I want to set up a ‘home phone’ network for the kids in a couple of different households. The kids are too young to have their own phones, but are currently dependent on parents to contact each other in the way we did when we were kids
My idea at the moment is to set up an old Android phone on the wifi in each house with messenger or similar, then uninstall all other internet apps and lock down the play store
Does this sound like the best option? If there a better tool that is still cheap/free and will be relatively safe for the kids to use unattended?
SimpleX? It doesn’t need anythong other then internet. Not even an email or phone # to reg.
If you don’t have phone Sims/phone numbers then you can use something like Mumble.
I setup my own server locally and have a VPN to it. My kids phone can connect then and we can talk over a local LAN or with a VPN if I’m elsewhere.
Other than that. Discord?
I can easily get phone numbers to register a messenger account or similar, but not so interested in an ongoing cost like a dumb phone
None of the families are really home server types, so I would have to maintain any server client solution for them which is less than ideal
Is discord better than messenger, whether it’s ease of use, quality, privacy etc.?
Both Discord and Messenger have shit privacy practices. I’d try out Matrix or Conversations (XMPP). Niether require a phone number to work.
If you don’t mind using a phone number for registration, I’d recommend Signal.
Signal is probably going to be the simplest to use, but the other two are also pretty easy to get up and running relatively speaking.
Signal can do messaging and calling over wifi and can be set up with just a username.
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Ah dang, I forgot it was still needed during signup.
Thanks, if none of the parents are already using Signal I could get them to verify their own phone numbers - but that’s me assuming one-off SMS verification, not if you have to keep the SIM in the phone
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Why not just give them a dumb phone and save your phone number?
I have a few old Android phones around, and having a phone service would be a recurring cost (albeit small)
I also thought that having Messenger would restrict the calls to numbers that had already been connected to the account, rather than trying to restrict the numbers a phone can call
