[HN Gopher] Tin Can, a 'landline' for kids
___________________________________________________________________
Tin Can, a 'landline' for kids
Author : tejohnso
Score : 297 points
Date : 2026-03-20 14:02 UTC (3 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.businessinsider.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.businessinsider.com)
| bitwize wrote:
| This is the ultimate "parents think it's great, kids will think
| it's lame" product. I mean, I like it. And just the name conjures
| images of GenXers yelling at clouds on TikTok about how they used
| to use tin cans or Solo cups connected with string to talk to
| their friends, so it's clear who they're targeting with the
| marketing. But if I were 11-13yo and I got this when all my
| friends got an iPhone? I'd be furious.
|
| But I dunno. Kids being what they are, seem to be developing
| curiosity about "retro tech". So maybe there's some sort of
| whiplash effect occurring among them.
| IncreasePosts wrote:
| This is for kids who don't yet have a smart phone, not as a
| smart phone replacement for kids who already had smartphones. I
| made something similar for my kids(basically, a phone with
| buttons that can call a fixed set of people), and my kids love
| it, and use it multiple times per day.
| bitwize wrote:
| If the kid doesn't have a smartphone, and looks around and
| sees kids who do have one, they're gonna be envious and
| pissed when their parents tell them they can't have one. I
| know because it's analogous to what I felt when I was still
| slumming it with my TI-99/4A when every other kid had a NES
| back in the late 80s.
| ares623 wrote:
| That sentiment has been changing. Kids themselves are
| seeing social media for what it really is.
| loloquwowndueo wrote:
| Your kid is envious about their friends who smoke all the
| time. Would you buy your kid some cigarettes just so they
| can be non-envious?
| wisemang wrote:
| Pfft those suckers didn't have Parsec or Car Wars or Ms.
| Pac Man plus the hours spent typing TI-BASIC from a
| magazine was less frustrating than trying to get the jumps
| right on Super Mario Bros level 8-2. And I'm sure
| Demolition Division and Meteor Multiplication are why I
| ended up with a math degree.
|
| For real though I spent so much time pining for Mario 3
| before my parents finally did give in. But I feel like
| there was something good about the diversity, like when I
| could play Lode Runner on my buddy's C64 (actually a 128...
| GO 64)
| vscode-rest wrote:
| Probably the best thing is a CB radio. Let them talk to any
| other kids in town but no chance of weirdness.
| wolrah wrote:
| > Probably the best thing is a CB radio. Let them talk to
| any other kids in town but no chance of weirdness.
|
| No chance of weirdness? On CB? Have you used a CB?!?
|
| I had a CB in my car for a while and the majority of the
| talk I ever heard on it outside of traffic updates and cop
| reports on major interstate highways was weird shit.
| vscode-rest wrote:
| Perhaps. But weirdness in a public space is superior to
| weirdness in DMs.
| Bender wrote:
| Even if they play with it for 5 minutes it's a fun little
| science lesson if the parents bother to explain what is
| happening.
| BeetleB wrote:
| $100 is a lot for 5 minutes of fun.
| zamadatix wrote:
| I read it as they were talking about the idea of having
| kids still go play with actual tin cans and a string in
| this day and age rather than it be something only old
| people could have done.
| Bender wrote:
| I just meant if they used an actual tin can and string.
| This is just a wired intercom. There are much cheaper ones
| on Amazon, several options.
| apparent wrote:
| Backordered until December, apparently.
| BeetleB wrote:
| Two use cases:
|
| 1. Allowing the kids to call parents _and no one else_ ,
| without all the extra baggage that comes with a smartphone.
|
| 2. Multiple families getting together and deciding this is how
| their kids will communicate with each other (i.e. all agreeing
| not to get smartphones for their kids).
|
| > But if I were 11-13yo and I got this when all my friends got
| an iPhone? I'd be furious.
|
| If you've decided they're not getting a smartphone at that age,
| they'll be furious regardless. They _may_ opt for this as an
| alternative. Up to the kids.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| These are the two uses cases we use it for: call parents,
| call grandparents, call friends. We bought units for their
| friends. No smartphones.
| cortesoft wrote:
| Yeah, I also pause when I read articles like this. The parent
| in this story is trying to go "full 90s", like that was when
| kids were raised the best... which just happens to be the time
| when they were kids. Except, when I was a kid in the 90s, the
| parents at that time thought the 90s things were horrible and
| longed for the best time to raise kids... which of course was
| when they were children.
| casey2 wrote:
| The entire point of parenthood is to validate your
| narcissism, you can't talk reason into parents they can only
| be socially programmed.
| cortesoft wrote:
| I am a dad of two kids, I am doing my best to use reason.
| TheSpiceIsLife wrote:
| If my 11 to 13 year old got _furious_ they'd swiftly find
| themselves at an agricultural boarding school in the regions.
|
| This being Australia, likely a particular remote boarding
| school in a particular hot part of the county.
|
| Come back when you've learned how to be reasonable sort of
| person.
| Daneel_ wrote:
| https://archive.is/2025.09.26-193418/https://www.businessins...
| gnabgib wrote:
| Discussion (197 points, 8 months ago, 132 comments)
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44587018
| TMWNN wrote:
| Thanks for linking to it. Folks, before you rush to offer your
| genius ACKSHUALLY ideas about how Google Voice will let you do
| "the same thing as Tin Can for free", please, please, think
| about what GV does and, more importantly, does _not_ (Hint:
| Whitelist).
| ale42 wrote:
| Just put a Google Voice line behind a FreePBX or Asterisk and
| you get all the call filtering you want. You can even make
| your internal numbers or whatever.
|
| I first found the Tin Can cool, but now seeing their privacy
| policy, it's definitely nothing for me. I'd just use a normal
| VoIP cordless phone (e.g. Gigaset makes various models), or
| even a normal corded phone with a VoIP ATA. Some of them
| might even have integrated whitelisting, but I didn't check.
| deltoidmaximus wrote:
| Can you even attach a POTS or POTS like device to Google
| Voice anymore? I was looking into this last month and it
| seemed like they had removed that feature and the devices
| people were using (they had stopped selling them some years
| ago) to do it stopped working recently.
|
| I have an Ooma phone now and I just plugged my existing
| phones into the Ooma box which then works the same as an old
| landline for the most part.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| > Alarmingly, some Gen Zers don't say "hello" when they answer a
| phone call; they expect the caller to just start talking.
|
| I'm an older Gen-X and I've stopped doing this unless I recognize
| the caller. I'm not going to give a scammer anything to build a
| voice print on. I also use the stock greeting for voicemail
| instead of a personal one.
| MattGaiser wrote:
| Yes, people think this behaviour came out of nowhere. It's
| because if you are younger, phone calls are not the default
| (only two friends ever call me) and overwhelmingly are scammers
| or salespeople.
| kermitime wrote:
| also X, also using generic vm, but thinking of switching to
| recording of fax machine max volume
| myself248 wrote:
| Also most spam calls seem to just hang up when a call connects
| to silence.
| Tade0 wrote:
| I had two silent, barring some office appliance noises,
| voicemails just today.
|
| The number was on a spam list, but somehow managed to leave a
| "message".
|
| The most surprising thing is that it was obviously a person
| calling and not a bot, as I was hearing the rustle of
| something (mouse?) being moved over a desk.
| senectus1 wrote:
| I've been actively trying to think of a better way to answer
| the phone without sounding rude. but without giving up my name
| or mentally accepting whoever is on the other side (like hello
| tends to do)
| silisili wrote:
| I normally don't answer calls I don't recognize the number
| to, but if I might be expecting a call and have an inkling it
| might even possibly be spam, I just answer with a short 'ya?'
|
| Slightly rude, but saying nothing at all is just bizarre to
| me.
|
| Edit to add: One thing I've done for the last decade or so is
| use a number from an area code I don't live in. Most of my
| spam calls come from the same area code, so if I see that I
| know it's spam or a wrong number.
| philsnow wrote:
| Answer it as if somebody had knocked on your front door: "who
| is it?"
| ornornor wrote:
| > mentally accepting whoever is on the other side (like hello
| tends to do)
|
| I don't get that. How is answering the phone mentally
| accepting the caller? What does it even mean to mentally
| accept? Is it that you don't want to talk? Then let it go to
| voicemail and decide if you want to call back or not? I think
| I'm missing the point.
| vineyardmike wrote:
| I clear my throat. Do it loud enough that the other end can
| tell someone is on the line, so they'll know to start the
| conversation. It isn't a rude "WHAT" type answer, but it
| doesn't directly acknowledge the caller, and is not inviting
| a conversation. Its a common enough act that it's not
| suspicious nor weird to hear during a conversation, and
| therefore its not off-putting if extended family or clients
| called from an unknown number.
|
| It doesn't share my voice (for fingerprinting, demographic
| leak, etc, smh).
|
| Also works as a bot filter - Humans tend to start with a
| "hello..?" because they're not sure anyone is there, while
| robots use the non-zero audio as a signal to start talking
| with full confidence.
| mroche wrote:
| Y-Zer myself and I do the same thing. I never initiate the
| communication when called unless I am expecting it or I know
| who the caller is. Otherwise, they'll know when someone picked
| up because their side will stop ringing, and they'll only get
| awkward silence until they start talking. Often times it's an
| automated voice system that will not begin until prompted by
| the callee, so it hits a timeout and hangs up.
|
| The number of calls I get where it's either dead silence in the
| other end or clearly a call center based on the noise can only
| be categorized as "too much".
| Markoff wrote:
| Same here (xennial), it confuses lot of telemarketers out of
| their script, if someone start talking with me I ask them "do I
| have contract with you?", if the answer is "no", I hang up,
| since it's clearly someone selling something.
|
| related call scene from Fight Club how Tyler properly answers
| the phone (not answering but calling back and his first
| response is "Who is this?"):
|
| https://youtu.be/tlw677Une_Q?si=xj3Sce9RdQ-_UfZP&t=85
| greesil wrote:
| I was thinking of doing something like this for text with LoRa.
| But, having kids I don't have time to do that. This seems really
| great!
|
| I read the previous discussion, oof:
|
| S04dKHzrKT wrote
|
| Make note of the privacy policy[1]. Some users may not like the
| data they collect. > Information Collected from Children: As
| detailed in Section 3.C, we collect voice audio during calls,
| call log information, and utilize the Parent-provided contact
| list in relation to the Child's use of the Tin Can Device. We may
| also collect device identifiers and technical usage data related
| to the Service.
|
| [1]: https://tincan.kids/policies/privacy-policy
| closeparen wrote:
| This text does not appear in the link. I do see:
|
| >Call Logs: We collect information about calls made using
| Phones, including the phone numbers you call or receive calls
| from, the date/time of the calls, and the length of the calls.
| We also collect network quality metrics and other technical
| data related to call performance. Please note that we do not
| record calls.
|
| The version of the privacy policy cited in the previous
| discussion cited that voice audio is collected for the purposes
| of forwarding it to the other phone.
| autoexec wrote:
| In addition to collecting all the metadata they also collect
| the voices of children recorded in voicemails.
|
| Their policy says that the information they collect is used
| to "Send you marketing communications (see the section below
| for information about how to opt out of these communications
| at any time)" and to "Monitor and analyze trends, usage, and
| activities in connection with our Phones and Services,
| including to generate de-identified, anonymized, or
| aggregated data" and to "Target advertisements to you on
| third-party platforms and websites (for more information and
| to opt out, see the Targeted Advertising and Analytics
| section below)"
|
| Remember that "de-identified" and "anonymized" is a lie. De-
| identified data can be re-identified, and anonymized data can
| be de-anonymized. Often trivially. There are even situations
| where individuals can be identified from aggregated data.
| closeparen wrote:
| It would be better if they specifically excluded
| advertising uses of call metadata, etc. I assume this is
| getting mixed in from their ecommerce efforts to sell the
| devices. But how do you expect them to play back the
| voicemail if they don't have it? What would be the point of
| "please leave a message after the beep" if the audio is
| going to /dev/null?
| ndriscoll wrote:
| If it's a landline it could store the voicemail on
| device, which is how phones used to work (or prior to
| that, you'd plug an answering machine into the phone, but
| it was still "with the phone"). A GB of flash would be
| basically unlimited and cost a couple cents. You could
| play an old school "your call could not be completed as
| dialed" message if it's actually unavailable due to a
| power/network outage or something.
| Animats wrote:
| Also note that if you buy a Tin Can unit, there's a noncompete
| clause: You agree not to "build, benchmark, or develop a
| competing product or service." So don't buy this if you work
| for a telco, or a voice communications service of any kind.
| quesera wrote:
| This is laughably unenforceable, and all the more ridiculous
| for it.
| hermannj314 wrote:
| If a company puts unenforceable terms in their TOS, how
| likely are they to comply with the law in every other
| matter? No way would I give my kid a device made by these
| people for that reason.
| quesera wrote:
| Fair point, and totally agreed.
|
| I literally LOLed at the idea that purchasing a consumer
| product, at retail, could include stipulations on my
| future employment. And at the hubris of any manufacturer
| for imagining they could get away with such an absurd
| idea.
| kotaKat wrote:
| Oh no, how dare I _checks_ stand up a VoIP ATA and plug a
| phone into it. I 'll be waiting to hear from their legal
| team.
| NegativeLatency wrote:
| Have you seen some of the Meshtastic hardware with built-in
| keyboards?
| https://meshtastic.org/docs/hardware/devices/lilygo/tdeck/
| greesil wrote:
| I was thinking something like an esp32 + mesthastic / LoRa +
| REST API on the LAN, discoverable via multi cast. The
| "landline" is a tablet or phone with an app that talks to the
| esp32. Separately, a parent with the app does the Diffie-
| Hellman key exchange over SMS, NFC, or some other channel
| with the friends who also have the app, and you know their
| identity. The phone app updates the device with the friend's
| keys, they do the same thing on their end, and voila you're
| in business. The kids can talk securely, you can read that
| the kids say via the LAN, no goddamned third parties.
| dTal wrote:
| You just reinvented the IM-ME, a device famous for being
| used aftermarket to hack garage doors (in the days before
| Flipper Zero).
| greesil wrote:
| Lol. That's cool, I've never heard of that!
| wlesieutre wrote:
| I don't know when that previous comment is from but the text it
| quotes is not in the linked privacy policy
| greesil wrote:
| It must have changed in the last 8 months
| userbinator wrote:
| That privacy policy doesn't sound out of the norm for any
| telco, which will be subjected to laws that require
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawful_interception
| autoexec wrote:
| It'd be extremely out of the norm for telco companies. Tin
| Can uses the calls and voicemails to collect data on children
| and sell that to others. That has zero to do with lawful
| interception. The moment Tin Can becomes popular enough you
| can bet that the government will be snooping those calls too
| closeparen wrote:
| It would be pretty spooky if your voice managed to come out
| the other party's telephone without ever having been
| collected into and processed by the telephone network.
| Taking audio from one place and transporting it to another
| is what we pay it for.
| qmr wrote:
| My six year old is a big Meshtastic fan.
| AnotherGoodName wrote:
| >some gen Xers don't say hello..
|
| That's entirely pragmatic in this data collecting age. Being
| silent and hanging up as soon as you hear the spam won't get you
| marked as a phone line that has a human on the other end nor do
| you risk your voice being recorded. If you're silly enough to say
| your name when answering you'll just end up with text and email
| that is now personalised with your name (it's much faster to
| identify and hang up when their best intro is to say "hello who
| am i speaking to?" on a single person line _click_ ).
|
| I don't know anyone in my age bracket (45) who doesn't do this
| let alone those younger. It's entirely understood and expected.
| Fuck anyone who says it's rude and those of an age particularly
| prone to falling for scams (70+ and 15under) should be encouraged
| to do this. You should be telling your kids "never say anything
| on picking up, let the caller to your phone identify themselves!
| They could be scammers trying to get your details such as your
| name".
|
| I feel all these "OMG the kids don't say hello anymore they have
| no etiquette!!!" statements are either from the clueless or from
| spammers frustrated that it's much harder to get through if you
| don't know their name.
| phyzome wrote:
| Weird, I've _never_ encountered this.
| Animats wrote:
| I never answer my land line with "Hello", because predictive
| dialers recognize that as a go signal for telemarketers. I
| usually answer my land line with my name, business style. Cell
| phone is answered with "Hi, ... " depending on who's calling.
| apparent wrote:
| > You should be telling your kids "never say anything on
| picking up, let the caller to your phone identify themselves!
| They could be scammers trying to get your details such as your
| name".
|
| How does saying "hello" give scammers your details such as your
| name?
| blululu wrote:
| I think the op was maybe on a bit of a tear and misspoke, but
| the sentiment is correct. These days even saying hello can be
| used to make a decent voice clone with some reasonable (say
| 50%) chance that it is you (your phone number is linked to a
| ton of information). I would personally try to minimize my
| exposure to this risk even if it is somewhat paranoid.
| vineyardmike wrote:
| When I was younger, adults used to answer the phone with
| "Hello, this is MyName, who am I speaking with?"
|
| Pragmatically, even basic words from your voice can be used
| to estimate your age, gender, and geographic region (local
| accents).
|
| But also read other comments, people are saying they answer
| their phone by stating their name, so plenty clearly use it
| as a greeting.
| TheSpiceIsLife wrote:
| I go further.
|
| Even if I am expecting a call from a service provider,
| insurance, bank, whatever...
|
| They'll want you to identify yourself, name, dob, address.
|
| Never do this to unverified inbound callers.
|
| And how do you verify an inbound caller is who thru claim they
| are and not a scammer?
|
| You don't. You tell them you never give out PII to inbound
| callers as they are indistinguishable from scammers.
|
| Then call the them on their publicly listed number and deal
| with the issue from there.
|
| We need to encourage service providers to _stop doing that_ as
| it is exactly leads to people being more easily scammed.
| nekusar wrote:
| Theres a class of spam calls that start with what sounds like a
| pitch rising "bloop". 100% of the time this is a spam/scam.
|
| Not sure what system they're using, or why there's that
| characteristic BLOOP.
| kotaKat wrote:
| The 'bloop' is a beep for the _other_ person being dumped
| onto the call. Typically in a call center /contact center
| system like this, the agent's headset is _always_ live. When
| the 'bloop' comes in, it's an audible cue for the agent to
| actually pick up themselves as their ringtone on the line. At
| the end of the call they hit 'release' and wait for the next
| 'bloop' to go live again.
| ripplefringe wrote:
| A year ago, I got my 8 y/o a landline (we used Ooma). It has been
| absolutely wonderful.
|
| By far the best thing is that he makes his own playdates. I'm not
| the middleman anymore. He just makes plans and asks me if it's
| ok. And if his friend doesn't have a landline, I let him call
| their parent. It surprises them, but when he leaves a message,
| they love it. He's definitely had more time with friends because
| of it.
|
| Another funny thing was he complained about writing a thank you
| note, so we said "OK, the alternative is that you have to call
| them". He called them, had a nice conversation, and thanked them.
| Honestly, it was better than a thank you note.
|
| It's been one of the best purchases we're made. I feel some hope
| this will delay the eventual begging for a smart phone because
| he's able to do the most critical thing, connect with friends.
| Aeolun wrote:
| This is a good idea. I need to start getting phone numbers from
| people.
| mikepurvis wrote:
| My 9 and 12 year old share a "kid" phone that's just a hand-me-
| down parent phone. This partially meets that need, but it still
| gets used for way too much unsupervised YouTube time.
|
| The thing for me that has really unlocked voice-based
| socializing has been the 12 year old jumping on Discord with
| his buddies from school. I feel like this mirrors well how I
| myself chat with my adult male friends--it's rarely in the
| context of just "a call" but rather while doing another
| activity. So when I see him joking around with them while they
| play Minecraft or whatever, that feels like it's a reasonable
| pattern for how to sustain friendships.
| jkestner wrote:
| My kid uses a shared Google doc to chat with friends on their
| school-issued Chromebooks. (But still has the problem of
| unsupervised screen time.)
| cka wrote:
| Same! They have a thing called presentation city that is a
| slide deck that is a sort of ad hoc social media platform.
| FuriouslyAdrift wrote:
| You can always get them an old school payphone...
| https://payphone.com/Pay-Phone/Personal-Pay-Phone.html
| mememememememo wrote:
| Do we think a dumb phone Nokia and calls only SIM is just as
| good (to avoid all the drilling etc. of installing landlines in
| each kids room?)
| jabroni_salad wrote:
| Ooma has a wifi box that you plug your handset into. It's not
| like a POTS where you need to put a jack in every room.
| jkestner wrote:
| I dug out an old Motofone (the $40 eink candybar) for this
| reason, only to discover that it's 2G, which has been
| decommissioned. Too bad, would've been fun to watch the kid
| learn T9.
| mememememememo wrote:
| 2G to 3G converter ftw!
| ale42 wrote:
| Is there such a thing? Given it's radio waves in
| regulated radio spectrum, I'm not sure such a device
| would even be allowed to operate without a license. This
| said, there are 3G Nokia dumbphones (e.g. C2-01). I just
| had to stop using one because my operator tore down the
| 3G network here, like in most of Europe. (2G was already
| down since some time).
|
| Edit: there are even 4G-VoLTE dumbphones by the way.
| eloisant wrote:
| Modern dumbphones exist:
| https://www.hmd.com/en_int/nokia-3210
| jkestner wrote:
| Of course they do. But this is HN - not as neat as using
| the 15-year-old phone I have.
| jtbayly wrote:
| I mean, sure you can find them if you look hard enough,
| but a phone that plays videos is _not_ a dumbphone in my
| book. And I wouldn 't hand it to my kid. It's probably
| worse than handing them a smartphone, because I'm
| guessing it is just dumb enough to have no parental
| controls.
| tbyehl wrote:
| For Americans, QVC and Target regularly have the BLU Flex
| or TCL Flip 3 bundled with a year of Tracfone service for
| $50 or less.
| carlosjobim wrote:
| You can buy a new feature phone with 4G for peanuts.
| ninalanyon wrote:
| Nokia 105 has 4G version.
| TheSpiceIsLife wrote:
| I believe cordless VoIP phones are still a product one can
| purchase new.
|
| They need only an electrical outlet for the charge stand.
| Aperocky wrote:
| Make me really want to build one for my son when he gets to
| that age.
|
| If I build it, I can control the full feature set and explain
| to him how it worked and he'll get the 'cool' factor too. With
| the raspberry pi I have lying around at home, it doesn't sound
| impossible!
| philips wrote:
| It is really straightforward with some cheap hardware and
| patience. I have another comment on this thread with more
| breadcrumbs but I used a Fanvil "hotel phone" and voip.ms.
| Under $50 and an afternoon all in and you have full control.
| venusenvy47 wrote:
| My kids are grown up, but my mom is worried about her AT&T
| service switching to VOIP. She didn't understand my description
| of Ooma, which I've been using for many years, but now I'm
| thinking that I should just bring over all the needed hardware
| and just call it a landline.
| testbjjl wrote:
| Landlines work when there is no power, which depending on
| where you live can happen more or less often but an important
| feature for an elderly family member especially if they live
| alone.
|
| For my situation, telling my mom her voip phone was a
| landline would be problematic.
|
| I do need some solution though, AT&T technicians tell me
| copper thieves are disrupting her service regularly.
| madwolf wrote:
| If the isp doesn't go down with the power outage you could
| probably get a big enough ups to keep the router and voip
| phone going for at least a couple of hours. Those things
| don't use much power
| jaywcarman wrote:
| I just setup a VOIP line at home and have it plugged into
| my UPS (along with my cable modem + network devices) to
| provide call service in the event of a power outage.
| christkv wrote:
| In a big black out live we had in Spain the
| infrastructure all goes down. I was the only with data
| because i had star link and batteries in the house. Not
| that I could call anyone in Spain though.
| FredFS456 wrote:
| Landlines only work when there is no power if: - you use an
| old school landline phone (not cordless) - your landline is
| actually copper going to the house (I've seen fiber to
| house + conversion to twisted pair by a box with a battery)
| - upstream infrastructure either still has (possibly
| battery) power
| cjbgkagh wrote:
| Formal thank you notes seem to have been going out of fashion,
| I actually like that tradition, thank you for keeping it going.
| freetanga wrote:
| I bought two office phones for 30 euros each (Yealink) and set
| up a VOIP plan with voip.ms for my 8 and 9 YO kids.
|
| I recently got divorced, so there is a phone at each house in
| case they want to reach out to the other parent directly. Ex
| and I did not want the kids to feel their right to reach the
| other parent needed to ask for permission
|
| Family has Softphone in their mobiles, so the full family is a
| speed dial away.
|
| I also whitelist numbers they can dial out.
|
| So far it's working like a charm, they love it.
| kstrauser wrote:
| That's beautiful and I respect your and your ex's commitment
| to be good co-parents.
| xnx wrote:
| I have a strong belief we should experience most/all the levels
| of technology as we grow up to better appreciate our current
| state.
|
| e.g. corded phone -> cordless phone -> mobile phone ->
| smartphone
|
| or
|
| records -> tape -> CD -> MP3 -> cloud
|
| or
|
| Atari -> NES -> SNES -> N64 -> Gamecube -> Wii -> Switch 2
| 0xbadcafebee wrote:
| For the nerdy who might want to set up their own similar system
| for their kids, and let their kids pick any landline phone they
| want, you can get an ATA (Analog Telephone Adapter) on eBay for
| cheap, then connect it to a Raspberry Pi with Asterisk, and any
| VOIP provider, to make your own PBX.
| (https://www.littlebytesofpi.com/raspberrypihomephone/)
| philips wrote:
| It blows my mind that the current Cisco ATA is $150+.
|
| For the service I am building (havenphone.com) I used
| Grandstream HT801 with success with voip.ms. I don't love how
| easy their cloud can take over the device though.
| 0xbadcafebee wrote:
| There are much older ATAs on eBay for ~$20, they still work
| fine, since POTS and SIP don't change
| venusenvy47 wrote:
| Can I use Google Voice as the VOIP provider? I read that
| article and couldn't tell if Voice is used in addition to
| another VOIP service, like Ooma.
| apparent wrote:
| > There's also a free plan where Tin Can users can call only
| other Tin Can users.
|
| So you have to pay a monthly subscription for this, in addition
| to $75 for each phone, if you want to talk with anyone outside of
| their walled garden?
| wlesieutre wrote:
| A monthly fee for a phone service sounds pretty normal to me?
| apparent wrote:
| In the age of FT audio calls and such, it seems out of place.
| I get paying for the hardware, and even a bit of a premium
| because the UI has so many parental controls. But charging a
| monthly fee seems surprising since the differentiation versus
| FT/GV/etc. is on the UI side, not the "you can talk to your
| friends" side. There is no monthly cost to a UI.
| toast0 wrote:
| If you want to call POTS numbers, seems reasonable to pay a
| fee. voip.ms (of Canada, I think) charges ~ $2/month for a
| number and ~ $0.01 / minute for calls to US/Canada, calls
| to other subscribers are free. They work with deposits and
| a balance. Something in that range seems reasonable...
| maybe a little bit more if there's some work to make it
| specifically kid friendly (parental controls for
| incoming/outgoing calls?)
| apparent wrote:
| Fair enough...$10/mo seems high. And I say this as
| someone in the target demo.
| philips wrote:
| What price point would feel good to you?
|
| I am working on a similar service for my own needs (and
| some other friends). But, my current plan is to hit
| $100/yr or so but the hardware is included in that cost.
| I am assuming $2/mo for costs of the number and minutes
| and retail costs for VOIP hotel phones is about $50.
| Hopefully the hardware costs amortize out and then I can
| offer a discount to users on subsequent years.
|
| (If you want to go DIY you can save quite a bit of money
| too- I provided some breadcrumbs for doing that in my
| comment on the parent)
| wlesieutre wrote:
| FT audio calls are in the same boat where if everyone you
| knows has an iPad you can make calls within that walled
| garden for free and don't need to be allocated a phone
| number. Admittedly more useful since so many people have an
| Apple product.
|
| Anything where you want a phone number and to communicate
| with the rest of the phone network, I'd expect to pay money
| for it. Google Voice is the (only?) oddball here.
| unleaded wrote:
| i mean you do for any phone line
| MiddleEndian wrote:
| >walled garden
|
| Makes sense to me. Ideally, people outside of my friends and
| family would not be able to call me on my regular phone either.
| apparent wrote:
| You don't want to be able to communicate with your doctor,
| kid's teacher, someone who is coming to repair your home, a
| neighbor who just moved in, etc.?
| galaxyLogic wrote:
| Wonderful idea. The kid can call their friend "Let's meet
| outside". Then they go outside and (must) leave the phone at
| home. They use the phone to organize no-phone time together.
| Might be good for adults too.
|
| For instance my boss couldn't call me while I'm out and about.
| What you expect me to carry my landline with me?
| jrflowers wrote:
| I know somebody that's been landline-only since the 70s and
| only recently got a cell phone that's strictly used for one
| specific unavoidable 2FA thing. One of the happiest and most
| professionally accomplished people I know.
| shykes wrote:
| I'm a happy Tin Can customer. For young children (5 and 7 in my
| case) it's especially delightful to give them a measure of
| autonomy, at an age where they don't yet have a mobile phone.
| They get to call their friends and family on their own terms,
| without any safety or "screen time" concerns.
|
| It's especially fun to watch them discover the very concept of a
| landline: the keypad (they thought it was a pin code); the dial
| tone; the memorizing and writing down of phone numbers.
|
| 5/5 highly recommended.
| qmr wrote:
| Another comment claims they record calls.
|
| Big yikes.
| Tade0 wrote:
| Big yikes is an understatement.
|
| I would rather just have an old iPad and trust my child to
| use it responsibly.
|
| Overall I think that while the Zoomers are doomed, because
| they grew up in the height of social media frenzy, generation
| alpha put two and two together and collectively noticed that
| screen time = no attention from parents. Some are okay with
| that, but others, like my kid prefer having attention above
| all.
| semi-extrinsic wrote:
| I "made" something like this 7-8 years ago for our first kid.
| When I say "made" I mean I bought a "fixed wireless terminal" for
| $40 on eBay, a classic landline phone for $30, and a cell phone
| subscription for kids ($5/month). Then I connected the parts, and
| voila, we had a landline for kids.
|
| Obvious benefits include low cost, full interop with all other
| phones, and having the kids learn our phone numbers by heart
| after punching them many times.
| philips wrote:
| I made something using a VOIP phone and voip.ms. What provider
| has a $5/mo kids cell subscription!?
|
| voip.ms is about $1.30/mo with the cost of the phone number
| (DID) and "minutes".
|
| I have some more breadcrumbs on this thread if you are
| interested in details on my setup too.
| deltoidmaximus wrote:
| Regarding minutes, how many minutes? My kids basically hog my
| VoIP "landline" talking to their cousins 50% of the time
| they're home. (They're actually playing games together and
| using the phone as voice chat). I've been thinking of trying
| to get a second line for them to hog but didn't want anything
| with limited minutes.
| philips wrote:
| It is pay as you go $0.008/min
|
| https://voip.ms/pricing
| semi-extrinsic wrote:
| My cellphone provider offers a limited kids cell
| subscription. Things like "can only call 5 different pre-
| approved numbers, no data traffic". I think the business
| model is that after a period of time, people bump into the
| limitations and upgrade to the $10/mo version.
| simonmales wrote:
| Thanks for sharing the "fixed wireless terminal" tip. A HN post
| a while ago describe hacking a landline to a wireless terminal.
| But this tip removes the hacking :)
| quijoteuniv wrote:
| I like the idea. We tried with licence free walkie talkies, but
| it did not catch on. What it worked is the xplora watches. Only
| approved contacts and we can also contact our kids and check GPS
| position . They are a bit buggy sometimes but mostly fine
| worldsayshi wrote:
| Yeah I've seen some parents use this to great success. Seems to
| also allow them more freedom to allow kids to explore a bit
| more on their own. Like it's the 90's.
| bit_logic wrote:
| Why does it seem like many parents are unaware that a hand me
| down iPhone can be heavily locked down with screen time settings?
| A list of things you can do:
|
| - allowed list of apps, can reduce it to just phone, imessage,
| and utilities like weather app
|
| - effectively permanent downtime, just set the end time less than
| start time such as 3:00 am to 2:59 am (technically 1 minute of
| non downtime). This blocks apps except for the allowed apps
|
| - disable installing apps from app store
|
| - disable adding new contacts and block calls and messages not in
| contact list. This allows parent to control who the phone can be
| used to contact
|
| - none of these settings can be changed without the screen time
| pin
|
| - also configure the phone with a minor apple account and add to
| your family group so you can monitor and control screen time
| settings from your phone.
|
| So start with a super locked down phone that can only be used to
| communicate with parents. This is very helpful when they start
| after school sports. And the phone is so locked down they don't
| really have any interest in it.
|
| Later when they're older start allowing communication with
| friends from school. But still only phone and imessage, no other
| apps. This reinforces that it's a communication device, not for
| endless scrolling and watching videos.
| Fire-Dragon-DoL wrote:
| I mean, a landline + phone is way cheaper to be fair
| schwartzworld wrote:
| Or a MagicJack
| light_hue_1 wrote:
| Parents are aware. This is a horrible solution.
|
| What's going to happen immediately is that kids with equivalent
| phones will compare, realize that one has a lot of restrictions
| and the other doesn't, and it becomes a nightmare. They know
| that all you need to do is unlock it for them.
|
| It's the same mental distinction between "For $200 we'll
| install rear seat warmers in your Tesla" and "For $200 we'll
| 'unlock' the already-present rear seat warmers" (that's the
| only hardware unlock I've ever paid for and I'm still bitter 7
| years later).
| choo-t wrote:
| > What's going to happen immediately is that kids with
| equivalent phones will compare, realize that one has a lot of
| restrictions and the other doesn't, and it becomes a
| nightmare. They know that all you need to do is unlock it for
| them.
|
| Don't you think they will as easily realize their newly
| purchased TinCan is far more restricted than the 10 year old
| phone theirs friends received from their parents/siblings?
| M95D wrote:
| It's not restricted. It's less capable. Entirely different
| thing. And they'll view it as a completely different device
| for different purpose (voice calls vs. doom scrolling).
| choo-t wrote:
| Specifically designed to be less capable is the same as
| being restricted. It's purpose is explicitly to restrict
| the user communication to some predefined setting by a
| third party (the parent and company behind it) and the
| user is well aware of that, as this e-waste cost as much
| as a cheap or second hand smartphone.
| ForHackernews wrote:
| The jukebox I got for my basement is not a restricted
| Spotify-enabled smart speaker. It's a different device
| that does something different.
| choo-t wrote:
| First, you got it for yourself, so you chose to use a
| jukebox (or in other words : restrict your listening to
| specific titles on physical media) instead to impose it
| to other, which make a big difference in what people see
| as a restrictions(instead of a choice, which is self
| inflicted).
|
| Chosing a Tin Can is obviously to restrict your kid usage
| of communication, it's the nature of the purchase of the
| device.
| goku12 wrote:
| First of all, comparing a locked-down smartphone with a
| fully capable smartphone is different from comparing a
| smartphone with a 'landline phone'. That's like apples to
| apples compared to apples to oranges.
|
| Secondly as far as I understand, you need the same type
| of phone at both ends to communicate with each other.
| Looks like the tin-can and other similar devices are
| designed to talk only to each other. While that is a
| restriction, it eliminates the avenue for a comparison.
| The friends are all on equal ground.
|
| Thirdly, you're talking as if parental controls,
| especially unequal parental controls are a bad thing.
| Parental controls aren't like government or corporate
| restrictions. There is a necessary assumption that
| parents act in the best interests of the kids, unlike the
| other two.
|
| Some parents are irresponsible and may allow their kids
| to consume alcohol or drugs. Will you allow your kids to
| do it too, because it may end up in comparisons? You have
| to talk to your kids about why that is a bad idea. It's
| wrong to assume that kids won't listen at all. Don't most
| kids refrain from drinking, smoking and driving till they
| come of age?
|
| If this sort of control seems unfair or unethical to you,
| you're basically exposing your kids to serious dangers.
| And brain rot is a very serious problem that HN doesn't
| talk enough about. It ruins even the seniors. But for
| kids, it wreaks havoc with their IQ and personality.
| ForHackernews wrote:
| Choosing a Tin Can for a child that doesn't have a phone
| isn't restricting them, it's empowering them with a new
| form of communication to chat to their friends. Getting
| my 10 year old a bicycle instead of a car isn't a
| restriction.
| apetresc wrote:
| Compared to getting them nothing, yes. But the OP's point
| is that this doesn't prevent the child from mentally
| comparing themselves to peers that have a smartphone, and
| viewing their Tin Can as a "restriction" imposed by their
| parents.
|
| Which it is. I don't understand the need to wink-wink-
| nudge-nudge pretend it's anything else by the others in
| this thread. Just own it, restrictions aren't bad by
| default.
| M95D wrote:
| It's no use having an argument with thig guy. He simply
| has a more modern* definition of what "restricted" means.
|
| *I don't know what to call it. It's like those people
| that buy a car with heated seats locked down by
| subscription and calling it "a feature" because some cars
| don't have them at all.
| nkrisc wrote:
| It's not "restricted", it's designed to serve a different
| purpose. A bicycle is not a "restricted" car.
| qmr wrote:
| Nightmare? Maybe you need to work on telling your children
| no.
|
| Instead of being bitter for 7 years perhaps you should not
| have purchased such an absurd thing.
| eloisant wrote:
| That's why I'm thinking of getting my kid (who doesn't have a
| phone yet) a Unihertz Jelly Star.
|
| https://www.unihertz.com/fr-fr/products/jelly-star
|
| - Because it's small, it doesn't look like a regular
| smartphone
|
| - The small size would make it impractical for social
| media/scrolling/videos even if I were to unlock it
|
| ...but compared to a dumbphone, I can still allow Spotify and
| their school management software so they can access their
| schedule and homework
| sh4rks wrote:
| That looks very ugly. Any kid above the age of 12 would
| reject that.
| jrflowers wrote:
| I don't think people are buying this fun novelty landline phone
| because they haven't heard of parental controls
| eloisant wrote:
| As another commenter said, the problem with parental controls
| on a smartphone is your kid constantly nagging you to approve
| installation of one more app, or extend their daily limit
| "just for today" (again).
|
| With a device that's not a smartphone, you don't have this
| problem.
| janfoeh wrote:
| For some people like me, iOS parental controls are utterly and
| completely broken. I have tried to make it work over three or
| four years and just as many iOS releases - no dice.
|
| About a dozen times in those years, the system silently failed
| open either completely or partially (eg. some restrictions
| still applied, but whitelists in Safari were no longer
| enforced, the app store was suddenly accessible again or time
| limits were no longer in place). Not once was there any
| indication on the parent device.
|
| Several times, the only way to reenable broken restrictions was
| to wipe the device, because changes to parental controls simply
| stopped syncing.
|
| Here's long-time Mac developer and blogger Michael Tsai
| describing the same thing:
| https://mjtsai.com/blog/2025/09/24/screen-time-brokenness/
| locao wrote:
| Yep. After years of frustration, trying every possible way to
| fix it, uncountable hours of searching, I asked Claude about
| it: "just subscribe to an external service". This is
| ridiculous, Android's parental controls work flawlessly. If I
| knew that beforehand, I would never had got my kid an iOS
| device.
| vtbassmatt wrote:
| The opposite is also true: Apple's parental controls fail
| closed in inscrutable and impossible to debug ways.
| Yesterday, in order to share an iPad's location with my
| iPhone, I had to totally disable managing Screen Time on the
| device. Every time I would click "share with <my name>", the
| damn thing would tell me "Location settings can't be updated
| right now, try again later". No other combination of
| "solutions" on the Apple support forum, the random blogspam
| links, or the oh-so-helpful search-AI-summary thing even made
| a dent. I suspect something in the underlying data model was
| out of sync with the UI or something. Incredibly frustrating
| experience from the "it just works" vendor.
| benchloftbrunch wrote:
| Best (for older kids) would be a dumb cell phone like we had in
| the 2000s. Good for phone calls, texting, and simple offline
| apps like casual games, camera and music player. Maybe email.
| Definitely no web browser, youtube, or social media crap.
|
| I don't know the extent to which such devices are still
| manufactured today.
| eloisant wrote:
| There are: https://www.hmd.com/en_int/nokia-3210
|
| (and it's not the only one, also check KaiOS phones)
| throwaway_19sz wrote:
| Because it's a lot easier to refuse to buy an expensive gadget
| for your kids than to refuse to press a few buttons to set them
| free.
| Retr0id wrote:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9224
| xp84 wrote:
| Same exact reason 90% of people don't use the Shortcuts app.
| This stuff is obvious for you and me, but tedious and painful
| for everyone else, and it's still easy to miss one thing that
| leaves it easy to circumvent. There are people whose full time
| job is managing MDM in IT departments, and it's not just
| because of the number of devices they manage. It's because this
| stuff is complicated. And that's for grownups, whose judgment
| is expected to be better than 12-year-olds, and who can be
| fired.
|
| Also Screen Time is a little better in a few ways than what
| Android offers, but it's still a joke, is incredibly Byzantine,
| and limits your options as a parent.
| mountainb wrote:
| All of this is work, more work, admin work, things I would pay
| an assistant to do. Why would I want to be a system
| administrator when I can just not give my children systems that
| I need to administer?
|
| This type of solution provides a simple system that requires
| very little administration and supervision. The problem with
| modern communications tech as it relates to children is that by
| default these systems provide access to every adult on planet
| earth to your child's inbox. That is not a feature that I need,
| but rather is a crippling design flaw much more likely to harm
| my kids than it is to help them.
| BeetleB wrote:
| How do I lock down the iPhone so it works only at home?
| lostmsu wrote:
| Never put a SIM in it?
| StevenNunez wrote:
| Hello! Parent that's fully aware of this. My son has access to
| a landline and it solves the problem of tech as a tool vs a
| past time. If he thinks of his friend, he calls, friends reach
| out etc. No scrolling for something to do. I see my phone usage
| and am constantly trying to introduce friction into it. This is
| an extension of that concept.
| StrangeWill wrote:
| Apple makes this a _huge_ PITA, along with having to do a
| significant amount of it from another apple device.
|
| I'm glad we ditched iPads, it sucked.
| breakpointalpha wrote:
| This has to be intentional.
|
| Drug dealer getting the kids hooked early is priority #1.
|
| Give just enough "parental control" to lure parents in.
|
| Make it just annoying enough that the parents eventually give
| up and the kid is the one pushing the drug the entire time.
| kgwxd wrote:
| I did that for my kid when he was 10 or so. He had it "hacked"
| before I knew it. If he had done it himself, I would have been
| proud, but some other kid did it. Never even tried after that.
| He's 17 now, he's fine.
| sparrc wrote:
| As a parent, two reasons:
|
| 1. The admin work of parental controls in Apple is non-trivial
| and obscure. I would guess there are something like 300
| different knobs and settings you can control for each kid
| individually. The UX is terrible and there are features missing
| that seem extremely basic and fundamental. For example, I can't
| see how much time left my kids currently have, nor can I block
| any app "now".
|
| 2. "the phone is so locked down they don't really have any
| interest in it." This has not been my experience at all. My
| kids know that less-locked-down devices exist and frequently
| complain about the restrictions.
| mixmastamyk wrote:
| Indeed, there's an additional problem as well. There are
| settings, and then there are settings that allow one to
| _change_ the settings. Not only are there hundreds of
| settings but they are duplicated in this way.
|
| Configuring them from scratch is a minimum 20 minute job, and
| then you need to double and triple check to avoid mistakes.
| More like a half hour.
| mixmastamyk wrote:
| Our kid breaks through the screen time regularly, even with new
| passcodes. Have a theory it is done from the wife's macbook,
| but not entirely sure. Gave up; would not recommend or use
| again.
| BloondAndDoom wrote:
| I think we are except Apple lockdown experience for this is
| total shit show, not only you need to spend so much time but
| also if you need to change something (at least for me) it just
| reset all the previous options, because I turned it off to
| manually install something that was locked down
|
| I have a device setup like this but I hate it, it's possibly
| the worst UX I've used from Apple.
| sharkweek wrote:
| We got one of these for our elementary-aged kids because it took
| off in our network of families at their school.
|
| It's so fun watching them talk to their buddies from school,
| planning play dates, just chitchatting etc. My favorite thing is
| when they prank call one another, cracks me up.
|
| Maybe the novelty wears off soon but for at least the last month
| or so they've used it every day. It feels like it gives them a
| bit of autonomy they're seeking right now at their ages, but in a
| relatively safe way.
|
| Highly recommend it.
| zabzonk wrote:
| Somewhat OT:
|
| It is actually amazing how far with a couple of tin cans,
| greaseproof paper taped around one end, and string attached to
| the paper. You are not going to do VOIP, but 50 yards is
| possible.
|
| Even more OT:
|
| One Xmas my Dad (unredeemable gadget freak, early adopter of the
| TRS80) gave me and my little bro two wired handsets with
| batteries and a ringer. We wired up brother's bedroom to living
| room, but soon realised our horrible mistake:
|
| [ring, ring]
|
| "Can I have a glass of water?"
|
| [ring, ring]
|
| "Can I have a glass of water?"
|
| It lasted less than a day.
|
| We also had a similar setup that did morse code, that was much
| less intrusive, not least because me and my little bro did not
| know morse, except for SOS.
| intrasight wrote:
| You mirrored my kid communication tech experience, except mine
| was with my neighbor next door. My brother and I were 13 and 12
| respectively. The neighbors were two girls: 14 and 12. Bedroom
| windows about 22 feet apart.
|
| Our list of experiments included: Written signs Tin cans Morse
| code circuit Wired handset Walkie-talkies
|
| The fun lasted a couple years until puberty struck.
| Markoff wrote:
| I fail to see any benefit over:
|
| 1. dumb phone with fixed dial contacts
|
| 2. properly set smartphone which can be used as dumb phone with
| restricted contacts and no app install allowed, apps screen time
| limited to zero or heck even browser disabled in guest profile
|
| 3. kids smartwatch with parental controls which limit who they
| can call and who can call and message them, I'm just working on
| one of these and it's great even for seniors
|
| If you don't like kid having wearable with them I have shocking
| news for you - you can leave all of the above at home!
|
| Btw. kids nowadays don't really call each other, they text (IM)
| each other. And for the record I am one of those few parents who
| didn't give phone/tablet to their toddlers hands like majority of
| people do wheever they are (public transport, car, waiting room,
| etc.), my older elementary school kid has "dumb" phone (my old
| Symbian Nokia, but he use it only for calls/SMS anyway, though I
| will probably switch to restricted smartphone since it's
| inconvenient even for me not being able to send whatsapp message,
| battery is crap and classmates have whatsapp as well), my younger
| elementary school kid doesn't have anything, but when she goes
| outside alone she takes Motorola walkie talkie with roughly
| 0.5-1km range in city.
|
| edit: related call scene from Fight Club how Tyler properly
| answers the phone (not answering but calling back and his first
| response is "Who is this?"):
|
| https://youtu.be/tlw677Une_Q?si=xj3Sce9RdQ-_UfZP&t=85
| philips wrote:
| I am working on a similar project. I have something working for
| my own needs and a few other families already but a long road to
| go before making something GA.
|
| You can waitlist at https://havenphone.com if you are interested.
|
| There were three major things I wanted to do differently from Tin
| Can:
|
| - I wanted to use off the shelf VOIP hardware so if the company
| ever went out of business I (and any of my users) had an escape
| valve or could just sell the hardware.
|
| - I wanted to have a code base I could open source. (not open
| source, yet!)
|
| - I wanted flexibility to offer ATAs (devices that let you
| connect any ol' "analog" phone)- some of my parent friends wanted
| cordless "DACT" phones, interestingly.
|
| It has been quite an adventure entering the world of VOIP.
|
| The SIP protocol has so many esoteric options (understandably
| given its history!) it could make TLS look simple.
|
| My most recent learning is this crazy protocol called TR-069 that
| ISPs use to configure endpoint hardware like home routers, cable
| modems, and VOIP phones. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TR-069
|
| Also, interestingly every cheap (sub-$50) phone and ATA I have
| tried has a built-in OpenVPN clients.
|
| Oh, and one more interesting thing Grandstream ATAs are able to
| be taken over by the Grandstream cloud service by just providing
| the ATA serial number and mac address on the back of the device-
| I did not love that workflow when considering long-term security.
| (:
|
| If you have $50 and some time to kill you can do it all yourself
| right now. In voip.ms you can use the phone book and the caller
| id filter to create a "*" hang-up rule and an "allow phone book"
| rule.
|
| - https://major.io/p/85-cents-home-phone/
|
| - https://www.voipsupply.com/fanvil-h3w-wifi-hotel-ip-phone-wh...
|
| - https://www.voipsupply.com/fanvil-h2u-black-hotel-phone-v2
|
| - https://www.voipsupply.com/grandstream-ht801-v2-ata
| Tepix wrote:
| This seems to be begging for a DIY project, doesn't it?
|
| A 3d printed case, a little SoC, perhaps a Raspberry Pi Zero, as
| the brains with asterisk and some additional open source software
| providing a web interface running on it.
| hellweaver666 wrote:
| Would i require some public server side component to handle the
| call routing etc? (or could you just use something like Google
| Voice?)
| philips wrote:
| I went the DIY route (you can find the details as a parent
| comment). But, I had good luck with voip.ms as a SIP
| provider. It is inexpensive at $1.10/month for the phone
| number and $0.008/min for calling. And it has a pretty good
| history of user forums, wiki, etc for debugging hints with
| various hardware.
| pcblues wrote:
| This is a nice idea, because it physically limits the place the
| child can call from. Even a very under-powered phone sets them
| free.
|
| However, a new severely under-powered phone with no graphics or
| apps would probably meet the requirements of not being sucked
| into the grown-up world too early, and the kids can maintain
| their own contact lists.
|
| And they'll grow super-fast thumbs like we had to in order to
| text :)
|
| They cost about $50 but are still 4G.
| philips wrote:
| Have you found a under powered phone that lets you lock down
| the Phone's incoming to an allow list?
|
| That is the thing me (and most parent friends) want: freedom
| from spam calls and potential strangers.
| kleiba wrote:
| _> she 's found another way to put off getting her [8-year-old]
| daughter a cellphone_
|
| I don't live in the US but my child, who is 9, does not have a
| cell phone nor does any of his school mates. They "chat" when
| they see each other in school, or when they hang out together to
| play after school.
| alexchengyuli wrote:
| Funny enough, China already ran this experiment. Kids'
| smartwatches started as call-only devices for safety. Then they
| added friend lists, status updates, like counts, popularity
| rankings. Little Genius now has 48% of the global kids'
| smartwatch market [1]. Kids delete real-life friends for not
| having enough likes on the watch. Once a device enters a kid's
| social life, there's no market incentive to keep it simple.
|
| [1] https://www.scmp.com/tech/tech-
| trends/article/3328227/move-o...
| papyrus9244 wrote:
| >Then they added friend lists, status updates, like counts,
| popularity rankings.
|
| That sounds absolutely horrible.
| tty456 wrote:
| Why?
| makeworld wrote:
| > Kids delete real-life friends for not having enough likes
| on the watch.
| digital_af wrote:
| If you live in Germany and have a Fritz!Box router, you can just
| buy a second old-ish Fritz!Box and a simple landline phone (from
| the likes of eBay, Kleinanzeigen...) and hook them up via WiFi.
|
| Voila, telephone service as it used to be. No proprietary
| payphone with questionable ToS and privacy policies needed.
| aktau wrote:
| Why does one need the second (old-ish) Fritz!Box? Doesn't the
| first one already have DECT?
|
| Also, does this not require a landline number?
| aaronharnly wrote:
| I have a Tin Can for my 8 year old - it is terrific and he loves
| it. He can call friends, grandparents, and his cousins; it is
| more reliable than the DIY version I was cobbling together with a
| Pi and some Legos; and my spouse or parents can supervise or
| update it too.
| philips wrote:
| What tech stack did you use before? It is interesting so many
| comments mention Pi when there are so many boring VOIP phones.
|
| I wrote an app that some friends use right now. So, always
| interested to hear what people cobbled together!
| utopiah wrote:
| Most of those "ideas" are basically :
|
| - take a phone, remove features, package with bright colors,
| profit (or VC then profit, maybe).
|
| Sadly a lot of those aren't recycling old gadgets, they are just
| making new ones and block features, lock down in their own
| "store", etc. I think it's actually quite terrible.
| eloisant wrote:
| Yes, and dumbphones exist (again). You can buy a newer version
| of the Nokia 3210 that charges with USB-C and works on modern
| cell networks.
| philips wrote:
| The main feature I want for my kids is an explicit allow list
| to keep them from gettin spam or talking to randoms.
|
| The manual I found doesn't seem to have this feature. Also
| the advertising page has "Cloud Apps for news, weather, and
| more" :(
| https://www.hmd.com/en_int/nokia-3210?sku=1GF025CPD4L02
| eloisant wrote:
| Yes you should check KaiOS phones for that.
|
| Now the problem is that they're not "dumb" enough as they
| have a web browser, youtube etc, but that can be considered
| fine because the experience for those is so bad that it's
| unlikely to get addicting.
| pqs wrote:
| Why not using the actual land line? I still have one. My 13 year
| old son, who has no phone, uses it and it works. I'm just
| curious.
| frodo76 wrote:
| TinCan owner here. The issue with landlines in my experience is
| that they quickly become overwhelmed with spam calls. That and
| the ability to lock down the phone to just a few numbers is the
| appeal.
| pqs wrote:
| Mine, in Spain, is surprisingly free of spam. I receive spam
| on my mobile phone, which is often blocked by Android, but I
| don't receive spam on my landline. Strange, isn't it?
| mrweasel wrote:
| Depends on the country, but landlines are no long available for
| new customers and the cables are actively being removed.
| deltoidmaximus wrote:
| There are still VoIP services that function essentially the
| same. I switched to that recently because the real POTS
| service had been jacked up in price a crazy amount, probably
| because we were grandfathered into even having it since the
| company website didn't even seem to offer it anymore.
| pqs wrote:
| Well, I'm sure my landline is not a landline anymore, I'm
| sure it is some sort of VoIP system, but it doesn't matter,
| it is a phone with a number, that doesn't leave the living
| room.
| Waterluvian wrote:
| This sounds like a brilliant idea. But I suspect they're going to
| wedge themselves unnecessarily in the middle to extract and
| enshittify.
|
| I don't see why these would ever need to be more than a pay once
| product.
| pino83 wrote:
| > She said she heard about the Tin Can on a Facebook group.
|
| Nice to safe the kids from that... But who will save the adults?
| ^^
|
| Yes, social media is bad for kids. You start to realize that. It
| only took 15 years. The thing is: It's equally bad for you...
|
| And you prove that every minute. Whenever you say something, and
| after three sentences, basically every topic ends up in something
| related to Instatoktube.
|
| My only hope is that what we are currently see rising is similar
| to what happened to alcoholism and chain smoking.
| eloisant wrote:
| It's not "equally" bad for adults.
|
| Just like alcohol and tobacco, it's bad for adults but way
| worse for kids.
| throwfaraway4 wrote:
| It's way way worse for kids especially adolescents
| mrweasel wrote:
| Off-topic, but I hate sites like this. All links in the article
| are for other pages on businessinsider.com, but there's no link
| to Tin Can, not that I can find at least.
|
| It's getting more and more normal that sites won't link out of
| their own "property".
| raldi wrote:
| Especially weird in this case since it's such an over the top
| case of Submarine Marketing.
| rd wrote:
| Submarine marketing?
| raldi wrote:
| https://paulgraham.com/submarine.html
| thrance wrote:
| Yeah, and that's especially egregious when they're presenting a
| product, or a scientific result without linking to it.
| seboapps wrote:
| Full circle moment.
| selectively wrote:
| Smartphones are good and we shouldn't demonize them.
| xp84 wrote:
| Judge the tree by its fruits. Children are showing very real
| signs of addiction, and unlike known quantities like video
| games, or TV in past generations, parents are being pressured
| into handing children a device, usually completely or
| effectively without any safety controls, a private screen with
| which everyone in the world, every corporation, foreign
| country, friend or foe, can pour propaganda, toxicity, lies,
| porn, etc. directly into their brains. We should be careful
| with this.
|
| Before the smartphone did all this, no one would have come out
| and campaigned to build a new kind of free library outside
| every middle school where all these things were advertised and
| made readily available to kids anonymously. We do have real
| libraries, but they don't just automatically accept and push
| books donated by any random company, foreign country, or random
| pervert. Because that's an insane thing to do.
|
| The burden should have been on the "smartphones are good"
| people to prove that giving kids all that was worth the
| downsides, or to have shown how any supposed benefits could be
| had more safely, without requiring all parents to become
| experienced MDM admins, which they just won't do.
| selectively wrote:
| Smartphones are good. Addiction is physical compulsion.
| Nothing else is addiction.
|
| You sound exactly like the people who were freaking out about
| comic books and video games. Moral panic, forever repeating.
| xd1936 wrote:
| Did this exact thing for my four and six-year-old kids. I used an
| Ooma Telo Air[1] (Free + ~$6/mo in taxes and fees) and an old
| vTech landline phone. It's been highly successful in our house.
| The kids have (monitored) independence to call grandparents and
| aunts/uncles. Watching them translate written down 10-digit phone
| numbers into button presses is fun too.
|
| 1. https://www.ooma.com/home-phone-service/basic/
| jpb0104 wrote:
| Seems like there are a bunch of alternatives popping up including
| some DIY solutions. Which is really awesome in this space. Check
| out https://www.beanstalk.club/ I've done some work with these
| folks. I love their bring-your-own-phone approach. There are so
| many cool old-school phones out there, even on ebay. We've also
| seen lots of success with Beanstalk and a simple $20 cordless
| phone. Kids love wandering around chit-chatting. There's also a
| ton of momentum around the https://www.waituntil8th.org/ pledge.
| VladVladikoff wrote:
| I got two DECT cordless phones for my house and tried to set up
| RustPBX on a raspberry pi. But I got snagged because it wasn't
| playing nicely with flowroute, and I didn't want to burden the
| project with my complaint. I guess I'll end up using FreePBX but
| it sucks because RustPBX really looked promising.
| drewsonian wrote:
| Check out FusionPBX or FreeSWITCH. Great options, I like them
| better than anything Asterisk based right now.
| b3lvedere wrote:
| Fun product, but not for me. We've given the kids old iPhones
| when they reached the age of 12 and they have been known we can
| check anything and everything on their phone. Each and every
| email is cc'ed to us and we log what we can (not that we actually
| do that much).
|
| We have also told the kids we are not 24/7 actively monitoring
| them, because we woud like to trust them. Unless we think there's
| an issue they cannot, will not or are forced not to tell us, we
| will not intervene with their phone usually. They know we can
| track their phones anywhere on this planet and they don't care,
| because we are not acting as helicopter parents.
|
| This has built trust between our kids and us parents. It forces
| us as parents to start trusting the kids and the kids get the
| freedom they want and need.
|
| Is it 100% perfect? No, not by a long shot. It's a balance that
| may be scary for parents. We talk with them about stuff like
| doomscrolling, social media drama and privacy. They show us
| memes, tell us about their school life and usually do not care if
| we happen to see some private conversation on the corner of our
| eye.
|
| Do the kids make mistakes? You bet. That's part of their life. Do
| we as parents make mistakes? Absolutely. None of the kids came
| with a manual. :)
| KaiserPro wrote:
| We have a voip system for the house, mainly because its one floor
| too tall to shout up and easily be heard.
|
| Each of the kids has a really old cisco voip phone (I got 8 for
| PS35).
|
| There is a quick dial menu which connects too the loft, kid1,
| kid2, shed, living room. I also have an extension for my mobile.
|
| That works for keeping everyone in touch and save a lot of "WHAT
| DID YOU SAY?".
| drewsonian wrote:
| This concept has been amazing for my family and kids.
|
| Shameless plug: I started my own service without vendor hardware
| lock in.
|
| https://chatterboxphone.com
| philips wrote:
| Oh nice! I have been working on my own too!
| (https://havenphone.com). I was planning on the exact same
| model and pricing as well.
|
| I am curious: have you gone down the tr069 rabbit hole? If not
| how do you plan to do endpoint management?
|
| Are you using a Fanvil H2W? Too? That was my first phone
| choice.
|
| I also learned of https://www.beanstalk.club from this thread
| as well. Looks like there are a few folks trying to do similar
| services without the proprietary hardware and waitlists.
| drewsonian wrote:
| I'll send you a message to your support account :-)
| growrow wrote:
| No vendor or hardware lock-in is key. Can you give insight into
| the costs that inform the monthly rate? Emergency services /
| telephone network?
| drewsonian wrote:
| Sure thing! Behind every "unlimited" plan out there, there is
| a per minute rate that small carriers like us have to pay in
| order to get access to the regular phone network and connect
| to any phone number in the world. On top of that, there's a
| monthly cost per phone number, per E911 address registration,
| per voice channel, etc. Then, you have the ever popular
| "taxes and fees", which can vary based on the user's location
| and can become complex very quickly. Not to mention FCC
| registration fees and taxes. Then there's the cost of the
| server infrastructure to register the phones and keep them
| online. And finally - STIR/SHAKEN implementation has a cost
| of registration and verification as well.
| mcrowson wrote:
| Got inspired by this and setup voip.ms and a grand stream for
| this. Just a "landline" and the monthly costs way lower and you
| don't have to use the crappy tin can phone.
| wffurr wrote:
| I'm missing the benefit to this over just adding on phone service
| to my cable internet bill.
| clintmcmahon wrote:
| We've got a tin can phone and the biggest positive for us is
| the phone can't make calls or receive calls from numbers that
| we don't approve first. I know other parents who have the phone
| line through the cable company that gets hammered with spam
| calls.
| wffurr wrote:
| I was going to say Nomorobo fixes this, but it's not
| supported on most landlines anymore.
| panja wrote:
| Control over what numbers are dialed and who can dial in
| clintmcmahon wrote:
| Just got our Tin Can a few weeks ago. The hardware is "eh", but
| the service is pretty great. The ability to approve
| incoming/outgoing numbers before being able to call/receive calls
| is very handy to cut out any spam calls that you'd get with a
| normal land line.
| ralferoo wrote:
| I'm not sure if they're still available, but the PAP2T was a
| wonderful piece of kit - just an ethernet port and 2x RJ-45 jacks
| for old style phones. You can set up custom dial plans and use
| any VOIP SIP provider you like. You can trivially edit the dial
| plan to restrict certain number prefixes, and set up custom short
| numbers - so for instance my "landline" had 81 for my mum, 82 for
| brother, 83 for sister, etc. but you could also just dial regular
| numbers.
|
| If you run an asterisk server on your own box, you could easily
| set up a private SIP network just for you and your kids, or your
| kids and their friends, etc. and either run a SIP client on your
| mobile for your use and a VOIP SIP gateway if you want your kid
| to be able to call a friend's mobile.
|
| EDIT: I just looked and the PAP2T has been discontinued, but
| there seem to be lots of units available new from China that look
| identical and are sold as Linksys PAP2T, and some unbranded units
| that look the same but with blank labels. I've no idea if these
| are fully compatible with the real PAP2T, but they might still be
| worth trying.
| jaywcarman wrote:
| Grandstream currently has a line of Analog Telephone Adapters
| (ATA)[1] that fit this use case.
|
| [1]: https://www.grandstream.com/products/gateways-and-
| atas/analo...
| psim1 wrote:
| For three or four endpoints all within the home, you could do
| this with just ATAs and not even need a SIP server. Many ATAs
| have a configurable "dial plan" that will let you map a number to
| an IP address, thus giving you the ability to call the other
| terminals directly within the LAN.
| philips wrote:
| Do you have an ATA you like? They are all janky in different
| ways in my experience.
| jMyles wrote:
| ...not mention of encryption.
|
| Although the idea is lovely, I'm not going to encourage my kiddo
| to chat with his buddies on a service that can hoover up their
| imagination for later manipulation.
| maherbeg wrote:
| We actually have one of these between our group of friends and
| their kids and it's awesome. The kids call each other to chat and
| setup play dates or to go run around in the street. Our kids will
| call back home to let us know they made it to the other persons
| house, or let us know they're coming back home too.
|
| The tactility is incredible, and it's so just so cute to watch
| them chat away (5 year olds!)
| saltyoldman wrote:
| When I was 12 or so (might have been older)? I had convinced my
| parents to buy me a lantern battery (6v) and lots of wire. I
| connected all in series - two speakers and the battery connecting
| my room to my brother's room. Unfortunately only I could control
| which speaker was acting as a microphone (I had to swap the
| battery terminals the wires were connected.)
|
| I guess that was my "tin can".
| pricees wrote:
| We bought a Tincan after a company parent-erg conversation led to
| a coworker discussing her experience with the product.
|
| Is it the game changer we thought it would be? No. We thought my
| daughter would want to call her friends as much as she wants us
| to call their friends' parents to have them come over. We thought
| my son would use it as much as he texts on his gizmo.
|
| Having said this, they are getting experience, albeit infrequent,
| with saying "Hello.... I love you. Goodbye."
|
| And, yeah, when it rings, there is a mad-dash to pick it up.
| There is something uniquely pre cell phone ("reminds me of the
| 80s") about the joy and wonder of "Who could be calling me (at
| this hour)?"
| rotaryfan2024 wrote:
| I built a DIY system like this using Asterisk, Raspberry Pi, and
| a Grandstream ATA: https://github.com/cancio/rotary
|
| I based it on the instructions provided by this Show HN post:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39801991
| kleinishere wrote:
| Thanks for linking this. What is the monthly spend? And how
| long ago did you do it? Has it grown/stayed the same/or
| decreased in its use?!
| magiclaw wrote:
| "If parents consent [...] we collect [...] serial number and
| battery level [...] who called and call time and length [...] and
| Voicemails (messages and greetings)"
|
| If you're going to get this product, make sure you pay attention
| when you set it up, and opt out if you are privacy minded.
| Dan_- wrote:
| I did this but using Twilio, a Grandstream HT802v2, and a basic
| AT&T wall phone. Caller ID sorta works. I really tried to find a
| phone that would make a satisfying sound when slammed down, but I
| found that no one makes good, solid corded wallphones any longer.
|
| The toughest part was figuring out which set of wires (my house
| had like 5 lines somehow) went to that particular jack in the
| kitchen.
| philips wrote:
| When I was a kid I remember discovering the heft of the home
| phone came from a big chunk of metal screwed into the plastic
| case.
|
| (My family moved to cell phones so I got the opportunity to
| disassemble the old phone.)
|
| Maybe just find some washers and glue them inside your handset
| and receiver?
| alejohausner wrote:
| I'm glad it's a push-button phone, and not a rotary phone.
| There's a hilarious YouTube of today's teenagers tasked with
| making a phone call on a rotary phone:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1OADXNGnJok
|
| The interface on a rotary phone isn't self-explanatory.
| MattGrommes wrote:
| I just watched this great mini-documentary about a local landline
| system in Bellingham WA. Well worth a couple of minutes.
|
| https://youtu.be/UhVi3smmvTs?si=ow6zw_xTKo22WpLZ
|
| People can call each other but also businesses have 4-digit phone
| numbers that are shortened versions of the business name, like
| GUIT for the guitar shop.
| growrow wrote:
| How lovely and so very Bellingham-esque! $5/mo and looks like
| it can be used outside Bham.
|
| https://telehamster.net/node/7
|
| I hope these guys do well or more local options keep on popping
| up.
| neuralkoi wrote:
| The one on their website is now $100, not $75 as per the article.
|
| Surely someone can build a more privacy-friendly decentralized
| solution?
|
| It doesn't take much for Tin Can to start charging $50 / month
| for a subscription.
| Zachstr wrote:
| I think it is mostly a supply/demand issue. Most of their
| models are sold out, so they are trying to raise prices so that
| only those who really, really want/need one gets one. I think
| that they simply just mispriced the product initially. Soon
| enough there will probably be more competition that will help
| drive down the price.
| WalterBright wrote:
| > playdate
|
| When I was a boy, there was no such word "playdate". What I'd do
| is just walk or ride my bike to a friend's house and knock on the
| door.
|
| No parents involved.
| jimmyjazz14 wrote:
| We just got our kid one of those cheap prepaid "dumb" cellphones,
| works fine and he can take it with him if needed.
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