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Tin Can, a 'landline' for kids

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Re: Tin Can, a 'landline' for kids

#71

Post by light_hue_1 »

bit_logic wrote: post #68

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 f…

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).

Re: Tin Can, a 'landline' for kids

#72

Post by apparent »

toast0 wrote: post #59
apparent wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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?…

Fair enough...$10/mo seems high. And I say this as someone in the target demo.

Re: Tin Can, a 'landline' for kids

#73

Post by TheSpiceIsLife »

userbinator wrote: post #60
greesil wrote: post #16

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 Paren…

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

[dead]

Re: Tin Can, a 'landline' for kids

#74

Post by jrflowers »

bit_logic wrote: post #68

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 f…

I don’t think people are buying this fun novelty landline phone because they haven’t heard of parental controls

Re: Tin Can, a 'landline' for kids

#75

Post by zabzonk »

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.

Re: Tin Can, a 'landline' for kids

#76

Post by TheSpiceIsLife »

AnotherGoodName wrote: post #22

>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 identi…

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.

Re: Tin Can, a 'landline' for kids

#77

Post by TheSpiceIsLife »

bitwize wrote: post #2

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…

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.

Re: Tin Can, a 'landline' for kids

#78

Post by jrflowers »

galaxyLogic wrote: post #47

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?

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.

Re: Tin Can, a 'landline' for kids

#79

Post by Markoff »

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

Re: Tin Can, a 'landline' for kids

#80

Post by Markoff »

SoftTalker wrote: post #8

> 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.

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

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