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Tin Can, a 'landline' for kids

businessinsider.com

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Re: Tin Can, a 'landline' for kids

#181

Post by philips »

drewsonian wrote: post #180

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

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.

Re: Tin Can, a 'landline' for kids

#183

Post by testbjjl »

venusenvy47 wrote: post #156
ripplefringe wrote: post #28

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. Anothe…

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.

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.

Re: Tin Can, a 'landline' for kids

#185

Post by clintmcmahon »

wffurr wrote: post #184

I'm missing the benefit to this over just adding on phone service to my cable internet bill.

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.

Re: Tin Can, a 'landline' for kids

#186

Post by clintmcmahon »

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.

Re: Tin Can, a 'landline' for kids

#187

Post by kotaKat »

Animats wrote: post #32
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…

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.

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.

Re: Tin Can, a 'landline' for kids

#188

Post by pqs »

mrweasel wrote: post #140
pqs wrote: post #117

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.

Depends on the country, but landlines are no long available for new customers and the cables are actively being removed.

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.

Re: Tin Can, a 'landline' for kids

#189

Post by pqs »

frodo76 wrote: post #126
pqs wrote: post #117

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.

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.

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?

Re: Tin Can, a 'landline' for kids

#190

Post by kotaKat »

nekusar wrote: post #163
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…

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.

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.
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