Home Phone Support

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What you need

A family with kids uses two phones:

A spare iPhone or Android phone that stays at home.
It lives on the kitchen counter, like an old-school landline the whole family shares.
Tip: put it on an inexpensive phone stand (easy to find online) and keep it plugged in to charge.

Your own phone, with Home Phone installed.
The parent account is the admin: it sets up the household, connects the home phone, and adds friends and family.
Every connection needs a parent’s approval, so only people you choose can call.

You don’t need a home phone or a household. Just use your own phone:

Install Home Phone, tap I’m family, sign in with Apple or Google, and enter your name.
Your phone shows a code. Send it to the family’s parent.
Once they enter it, you can call the kids’ home phone, and they can call you.

You can be connected to more than one family. You can call a family’s home phone, but not the parents’ own phones.

On your phone: open Home Phone, tap I’m a parent, and sign in with Apple or Google.
On the home phone: open Home Phone, tap I’m a parent, then Home phone. It shows a six-digit code.
On your phone: go to Menu → Manage household → Home phone, and enter the code.

Leave Home Phone open. It’s the only screen your kids need.
Keep the screen on: on iPhone, Settings → Display & Brightness → Auto-Lock → Never. On Android, Settings → Display → Screen timeout → the longest option.
Keep it plugged in, with the volume up and Do Not Disturb off.

If the screen does lock, calls still ring like a regular phone call.

Invite codes work once and expire after 3 hours.

Grandparents, aunts, uncles and friends: they set up on their own phone and send you a code. Enter it in Manage household → Friends & family.
Another family: in Manage household → Friends & family, make an invite code and send it to their parent. Once they enter it, your home phones can call each other.
A second parent: in Manage household → Parents, make an invite code for them to enter on their phone.

That’s it! Your home phone is ready to ring.

The home phone doesn’t ring: check it’s online (Wi-Fi or cellular), then check the ready-to-ring settings above.
A call won’t connect or sounds choppy: make sure both phones have a good internet connection and try again. If it keeps happening, tell us roughly when it happened.
New or replacement home phone: set it up as in Step 1 and enter its code. The old phone is disconnected automatically.

Just a phone: voice calls only. No texting, video, feeds or ads.
Not for emergencies: Home Phone can’t call emergency services. Use a regular phone and your local emergency number.
Safety: share invite codes only with people you know. If someone calls who shouldn’t, remove their family in Manage household → Friends & family and tell us.
Deleting your account: parents, Manage household → Delete account. On the home phone, Privacy & support → Delete account. The privacy policy explains exactly what’s deleted.