Ask HN: Best way to get a land line for my kids?

2 xrd 6 8/10/2025, 3:51:28 PM
If you are a parent like me, perhaps you'll understand this. My kids spend way too much time on their phones.

As we start the new school year, I want to add a "land line" to my house so I can tell them "devices are off at 8:30! If you urgently need to make a call, go ahead and use this land line."

I am hopeful this will mean they don't "just need to text someone" and then get sucked into the void of their smart phone addictions until all hours of the night, damaging their fragile sleep patterns.

Of course, I don't really want a land line. I want a SIP phone that connects via Plivo or Twilio. I've been looking on eBay and others to find an inexpensive cordless version that I can easily connect to Plivo.

I'm confused, however, what the difference is between a SIP phone, a DECT phone, Bluetooth and a WiFi phone, and if those can all be used with Plivo/Twilio.

For example this link:

https://www.voipsupply.com/voip-phones/cordless

Anyone have suggestions on going down this path? Do I need to run a PBX on one of my machines?

I figure the least expensive way is just direct to Plivo. The pay-as-you-go plan seems to be about $0.005 a minute inbound, $0.01 a minute outbound. That's easily worth my sanity.

https://www.plivo.com/pricing/

Comments (6)

abbycurtis33 · 9m ago
Your kids don't need to urgently make a call after 8:30.
al_borland · 1h ago
This YouTube video showed up in my feed a while back where a dad setup a whole phone system so his daughters could have landline phones. This might be overkill, or exactly what you want. Either way, I imagine it will give you some ideas.

https://youtu.be/fdM1V98iIQI

sugarpimpdorsey · 1h ago
Why don't you just get a "LTE phone adapter" where you pop in a sim card, plug an analog phone into it, and be done? Sure beats fiddling with SIP and jesus christ Asterisk to do something very simple and not worth any more time and maintenance.
xrd · 35m ago
This is exactly the kind of comment I was hoping for. Thanks!

But, I'm unclear that this is very cost effective. For example, is this the kind of device you mean?

https://twenty7tech.com/product/pots-adapater/

That's $300 and then requires a SIM card as well, right? So, let's say I use a cheap one from Tello that is $6/mo.

That's still a lot more than using Plivo/Twilio with a SIP phone, right?

stop50 · 1h ago
I use an number of an sip provider that allows time based routing. Outgoing is still possible for mobile phones, but when i set it, it straightly goes to voicemail.
xrd · 34m ago
Edit: Oh, you said SIP... Thanks, I'll review.

You are suggesting I get the kids to use a SIM I control?

My kids split time at my house and their mom's so I don't see this being an easy solution. But, it is an interesting idea.