When Mr Justin Finn’s two elementary-schoolers come home, they’re not turning on the TV or grabbing an iPad. Instead, they head straight to the phone – not a smartphone, but a landline.
Calls come in on their cream-colored Tin Can, the US$100 (S$127) landline-inspired, Wi-Fi-enabled device that’s gone viral over the last 12 months.
“It’s not uncommon for the phone to start ringing within minutes,” Mr Finn said. “There is a real excitement around it that we have not seen with many other additions within the home.”
Since debuting in April 2025, the retro-styled device has become a hit, with hundreds of thousands sold, mostly thanks to word-of-mouth recommendations, according to the company.
That’s despite limited marketing and a small fundraising haul, including US$3.5 million over the summer and a US$12 million seed round in December 2025 led by Greylock Partners.
The Tin Can plugs into a wall outlet and includes a speakerphone, speed dial buttons and an answering machine feature.
The phone, which also comes in assorted bright colors, lets people make free calls between Tin Cans and to emergency services.
Users can also pay US$10 a month for the ability to ring and receive calls from parent-approved external numbers.
The device is available in the US and Canada.
Tin Can has found a welcome reception at a time when parents, educators and lawmakers are searching for an antidote to constant screen time.
Countries around the world are considering social media curbs for young users after Australia enacted a ban for under-16s.
In the US, meanwhile, Meta Platforms and Alphabet’s Google lost a landmark court case in Los Angeles last month brought by a 20-year-old woman who said her addiction to these platforms fueled mental health problems.
The Finn family received their Tin Can for free as part of a parent-led initiative at Nativity Parish School outside of Kansas City – one of a growing number of schools seeding the device to students in an attempt to curb social media addiction early on.
Orders from schools are among the fastest-growing market segment for Tin Cans, according to the Seattle-based company, Tin Can Untechnologies.
The startup has seen an “overwhelming demand” from education institutions, it told Bloomberg News, with thousands of administrators across the US considering bulk orders and coordinating how to get their communities on the network.
At the Nativity Parish School, about 95 per cent of kindergarten through fifth-grade families have signed on. Students know who to call from their phone by jotting down numbers in a paper directory, a nod to what people did last century when they wanted to ring someone.
Ms Tracy Foster, a mother of two kids attending the school, spearheaded the push.
“It’s hard for a lot of people to keep kids off of smartphones conceptually, but programs like this give them more tools so they feel like they can do it,” she said, adding that it is easier to delay smartphone use for an entire cohort than just one child here and there.
Ms Foster said she’s since received more than 100 inquiries from parents who want to replicate the program at their own schools.
Across the country, St. James’ Episcopal School in Los Angeles plans to hand out a Tin Can to each of its 220 families during pickup.
It hopes students will use the devices over the long summer break.
“We want our students to remain connected to each other and use this option rather than group texts or other ways they may have stayed in touch, which can sometimes lead to hurt feelings or having people feel left out,” said Ms Jules Leyser, director of advancement and communications at the school.
Chief executive officer Chet Kittleson, 38, founded Tin Can about a year and a half ago in response to the anxiety he felt around planning after-school playdates for his children.
Growing up in the ‘90s, he realised, the landline was his social network. He believes the way kids communicate today, via text or video call, does a disservice to building communication skills.
Everyone should know how to “navigate silence in a meaningfully different way,” he said, referring to the natural lulls in voice calls.
Finn said he quickly noticed significant progress in his kids’ manners. “They are more thoughtful in how they speak, better at listening, and just more confident overall,” he said.
However, Mr Finn’s kindergartner learned the hard way that 911 works on the Tin Can, resulting in a surprise visit to the family’s front door.
Mr Kittleson attributed the early word–of–mouth success of Tin Can to a growing wariness of smartphones, coupled with nostalgia among Gen X and millennial parents.
“We could have built some modern device and made it look all kid-ified,” Mr Kittleson said. “But I wanted this to be something immediately relatable to the buyer, the parent – something understood inherently that reminded them of their simple childhood because that’s what we’re all yearning for. That sort of played very well at helping us to grow quickly.”
Mr Kittleson said the biggest challenge now is keeping up with the rapid growth, hiring fast enough, investing in infrastructure and maintaining a reliable service that can scale.
After a surge of installations on Christmas Day, the company experienced server failures and apologised for the instability.
“It’s our job to deliver a really good, reliable product and service,” he said, adding his goal is to maintain the company’s current growth rate. “I think we will, and get there gracefully.” BLOOMBERG
