Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Tin Can – The landline, reinvented for kids

tincan.kids

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 138 posts

Re: Tin Can – The landline, reinvented for kids

#51

Post by turnsout »

subhro wrote: post #43
turnsout wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Keep in mind, the main use case is allowing kids to call their friends and family and no one else. VoIP nerds out there, is there any simple PFSense equivalent for VoIP that would allow you to DIY this? Basically restrict inbound and outbound calls to a whitelist?

Yes, get a trunk from someone like BulkVS, SignalWire and run your own freeswitch or asterix. You can set up arbitrary “allowed” lists. Hell you can even get fancy with lookups and decide on the fly to allow a call or not. There are other comments about providers, but my way is way cheaper and you can run you EPBAX on a pi or even get a pre made VM from Azure, Amazon, etc. Damn I hate paying rent.

Whoa, love this. Do you have any recommended resources if I wanted to try this out? Any comments about FreeSWITCH vs Asterisk, or BulkVS vs Signalwire for a simple setup like this?

Re: Tin Can – The landline, reinvented for kids

#52

Post by floren »

actionfromafar wrote: post #47
ortusdux wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I vaguely recall that there was a time when cellphone companies were required to provide free 911 access. People that only wanted a phone for emergencies were advised to get one and not pay for service because it could still dial 911.

I think that still is the case in Europe?

It's still the case in the US, pop your SIM out and note it'll still say "Emergency calls only" on your lock screen.

Re: Tin Can – The landline, reinvented for kids

#53

Post by derwiki »

idkwhattocallme wrote: post #49

The local public elementary school blocked all chat programs on student chromebooks. The 3rd graders figured out that they could chat with another in a shared google doc. They had thousands of pages of chat before the teacher finally put an end to it. The teacher only found out because a kid shared that it was getting unruly during class. I share this because most kids have an ipad and are digital communication nativ…

3rd grade, sure. This seems like a great fit for my 3 year old and her friends who don't have unfettered iPad access.

Re: Tin Can – The landline, reinvented for kids

#54

Post by dylan604 »

J_McQuade wrote: post #33
floren wrote: post #5

Highly, highly, highly recommend you enable 911 calls by default on all plans -- let parents disable it if they want. Cell phones do this, even without a SIM card. Don't gate safety for $9.99/mo. Edit: "The FCC requires that providers of interconnected VoIP telephone services using the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) meet Enhanced 911 (E911) obligations." https://www.fcc.gov/consumers/guides/voip-and-911-ser…

I kinda get why they think they don't want to enable this, but when I was a kid I once called 999 (in the UK) as a joke and let me tell you it was only once. My friends and I were there in the room watching films that we shouldn't and the uniformed and kitted-out Constables turned up and gave us an incredibly stern dressing-down about 30 minutes later. Luckily, I am in the UK where a bunch of 12 year olds who've just…

Way back when, my toddler loved to play with the cordless phone, and just happened to be able to dial 911. a lot. We'd realize a connection was made but not who was on the other end and just hang up. Eventually, 911 called back inquiring why so many hang ups and if someone needed help. I was surprised they took our explanation without dispatching someone to follow up. Maybe that's different now as I know my city has a policy of all calls require a follow up even if it's hours to next day later when they know it's not an emergency

Re: Tin Can – The landline, reinvented for kids

#55

Post by winstonewert »

eterm wrote: post #46
davideg wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a really good point, though E911 probably costs the provider something. I wonder if they could offer 911 support at actual cost ($1-2/month).

> probably costs the provider something Yes, So what? Eat the cost. Any life saved was worth it.

Then I'm sure you're willing to donate the cash to make it happen.

Re: Tin Can – The landline, reinvented for kids

#56

Post by anotherhue »

idkwhattocallme wrote: post #49

The local public elementary school blocked all chat programs on student chromebooks. The 3rd graders figured out that they could chat with another in a shared google doc. They had thousands of pages of chat before the teacher finally put an end to it. The teacher only found out because a kid shared that it was getting unruly during class. I share this because most kids have an ipad and are digital communication nativ…

Google Wave!

Re: Tin Can – The landline, reinvented for kids

#57

Post by ars »

turnsout wrote: post #29
floren wrote: post #5

Highly, highly, highly recommend you enable 911 calls by default on all plans -- let parents disable it if they want. Cell phones do this, even without a SIM card. Don't gate safety for $9.99/mo. Edit: "The FCC requires that providers of interconnected VoIP telephone services using the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) meet Enhanced 911 (E911) obligations." https://www.fcc.gov/consumers/guides/voip-and-911-ser…

It's not arbitrary—if you look at your cellphone bill, there's a tax for 911 access. They could probably offer a cheaper plan with just 911, but they can't make it free. But I think $9.99 is fair all things considered. I'm not sure I see the safety issue. My 7 year-old currently doesn't have the ability to dial 911 without an adult's cellphone. If I give them a Tin Can that has no 911, they are no more or less safe t…

> they are no more or less safe than they were before.

I disagree. They think they can call 911 from it, so in an emergency they will try that, and fail, and try again (because things fail all the time in today's world), wasting a ton of time.

Without this device they would try some other plan, maybe go outside and scream for a passerby to help.

Re: Tin Can – The landline, reinvented for kids

#58

Post by tiagod »

derwiki wrote: post #50
tiagod wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And Dropbox is just rsync. The value is in the app for the parents. I would pay $10 not to deal with shitty VoIP interfaces.

Several comments in this thread give "Dropbox is just rsync" vibes. I'm curious how many of the commenters suggesting to DIY understand that having small children means essentially no free time to hack on something like that.

And it's mostly tech workers here. I would say most parents are not technically inclined. It would take the average Joe god knows how many hours to set something like this up. Even for a techie, and even if you value your time at only $10/h it would be worth it even if it took only a weekend of hacking something together, and you get something that was built specifically to your use-case.

Re: Tin Can – The landline, reinvented for kids

#59

Post by addisonj »

I am experiencing a strong sense of "why didn't I think of that" while also really hoping it isn't another strong, family friendly concept that gets quickly enshittified for profit.

Seriously, kudos, for a great concept, good website, and really, not that bad of pricing. Sure you can do it cheaper DIY... but where is the fun in putting an office-styled VOIP capable phone in a kid's bedroom? (though converting an old-phone to tunnel over VOIP sounds like a fun weekend project to do with my pre-teen)

But... dang, does it feel like yet another thing that will start great and get terrible over time or just dropped and be e-waste. Kid cell-phone plans that don't give me choice of provider, youth-focused budgeting/saving apps that are 4x more expensive than just a classic bank account and require an app to effectively use, and by far, worst of all, all the "kid" versions of tablets, youtube kids (which I can never get to not show ads even though I pay for premium!), that claim to give parents control... but really just seem like the minimum effort to make parents feel like they are putting in guardrails while still being designed to maximize the addiction early.

While I am really glad we are trying to build tech that helps kids have a better relationship each other while still using technology... it seems like most still fall to pressure of profit and either term into extremely over-priced offering that is hard to justify or can't make it and turn into junk with no re-use.

Once again, this product, right now, does not look to be that... but now having been bit a few times, I am much more cautious and either worry it will become e-waste or the price jacked up by 3x what it is today.

Re: Tin Can – The landline, reinvented for kids

#60

Post by __float »

winstonewert wrote: post #55
eterm wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> probably costs the provider something Yes, So what? Eat the cost. Any life saved was worth it.

Then I'm sure you're willing to donate the cash to make it happen.

This should be such an infrequent occurrence that the cost should be negligible. Surely their $10/month plan has enough margin that this can be covered?
Post reply on HN