[Christine]: I'm Christine Ziemba Piscatelle and you're listening to the Wirecutter show.

Hey, it's Christine. If you're a parent, a grandparent, an aunt, an uncle, a teacher, you know that one of the greatest parenting struggles these days is to get kids off of screens. Summer break is here and I know this is going to be the biggest challenge over the summer with my own kids. And you may also have noticed a growing trend of nostalgia for old tech. Point and shoot cameras, iPods, CD players and DVD players and MP3 players.

Some people call some of this 90s tech. There's an appeal, even for adults, to using a device that isn't going to suck you into emails or a social feed. Today, I'm going to talk about one of these throwbacks, the landline. Well, not exactly a landline, Wi-Fi phones. They look like a landline, but they work using the internet. And there's an increasing number of these phones made specifically for kids. I'm going to speak with one of Wirecutter's baby and kid editors, Rachel Hearn, about why parents are getting these phones, what to consider if you're interested in one, and we'll discuss one of the phones we've tested. It's called the Tin Can.

Rachel, welcome to the show.

[Rachel]: Hi, it's so fun to be here. Thanks for having me.

[Christine]: You have two kids and you also have one of these phones we're talking about today, a Tin Can. So, I've been seeing articles for the last few years about the rise in popularity of landlines. So, parents in a lot of parts of the country have been sort of getting on the bandwagon. They don't want their kids on cell phones, so they've been agreeing to get landlines so their kids can call each other. But, in your experience, why go to this sort of older type of tech?

[Rachel]: Right. I mean, I do think you know, there's definitely a push to delay smartphones as long as possible. And so, when kids are asking for a phone, it's like, "Okay, here's your phone." But, also I think at the heart of this is it's about having real conversations, you know, like learning to actually talk to someone without distractions. My daughter used to kind of just walk around the house when she FaceTimed with my parents and was barely answering their questions or just kind of like making faces. But, now she sits on this corner of the couch where the phone is plugged in and actually talks to them. And my mom could not be more thrilled. She made a point of wanting me to stress to you and to all the families who are listening that she just feels like it's completely changed their relationship with my older daughter. Not my younger daughter, though. She's two, so she just sort of screams into the phone and walks away.

[Christine]: So, it's really just not having the distraction of a screen, the distraction of things that you can do on a smartphone. It's really having to just... You're just listening. You're just listening on one of these phones and you're sitting in one spot.

[Rachel]: Yeah. And for me as a parent, there's a whole other factor, which is this kind of like personal assistant factor that we bring up in the piece that we published about the tin can, which you know, my daughter was constantly asking me to text so-and-so's mom and set up a playdate and have they answered yet? And she's like looking at my phone to see if there a text message has popped up. And now, like we're lucky enough to live in a small neighborhood, you know, set off from any busy roads, and there's lots of kids her age, and she can just call them up and be like, "Do you want to meet me at the rock?" Which is like a big rock in the middle of our neighborhood. And even for friends who live across town, she's doing this. This past weekend it was a rainy Sunday. She wanted to invite her friend over for a movie date and so she called this friend who has a landline. You know, we were like that's great and then of course the girl's mom texted me a few minutes later and said like is this a real invitation? I'm like yes it is. Yes it is. And then they came over but that really didn't take any planning on my part. I'm finding that the phone gives her a lot of independence and a way for her to amuse herself and fill up her time without asking me for help to do that.

[Christine]: I love that. As a parent of two kids, that's what I want for them. I don't want to have to be involved in setting up play dates.

[Christine]: How is this type of phone different from an old school landline?

[Rachel]: Actual landline phones like the ones you and I had growing up, our parents had growing up, our grandparents had growing up, connect to a network with physical copper wires. Whereas Wi-Fi phones use a technology called VoIP, voice over internet protocol, which allows you to make calls using your broadband internet connection. This is not new and one company in particular, Ooma, has been around for something like 20 years. But Tin Can has really been leading the pack in these VoIP phones designed for kids and marketed to parents.

[Christine]: And just for because people are listening to this, they don't know what this looks like, these phones look like old school corded phone that you would use, right?

[Rachel]: Yes, totally. These especially are embracing that like 80s, 90s look. Bright colors, squishy tactile buttons, those long twisty phone cords that you can wrap around your finger. I don't know if you've heard of the term 90s summer that?

[Christine]: I'm planning to have one personally, yeah.

[Rachel]: Yes. Yes. Well, it's essentially nostalgic millennial parents who are longing to give their kids the kind of childhood that they had, you know, like a head home when the street lights come on kind of vibe.

[Christine]: So you just mentioned that this VoIP calling technology has been around for a long time. You've been able to use these Wi-Fi landlines for a long time, but there's this new crop of phones like the Tin Can. How are these different than the other Wi-Fi landlines that you can get?

[Rachel]: So the kids versions of these phones do lean heavily on the aesthetics of the device itself. From what I can tell, the offerings on the different kids versions are not actually that different from the adult versions of VoIP phones. Almost all of them feature things like free in-phone to in-phone calling. So like if you have a Tin Can and your friend has a Tin Can, and you just want to call other Tin Cans, you don't have to pay for a subscription. You only pay that monthly subscription if you want to call any number. If you want to call grandma's cell phone, for example. Other VoIP phones offer that, too. So yeah, you can also have a controlled contact list where you manage which numbers you can call and which numbers can call you, which basically means you don't have any spam calls. And you can also set quiet hours where you can make it so that you can't make or receive calls during certain times. So my family's Tin Can is set so that between 8:00 p.m. and 8:00 a.m. no one can call us. And when my 8-year-old daughter tries to call someone during those hours, there's a message that's basically like, "Aw, shucks. You can't call that number right now." or something like that.

[Christine]: Well, so tell me a little bit cuz some of these have a subscription option, right? So like $10 a month for certain features. What do those features include?

[Rachel]: Well, so for the most part, those features do include that controlled contact list. At least that's certainly the case for Tin Can where yeah, if you have the can-to-can plan, you can call other Tin Cans for free. But if you want to call your mom's cell phone number, your grandma, like your friend who has a landline and doesn't have one of these VoIP phones, or they have a VoIP phone and it's not a tin can. So, that's where that like $9.99 a month comes into play.

[Christine]: You mentioned that we published a piece about the tin can, and something that I really like about this piece is there's a very vigorous conversation in the comment section.

[Rachel]: Yes.

[Christine]: And I noticed a lot of people kind of saying, "Why not just get a landline?" So, I'm going to pose that to you. Why not just get a traditional copper wire landline instead of one of these VoIP internet phones?

[Rachel]: Yes, it's a very heated discussion, which has been fun to watch unfold. And the thing that I just want to say to all these people is that landlines aren't maintained everywhere anymore. I mean, more and more landline services are being phased out. In fact, AT&T has clearly stated that they're only offering new landlines to certain parts of California and Nevada. I've heard comments about how telecommunications field technicians don't even know how to repair or maintain copper wires. Like, they're just not being taught this. And so, the industry is heavily shifting in the direction of not having them anymore.

[Christine]: Okay, so then another argument I saw in the comments was, "Why not just get a dumb cell phone instead of one of these internet VoIP phones? Just a flip phone or something."

[Rachel]: Right. And some kids a flip phone is great. And we on our baby and kid team, we do recommend a flip phone as a way to avoid smartphones for longer. But, I think the big point here is undistracted calling. And you're still not getting that with a flip phone. Like, you can text, there are games. I think of the many hours I spent playing Nokia's Snake. I don't know if you...

[Christine]: I completely missed that. I'm a little too old, but I know that it's a real touchstone for a lot of millennials.

[Rachel]: Yes. Um, and with texting, like for me I hate how addicted I am to texting and I love that my daughter can just call up a neighbor and ask if they want to come over to play and she's not opening up a phone and then seeing a text from someone else and getting distracted and yeah, so I think that's a big part of it.

[Christine]: I think that one of the pleasures of one of these internet phones is something that I'm seeing bear out in my own life. My neighbor downstairs has one of them for her daughter and about once a week I get a prank call from my own daughter from that phone. So I don't think anybody's prank calling from flip phones, you know?

[Rachel]: Yeah, that's so true. I did not tell my daughter about prank calling and she actually she uses the phone probably more to do that than she does to talk to people, so yeah, she does it all the time.

[Christine]: We're going to take a quick break and then Rachel, we're going to talk about some of the brands making kids specific landline style phones and the pros and cons of using these Wi-Fi enabled phones. We'll be right back.

Welcome back. Rachel, before the break we talked a little bit about the Tin Can which is a phone you have and we have a piece on the site that a writer Allison Rochford wrote and we'll link to that in the show notes. I want to dig in a little bit more into the Tin Can specifically. What do you think the pros and cons of this specific phone are?

[Rachel]: So the only real problem so far that I can see is the waiting list.

[Christine]: Right, so there's been a long wait list for people to even get this phone.

[Rachel]: Yes, I mean there's been these pre-orders and then you get the phone a couple months later, a month later. People are finding that really frustrating.

[Christine]: And how expensive is this phone?

[Rachel]: So, the phone itself is $100 and then, like I said, you can either choose to have the free plan where you just call other Tin Can phones or you pay $9.99 a month to call any phone number that you approve of. And, you know, people are saying that that price tag feels expensive, which is fair. But, the competitors are all going to cost between 60 to 100 bucks. So, it doesn't feel ridiculous to me.

[Christine]: And so, who are those competitors? What are some other brands making this style of phone?

[Rachel]: So, Ooma, who I mentioned before, now makes the My Phone. Pinwheel, who makes one of the picks in our guide to the best first phone for kids, just came out with Pinwheel Home, which is also geared towards households with kids. And then, there's a very new competitor on the market called Ring Ring which I actually learned about through our comments section.

[Christine]: Are you planning on testing any of these phones?

[Rachel]: We haven't tested these phones yet, but there is a growing interest even among our own staff with kids and nieces and nephews who are wanting to get on this train. So, you never know. We actually just hosted a bring your kids to work day at the Wirecutter offices and it was really fun to introduce our kids to each other and then you leave thinking like, oh, well, if they get a Tin Can, then my daughter can call their daughter or whatever and keep in touch. So, yeah, we'll see. Maybe we'll test all kinds.

[Christine]: To be explored in the future about whether you'll actually test them.

[Christine]: I am very curious about getting one of these phones. Like I mentioned, my neighbor has one and I think even in our own building or my neighbor's kid and my kid would have a lot of fun calling each other. I have pretty spotty Wi-Fi. I think everybody who works with me knows this. So, I'm curious, am I a bad candidate for getting one of these phones?

[Rachel]: Yeah, that's a great question and ultimately one that I can't completely answer right now, but when I did chat with one of the founders of the Tin Can, that is Chet Kittleson, he said that they're a small company with customer service people and that they're happy to troubleshoot. And so, they do that and some customers have needed to make really minor adjustments, like literally moving the phone closer to their router, you know, and he basically said if you have internet and you're able to run other internet connected devices or apps, the phone should work. But, you know, I have also experienced your spotty Wi-Fi.

[Christine]: You have. You did. This week.

[Rachel]: So, yeah, for you, I would say it's worth just ordering one and if it's spotty and it doesn't work, you can ask for a refund and they did confirm that they would be happy to do that.

[Christine]: Well, it seems like an obvious downside to these phones though would be if your internet goes down, it's not going to work, right?

[Rachel]: For sure. And it's worth saying that that's true of any Wi-Fi phone. The phone will only work if it has internet connection and is plugged into the wall, which as you know, is a big reason why people are holding on to their landlines, especially if they're in remote rural areas or places that have a lot of storms, like Maine and lose power and it's kind of their lifeline. It's just not clear how long that service is going to be available. It's actually unsurprising that a number of people are getting this for their elderly parents, for example, who have a hard time using a cell phone. It's easier for them to just use a regular phone, the kind that they've known their whole lives.

[Christine]: What about emergencies? Can you call 911 with this phone if 911 isn't one of the approved phone numbers on the list?

[Rachel]: You can, for sure. And I think that's a big thing that people making these phones have taken into consideration. I think there's even a way for you know, you can log your address so that it's even faster to get help in an emergency. But with Tin Can anyway, you can also disable that function if you're worried your kids will call 911 like as a prank.

[Christine]: This has been great, Rachel. We'd love to have you back on the show. Thanks for joining today.

[Rachel]: Thanks. It's been really fun.

[Christine]: If you want to find out more about Wirecutter's coverage, or if you want to check out the products we recommended today, go to nytimes.com/wirecutter, or find a link in the show notes. We'll also drop a helpful article Rachel just edited about screen-free devices titled Eight Ways to Create a Light Tech Summer for your kids. That's it for us till next week. Thanks for listening.

The Wirecutter Show is executive produced by Rosie Gray and produced by Abigail Keel. Engineering support from Maddie Massielo and Nick Pittman. Today's episode was mixed by Catherine Anderson. Original music by Dan Powell, Maryann Lozano, Rowan Nemisto, Catherine Anderson and Diane Wong. Cliff Levy is Wirecutter's deputy publisher and general manager. Ben Furman is Wirecutter's editor-in-chief. I'm Christine Siracusa. Thanks for listening.