The screen-free Tin Can home phone, which works over Wi‑Fi, has noticeably grown in popularity over the past year among families with primary school-aged children in the US. Parents who have already tested the device say it helps children practise phone and communication skills while also allowing them to postpone buying a first smartphone or smartwatch.
A mother of three from Michigan, Danielle Berwick, says her 10, 8 and 6-year-olds now argue not over a smartphone, but over who will be the first to call friends on the Tin Can as soon as they have news from school. She notes that the gadget has given the children more independence in arranging meet-ups, and left her with less “secretarial” work.
According to Berwick, the screen-free phone has become an alternative to smart devices that give children access to social media. She sees Tin Can as a safer way to stay in touch, one that does not drag them into endless feeds of content and games.
At the same time, some parents are unsure whether the purchase, at around 100 dollars, will pay off, or whether it will just become yet another unused device gathering dust on the kitchen counter. The manufacturer and current users offer one main piece of advice: find or build a community of people around your family who also use Tin Can.
The company’s co-founder and CEO, Chet Kittleson, reported that in August Tin Can recorded its highest ever sales, with users making around 2 million outgoing calls a week. This suggests that children are actively phoning one another even during a period when the company usually sees a summer dip in traffic.
To support such “networks”, the company has launched the Communities programme – for schools, sports clubs and other groups that can order phones in bulk at a discount. This is how the Berwick family got their Tin Can: the mum, who heads the parent–teacher association, contacted the company about taking part in the programme and included information and a link in the school’s summer newsletter. As a result, hundreds of parents applied to buy the device.
Another mother, Killian Mandel from Missouri, took a different route: she simply gave a Tin Can to each of her four children for Christmas, knowing that their cousins would be getting the same presents. Because of the pre-Christmas surge in demand, the service temporarily had outages, but she says the company resolved the issues, and orders are now fulfilled within three working days.
Once the phone was up and running, Mandel’s children (11, 9, 7 and 4) learnt basic phone etiquette: how to hold the receiver, how to answer a call. The youngest uses speed dial to phone cousins independently. Later, Mandel also involved the school’s parent organisation: after 10 days of publicising the Communities programme, 48 parents signed up to buy a Tin Can.
Some schools and sports clubs are already putting together their own directories of numbers so children can easily find friends’ contact details. In parallel, Tin Can is working on a built-in directory intended to reduce the burden on parents. A key feature of the device is that every number must be pre-approved and added via the Tin Can mobile app, and only then can the phone receive calls from that line.
Kittleson calls active parents like Berwick and Mandel “connectors”. When they take on the role of initiators at school, on the street or in the community, it becomes easier for others to get on board and make a purchase, knowing their child will have a circle of people to talk to. Communities participants also benefit from additional discounts, simplified delivery options and extra features. According to the company head, such communities are successfully forming both in small towns and in affluent urban neighbourhoods across the US.
At the same time, using Tin Can comes with its own challenges. Berwick’s eldest is keen to use the phone, but some of their friends already have their own smartphones while others do not, so the contact circle is limited. At Mandel’s, the older teenager is less interested in the Tin Can because their peers are more likely to communicate via messaging apps on phones and smartwatches.
Because the device works over home Wi‑Fi, any internet problems are immediately reflected in the quality of the connection: there may be an “echo” on the line or an inability to make or receive a call. During home testing, journalists encountered such issues, and the company has recently released an update to reduce the echo effect.
Despite this, Berwick and Mandel believe that when Tin Can is organically woven into everyday family life, its impact becomes tangible. In their view, it restores for children a form of real-time conversation and independence that has almost disappeared since the arrival of smartphones. Kittleson stresses that for many users Tin Can becomes a genuine home phone without apps and algorithms, helping to maintain contact between children and parents without unnecessary distractions.