DUMBEST PHONE

Kids are going wild for a new landline-like device called the Tin Can, even though they barely know how to use it.

- BY ANNA HOLMES

IN LATE DECEMBER, the 21st to be exact, my friends Amos and Clara called me 17 times. On December 22 it was eight times. The calls were short— sometimes only 30 to 45 seconds, and they usually arrived when I was doing something important: working, grocery shopping, napping. “Hi Anna,” one or both of them would say. “Hi!” I'd respond.

If anyone else called me that often I’d block their number. But Amos is 6 years old, and Clara is 9, and what happened is that on December 20, the siblings received a newly released, extremely old-school kids’ phone for Hanukkah. And for the next week or so, the two of them couldn’t stop calling. And I, for one, couldn’t stop picking up.

The Tin Can, as it’s called, came out last April and has sold more than 100,000 units without much paid advertising. It’s basically a “dumb phone” that works over a WiFi network—alandline without the line. It has no screen. Its surface has only buttons, a receiver, and a speaker. Unlike a kid’s smartwatch or typical dumb phone, which adults might buy for logistical reasons—keeping tabs on a child’s location, coordinating pickups—the Tin Can is more about getting kids to focus on voice. Using it, hearing it, holding conversations. (One user on X suggested, jokingly, that children start writing chain letters next.)

The standard Tin Can, which comes in four colorways and costs $100, looks like a candy-colored soup can. A “retro” model called The Flashback appears nearly identical to an old-school cradle phone and also retails at $100. Calls between Tin Cans are free, but the company charges $10 a month to call outside the Tin Can network. Parents set the hours for when calls can happen and add numbers to an approved caller list—only calls to and from those numbers go through.