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Comment by atourgates | Hacker News Reader

My life is basically the family in this ad, and I just have a hard time imagining how one of these would make anything better.

Everyone in our family who sould have access to calendars/facetime/messages/etc. already does. It's overkill for just a smart speaker.

I guess maybe the kids who are too young to have their own device could more easily call their grandparents?

Cool hardware and a surprisingly affordable price, I just don't have a use case for it.

EDIT: The wall mounted version seems like a better form-factor though. Doesn't take up counter/table space at least.

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For families who want to reduce screen time and device reliance this could be a very good alternative to everyone having their own device.

wait until someone designs an old school wireless home phone to connect to it. we'll come full circle.

Something like this https://tincan.kids/?

This already exists: https://flipply.co.uk/

Tincans are huge right now with the elementary age kids at least (my 2nd grader is my only frame of reference)

Like some sort of shared communication device that's larger, sits on a counter, and is plugged into the wall?

What a novel idea.

Fax machine? Genuinely not sure what you mean. Is the answer just "a computer" ?

Because while yes, that's true, this apparently recognises the different users. So presumably if a child is using it, that will be under managed parameters set by a parent - meaning that it's much harder for the child to circumvent.

They likely refer to a classic landline phone..

Yeah, the grandparents scenario was exactly why I immediately bought it. Younger kids with limited screen time. The grandparents call our phones to talk to them and vice versa. I'm curious how this will work for my kids who don't have apple devices/accounts.

We're old school and use a dry erase board on the fridge for our calendar, so a centralized device would be nice. We tried using an old iPad, but it was more clunky to turn it on, click on the app each time. We did try kiosk mode, but it was terrible when we needed the device for something else.

> I guess maybe the kids who are too young to have their own device could more easily call their grandparents?

You overestimate how little they want to call grandparents vs getting on youtube

>home, always on recording

It’s not surprising they made it cheap

They’re trying to compete with all the other creepy Flock-at-Home brands

Its only purpose is to disrupt competitors

always on recording means you are the product and they can train off of you and be even more embedded in your life.

Apple has a better track record in this regard, do you have any recent evidence that this trust is unfounded?

Corporations don’t respond to you or me, they operate and plan competitively

Is Apple some magical fairy thing in your mind, or is it a corporation with shareholders

You have literally no idea what apple’s track record is, you may think you do

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