hi ossie10
do have the alert pendant, it won't be a bother to you and it will give some peace of mind to your son
it helped me and dad out a few times - he got himself into a pickle once and pressed the alarm - that triggered a phone call to the carephone base in his hallway (loud enough to be heard all over his house) and the operator talked with dad to help him, while the call centre also called me, so I went round to help him out - if I hadn't been available, the operator would have called an ambulance for him too
so, you can see it is worth having for 'just in case'
whilst they installed the alert system, the Local Authority also put in a door alert linked up to it, so that if dad went out between certain times it was triggered and the operator spoke to him and called me; it saved his bacon one time when he went out in the cold in just his pjs
as for the mobile - why not just have that too - you don't need to use it or give the number to anyone else but your son - he can then call you wherever you are if he needs to - maybe he's late one evening and a quick call will stop you worrying - dad had a very small one which I kept charged up for him - he wore it in his shirt/pjs pocket every day and left it on his bedside table at night - again it was 'just in case' but actually he learnt how to text and sent me some just to be in touch (they were hilarious as his typing wasn't good and he didn't always quite put what he meant to; which gave us both a chuckle when we read them over together!)
just the fact that dad had these measures in place meant that when I was at work I wasn't worrying about him all the time - your son deserves that peace of mind
how come we will all accept other stuff that helps us out eg smoke alarms, electricity cut outs between the mower and the power supply, but a personal alert is an intrusion??
best wishes