Fisher Price Chatter Telephone with Bluetooth
fisher-price.com
fisher-price.com
Can't tell if this is inspired by market research, or if someone at the company simply had the freedom to create something that's just fun. Kinda wish it's the latter.
Phone has wheels
wonderful
there is a product demo video that does not load on the mobile app i browse HN with. you simply must see it, it is nearly a work of art.
if they werent sold out i would buy 4 of them for nieces, nephews, and my WFH desk.
"The past has finally arrived"
"Numbers. Colors. Eyes."
They could have totally reused the same, respectable jokes from the product description in the video, but they did something new. This is art.
> Bluetooth® range: 15 feet; Fun: unlimited
On the other hand, how many children have actually seen any adult use any phone like this (rotary, or even any other landline)
Also, I'm sorry for the various typos in the previous post.
https://www.t-mobile.com/support/account/change-your-billing...
https://www.verizon.com/support/knowledge-base-214957/
https://asecare.att.com/tutorials/officehand-e-911-emergency...
“Its intuitive bulky face design comes with a 'super-advanced' rotary dial”
...that connects to a cloud server 'somewhere'.
...for which the app suppliers want: my location and access to my microphone, camera and contacts - and the app won't install or run if you start denying access.
Nope, not happening.
I wish I was more of a hacker/programmer because I'd like to do some protocol sniffing and create a connector for Node-Red so that I could link the appliance to my home automation system without becoming a personal data asset for the manufacturer.
I'd consider myself 'aware' rather than 'paranoid', but if we extrapolate for a minute....Some function or app on the phone (or distant cloud service) can recognise the MAC address of the Fisher price phone's bluetooth PHY and, coupled with GPS info, we have a location where there's possibly a young child (or an older one in their home office!). Maybe, worse case, your targeted ads contain more children's toys.
That’s not how MAC addresses work. Once a packet crosses a router, the packet appears to come from the MAC address of the router.
So for example a web site you connect to has no idea what your MAC address is.
...unless you (or the app you're running) tells it.
But, yeah, you're not wrong for IP networking - however, an app on the phone could forward the MAC address of the bluetooth connected device.
But you are correct that regular apps can't address the MAC address of connected Bluetooth devices, so the tracking vulnerability that OP is suggesting isn't really possible.
"Connects to your mobile device with Bluetooth® wireless technology to make and receive calls through your existing phone plan—no additional line required (Compatible with IOS and Android™ devices)"
Calling random people doesn’t seem like something that’s a good idea.
The closest I could find to it saying that was the customer questions, one of which was answered with, “This one is intended for adult collectors.”
You may find this post (https://ptx2.net/posts/unbricking-a-bike-with-a-raspberry-pi...) inspirational.
Could these things be virtualized? And provide a fixed location, silent sound, and an empty contact list to whatever applications you don't trust?
I agree, but I doubt it will happen. It was already a battle to get the permissions in android as fine-grained as they are. Even though they are fine-grained now, the permissions don't mean anything when every app demands that you give it everything it asks for (even though it clearly does not need them to work).
I haven't kept up with it, it needs a rooted phone and Xposed Framework, and some apps don't like that and stop working.
But in an older version of this app, you can set it to prompt you for any activity the app wants to do, e.g. read clipboard or phone status, where you can say "Allow/deny always, allow/deny for 10 minutes" etc.
I might have used something like XPrivacy. https://github.com/M66B/XPrivacy
Ironically, those are probably more expensive. Privacy has become a commodity.
I'm perfectly happy using appliances like it's the pre-smartphone era but the moment using an app becomes _required_ is when I'll flip my shit
I got a Soothe’n’Snuggle for my 3 year old child and it is a full on sleep-inducing soft robot. It works. Very sophisticated for less than $40.
https://www.fisher-price.com/en-gb/product/soothe-n-snuggle-...
Sorry, I find it a bit annoying when people make broad conclusions about a large group of people while ignoring sampling bias.
(because it's quite clear to me that many many people on HN act like it's some kind of hivemind collective, and so it continually needs to be pointed out)
Last month people were angry they released a lazier version of their toy, and today they're praised for their efforts on new toys.
People like nice things.
A normal stuffed toy now has the same effect as a sound and "breathing" one, she holds it and goes to sleep and when she doesn't want to sleep the toy makes no difference.
Funny thing is he’s 8 months old now and I’m not sure he actually likes having it play the music any more? He’s learned to turn it off by pressing his face against the stomach… not every time though. But when he doesn’t want it on, he very deliberately crawls over to it, presses his nose to it, and it turns it off. At least he can decide when he doesn’t want it on!
Love their marketing speak here :)
it actually seems to be made for adults with the Bluetooth connecting to the mobile phone for real calls.
I suppose I should be a better uncle and call my nieces and nephews sometime, cute phone or no cute phone. There’s just so freaking many of them now.
Seems to clearly target adults.
"Bulky design" "Colors"
I'm waiting for the Elf on the Shelf to become Amazon Ring enabled.
"He sees you when you're sleeping. He knows when you're awake. He knows if you've been bad or good..."
Nurseries have a lot of old books, and TV channels repeat a lot of old cartoons & other shows, so a kid may be exposed to old-style phones in passing quite a lot. And “in passing” is enough at that stage, when a growing brain readily hoovers up any and all available information.
I've found the answer to pretty much every "how do they know that?" is "A TV show". Although now that the older one can read and is in-person school, the answer is increasingly "Books" or "Someone at school".
Eventually I gave him a real handset from an old rotary phone to play with. He might never have the experience of calling someone on it, but babies are at least able to figure out pretty quickly how to use these things in play.
It's the thing they see at grandma and grandpa's house.
I guess call centre employees would count too but that would be just cruel.
Security through obscurity doesn't work.
That's why we build defense in layers. The obscurity layer is extraordinarily effective for the effort it requires. It also keeps log files clean!
Bluetooth is for making actual calls via your phone, just like a bluetooth headset.
This is aimed at adults.
Ideal yankee swap gift, IMO. Too bad it is out of stock.
The thing that kids love about communicating on mobile phones is video. They love to see themselves and love to see you. I would be very surprised if a 3 year old would prefer this over a WhatsApp video call / facetime.
> Your childhood is calling, now you can actually answer.
> A real-working phone for a real adult desk
> The Fisher-Price® Chatter Telephone® toy has been helping littles get walking and talking since 1961. To commemorate this incredible milestone, we’re inviting you to give your childhood a call with a real, working Chatter Telephone™ desk phone! Let’s remember what it was like to be little. When everything in the world could be something to play with and all it took was a little imagination to make something really fun happen. Let’s get down on the floor, sing at trees, spend less time growing up and a little more time growing down. Let’s be kids.
This product was made for adults. It's a joke / nostalgia play. Limited edition at Best Buy, while supplies last.
I want to use this during video calls for work, where people can see me listen and speak into the thing.
This sold out within hours of being released, so I'm pretty sure it already did :)
I want this for that feature alone. Make a second model that looks like a Bell/Western Electric rotary phone and weighs enough you could bludgeon someone with it.
Since when is a rotary phone intuitive? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHNEzndgiFI
“Press the speakerphone button to chat hands-free”
Had a quick listen and it does sound like the right track.
https://i.imgur.com/wFUvj1F.jpg
When you land you get a full-screen Cookies consent dialog (which according to another poster ignores the preferences you choose), overlayed by a notifications dialog.
https://brian.carnell.com/articles/2017/fisher-price-soul-cr...
Standards are more a guidance.
(or were, back then)
I'm only half kidding.
The bluetooth standard is very heavy on the architecture astronaut factor and light on the specification. It isn't so much a "standard" as an anthology of visions for wireless connectivity, each of which delegates all of the important decisions to the layer above. Which means that all of the decisions wind right back up in the implementer's lap, and the implementer has to sort out the compatibility matrix the old fashioned way, one compatible partner stack at a time. But everything still has to be built out of the lego pieces the architecture astronauts came up with, of course. Ugh.
It's like if someone asked for a standard to send mail, and instead of SMTP they came up with "The English Language." All the necessary degrees of freedom are there, but it doesn't constrain the problem space, so it's almost completely useless as a standard.
EDIT: No, that's too simple, a lot of people already speak The English Language. Klingon, then. All the necessary degrees of freedom are there...
Why advertise when you can create a product people want to talk about?
It's the fisher price of Amazon delivery drones.
> This product is not intended for kids.