Lone worker alarms & BS 8484
what buyers actually need to know

What BS 8484 is — and why procurement asks for it

BS 8484 is the British Standard for lone worker device and service provision. It doesn't make lone working legal or illegal — your duty of care to lone workers comes from health-and-safety law regardless. What BS 8484 does is give buyers a yardstick: a way to check that a lone worker solution and the monitoring behind it actually meet a recognised quality bar, rather than being an app someone knocked together.

That's why it turns up in tenders and insurer conversations. If a solution is BS 8484-aligned and its alarm receiving centre is accredited, a procurement or H&S manager can point to a standard instead of taking a supplier's word for it. It's shorthand for 'this has been done properly.'

For a full explainer of the 2022 standard, police URNs and the ARC standards behind it, see BS 8484 explained. To compare apps, devices and certified services on cost, see apps vs devices vs BS 8484 services.

The four jobs a lone worker alarm actually has to do

Strip away the marketing and every lone worker solution has to do four things. One: let the worker raise an alarm deliberately — a discreet SOS they can trigger without escalating a tense situation. Two: raise the alarm when they can't — man-down and fall detection for the incidents where the worker is unconscious, injured or unable to reach for a phone. Three: locate them — an accurate, live location so help goes to the right place, including where the mobile signal is poor. Four: reach a real responder — the alarm has to land with someone who will act, not just log a notification.

A solution that only does the first one — a panic button with no automatic detection and no monitored response — leaves the biggest risks uncovered. The worst lone-worker incidents are exactly the ones where the person can't press anything.

App or dedicated device?

Dedicated hardware devices have their place, but a modern phone-based app now covers most lone workers better and cheaper: the worker already carries the phone, it has GPS, a data connection and a speaker, and pairing it with a smartwatch adds fall and impact detection on the wrist. The right question isn't 'app or device' — it's whether the solution does the four jobs above reliably, with a proper response behind it.

The part buyers miss: the response chain

This is where cheap solutions fall down. An alarm is only worth what happens after it fires. When an SOS or a man-down alert goes off, who receives it? How fast? Do they have the worker's location, their profile, and an escalation plan — or just a red dot on a map? A monitored response, backed by a clear escalation path, is the difference between an alert and a rescue.

This is exactly why Vygard pairs its detection with Howie, an AI dispatcher copilot that briefs the responder in seconds — who the worker is, where they are, what triggered the alarm and what to do next — so the response starts immediately rather than after someone works out what's happening.

Match the solution to the actual risk

A community nurse, a forestry contractor, an oil-and-gas technician and a housing officer face very different risks — and a one-size box serves none of them well. The better approach is a core lone worker platform tuned to the sector: chainsaw-kickback detection for forestry, welfare checks and escalation for care, ATEX-rated handling for hazardous environments. Vygard runs 12 vertical sector packs on one platform for exactly this reason — the same reliable SOS, man-down and monitored response, tuned to the job.

Where to start

Start from the risk, not the hardware. Write down the realistic worst-case incidents for your lone workers, then check any solution against the four jobs and, above all, the response chain. If you'd like to see how Vygard handles SOS, man-down and monitored response for your sector, book a demo or talk to our team — we'll walk it through against your actual risk assessment.