ones you buy direct. The core ResidentCheckin service stays phone-based and needs no equipment at all — passive is simply an optional layer on top for communities that have sensors.
ResidentCheckin is hardware-neutral and reads from standard Zigbee motion and presence sensors through an on-site coordinator (the SMLIGHT SLZB-06). If you already run sensors — including K4Connect hardware — you can almost always keep them; there's nothing proprietary to buy from us, and we don't mark up hardware. If you don't have sensors yet, you buy inexpensive off-the-shelf Zigbee sensors direct — for example, the SONOFF SNZB-03P or the Aqara Motion Sensor P1. Not sure what you're running? Tell us and we'll confirm compatibility before you commit.
Passive Check-In is an optional software add-on on top of your active check-in plan, priced at $50/mo per monitoring hub plus $5/mo per enrolled resident. It's software only — your facility owns the sensors and there's no hardware fee from ResidentCheckin. It's available now.
It mostly comes down to geographic coverage. Sensors talk to a nearby hub over short-range wireless, so each building or separate area needs its own hub close enough to reach the sensors in it. A single building on one network usually needs just one hub; a campus of detached cottages or separate wings typically needs one per building.
There's also a practical capacity limit: a hub supports around 50 sensors. Since most rooms use one or two sensors, a single hub covers roughly a few dozen residents — so a very large building may add a second hub once it passes that point, even though everything's under one roof.
In practice the math is simple: most single-building communities need one hub, so the $50/mo hub fee is a single line item and your cost is mainly the $5/mo per monitored resident. Bigger or multi-building sites add hubs from there. We confirm the exact number with you during onboarding based on your layout, sensor count, and network — there's no charge to scope it.
No. There are no cameras, no microphones, and no wearables — only simple motion/presence signals, captured with the resident's consent and used to confirm wellbeing. Participation is opt-in per resident, and a resident can opt out at any time and revert to the standard check-in call. A sensor never raises an alarm on its own; the confirming call is always the safety net.
In most cases, yes — and you keep your existing sensors. If your motion/presence sensors are Zigbee-based (including existing K4Connect sensors), ResidentCheckin can read from the hardware you already have; you don't replace anything. What you gain is the automatic resident call-back that sensor-only systems leave to your staff: we confirm the resident is okay before anyone has to go knock. Tell us what you're running and we'll show you how it would work.
We have multiple safeguards:
No setup fees, no cancellation fees, no per-call charges. The monthly fee includes everything: unlimited automated calls, text messaging, dashboard access, and support.
We accept all major credit cards and ACH bank transfers. Billing is monthly in advance with automatic payment processing.
Comprehensive support including:
Minimal training required. Most staff learn the dashboard in 15-20 minutes. We provide live training sessions, video tutorials, and written guides. The system is designed to be intuitive for staff of all technical skill levels.
Yes! We provide resident information sheets, talking points for staff, and can participate in resident meetings to explain the system and answer questions.
Unlimited. Every plan includes unlimited admin accounts at no extra cost. Each staff member gets their own login and can customize their notification preferences independently — including whether they receive alerts, daily summaries, and which detail level they prefer.
Each staff member can choose from three detail levels: Detailed (every resident's check-in status), Summary (counts and highlights), or Missed Only (just the residents who didn't respond). Each admin controls their own preference — one person might want the full breakdown while another only wants to know about missed check-ins.
Yes. Every check-in attempt, response, and alert is timestamped and recorded. Many housing authorities and facilities use our system to demonstrate systematic wellness check-ins. Your complete check-in history is always available on the dashboard.
Our transition guide walks you through the process step by step — costs, timelines, and what to expect.
We're here to help you determine if ResidentCheckin is right for your facility.
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