Smart Button Panic Button vs Make a Choice
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Smart Button Panic Button
This app allows users to quickly report emergencies and share important information within their school or organization. It provides instant notifications to emergency contacts with location data and stores emergency plans for easy access.
- Instant emergency reporting
- GPS location sharing
- Emergency plan access
- Multi-language support (English/Spanish)
- Notifications to emergency contacts
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The Smart Button is a communications and panic button app that can be used by faculty, employees, students, and/or parents to report emergencies and other important information. This mobile application is now available in English and Spanish. The Smart Button® is a revolutionary tool for school administrators, teachers, and professors to instantly report credible threats, dangerous situations with students, medical emergencies, health, and other safety issues that warrant immediate attention. Organizational emergency plans and procedures are stored in the app for quick access on smartphones and tablets. When the Smart Button® is pressed, emergency contacts at your school, district, university or organization are immediately notified with your information and/or GPS map location. This innovative app is free to download.
Make a Choice
This app helps individuals communicate choices using customizable boards with text, images, or recorded voice. It's designed for ease of use, especially for those with motor difficulties or communication challenges.
- Customizable choice boards
- Text, image, and voice options
- Large, easy-to-use buttons
- Supports two or four buttons per board
- Shareable choice board configurations
- Lockdown mode for configurations
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Designed in co-operation with a Speech Pathologist, parents and carers describing what they need, Make a Choice is a simple to use, and yet flexible tool for people who need to communicate a choice. Make a Choice can be used on its own, however it is also great as an adjunct to your other favorite AAC tools. People with motor problems will find that the button sizes make it easier, providing direct access via fingers or fist, etc. Make a Choice is great for people working with various forms of Dyspraxia, (also known as Motor Learning Difficulties, Perceptuo-Motor Dysfunction, and Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD)). By providing a small number of choices, the communicator is better able to focus, and express themselves clearly. Make a Choice can also be used for “First and Then” two and four step schedules, or in situations where a client needs to express an opinion (“I Like” / “I don’t like”). In fact, the versatility of Make a Choice allows you to use it in all sorts of situations. Make a Choice provides the ability to configure Choice Boards of two, or four buttons on the screen with text, an image, or both. When a button is pressed on the main screen, the text of the button is spoken by your device, or, if your prefer, you can record your own voice and that will be played instead. Buttons may be further configured to have their own background color, ensuring your ability to create buttons that are easy to see, and respond to. Images can be easily be imported direct from your devices camera, the Photos app, or from the internet via copy-paste. There are no limits to how many Choice Boards you can create, and there are no limits to the number of buttons. Make a Choice has been built with speed and ease of use in mind. If you are in an emergency situation and you need to help someone communicate their choice about something, just create a couple of new buttons, and in less than a minute you can have them on screen. Do you want to create a new Choice Board with a different combination of buttons that you’ve already created? That’s easy! Every button you create is there for you to pick and re-use, any number of times. For communication ovation partners, this is a great tool to help your cared one express her or his self through choosing one action, over another. Make a Choice allows you to share your Choice Board configurations with others via iCloud Drive, DropBox, and any other iOS compatible file sharing service. This allows you to backup your data, share it amongst your devices, and with clients and friends. Make a Choice allows you to lock down the Choice Board configuration, preventing unwanted changes to the Choice Boards you’ve created. Make a Choice uses nice large buttons to better facilitate use by people with motor difficulties. Button sizes have been crafted to make them large and well spaced, improving usability further. Make a Choice works on all iPad and iPhone devices running iOS 9 or later. There are NO in-app purchases, and there are no limits on how many buttons or Choice Boards you can create. Feature summary: * Unlimited number of buttons. * Unlimited number of choice boards. * Configuration can be backed up or shared via iCloud Drive, Dropbox or similar. * Configuration can be locked. * Easy to use. * Fully accessible via Voice Over and Accessibility Switches * Supports recording your own voice for buttons. * Uses in-device text to speech when no voice recording is provided. * Buttons support text, images, or both. * Button background color is configurable. * 2 or 4 button Choice Boards supported. * Great for “First and Then” use. * Print your choice boards to your AirPrint printer! * Localized in English, French and Spanish.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is review sentiment: Make a Choice at 100% against Smart Button Panic Button's 40%. Smart Button Panic Button's advantage is price (Free vs $4.99) and update cadence (every 2 months vs every 5 months). On ads, in-app purchases, device support and iOS requirement there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS
Smart Button Panic Button is free to download; Make a Choice costs $4.99 up front. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
Smart Button Panic Button ships an update every 2 months, Make a Choice every 5 months. The most recent releases landed on June 11, 2026 and September 6, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Smart Button Panic Button | Make a Choice |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free — better | $4.99 |
| Rating | — | 4.8 (34 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 40.0% of reviews | 100.0% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | — | 34 — better |
| Update frequency | Every 2 months — better | Every 5 months |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Free — better | Paid |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod | iPhone, iPad, iPod |
| Requires iOS | 13.0 | 12.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 18 MB | 6 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Anonymous Alerts, LLC | pkclSoft |
Customer experience
Smart Button Panic Button
Make a Choice
In-app purchases
Smart Button Panic Button
No in-app purchases
Make a Choice
No in-app purchases
Questions
Is Smart Button Panic Button free?
Is Make a Choice free?
Do Smart Button Panic Button or Make a Choice have ads?
Which is updated more often, Smart Button Panic Button or Make a Choice?
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