Funkle Fone is made by one person in California — and that's who answers you. Send a note from the contact form and I'll usually get back to you within a day.
Everything you can do — see who your child can message, approve or remove a contact, see how long messages are kept, download or delete their data, and withdraw consent — lives in your console. Sign in with the email and password on the account; there is no private link to lose. Password not working yet? Use Forgot your password? on that page — the reset email confirms it's really your inbox, and it works with the same address you consented with.
Set a device up for yourself rather than for a child? The same console is yours — it simply re-words itself for your own account, and the controls are the same.
Nobody at Funkle Fone listens to your child's messages. The only exception is if you explicitly turn on time-boxed support access by asking us for it (it expires on its own), or where the law requires it for a safety report. Details: Privacy Policy.
The one idea. It's a walkie-talkie mailbox with a face. The whole screen is one big button — nothing to browse, nothing to type.
The three moves. Press and hold the screen, talk, let go — that sends. See a speech bubble with a “!”? Tap once to hear it. Tap to switch people — the name and the color show who you're talking to. The Funkle Fone teaches these itself: a small hint breathes on the screen until each move has been done a couple of times.
Reading the face. Every person is a color, and the screen floods with the color of whoever you're pointed at. Speech bubbles mean messages waiting. Little corner dots mean sends they haven't heard yet. A dark screen is just sleeping — press it. A sad face saying NO WIFI means the internet's out; hold the screen to open WiFi setup.
Sounds. It chimes when a message lands, and gently reminds while one sits unheard. Quiet Hours silences everything the Funkle Fone starts on its own — you set it in your console, under Devices.
The grown-up door. There are no menus on the Funkle Fone — nothing for a child to wander into, and nothing to undo. Everything a grown-up sets — who they can talk to, the volume, Quiet Hours — lives in your console, on your own phone. The one thing that is on the device: a rapid triple-tap on any screen opens a small info card — whose Funkle Fone it is, its software version and the network it's on. It changes nothing; it's there so you can read those back to me if you ever need help. Press and hold that card to open WiFi setup.
The free Funkle Fone app works the same way — press and hold the face and talk. Sign in with the email and password on the account; that same sign-in opens your parent controls in a browser.
To invite more family: open your parent controls, go to Contacts and press + Add Contact. You give their name and email, they get a link (one use, good for 10 days), and you are connected the moment they join. A new connection to a child waits for a grown-up's approval before anything can be sent.
Voice recordings auto-delete 30 days after they are sent, heard or not. This is fixed — there is no setting anywhere that lengthens it, and nothing keeps a recording quietly in the background. To remove everything sooner, delete the account: that erases the messages, the connections and the sign-ins together.
That's the device working as intended: a new Funkle Fone shows GET A GROWNUP and collects nothing at all until a parent or legal guardian completes consent. Click the screen to show the setup code, scan it with a phone, and follow the steps — it takes about ten minutes. If the code has expired, click the screen again for a fresh one.
Funkle Fone joins 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi (not 5 GHz) — the band virtually every home router already broadcasts, so almost every home works as-is. If your router names its two bands separately, pick the 2.4 GHz one (often the plain network name, or one labeled “2.4” / “2G”). Nothing to buy, nothing to change.
In your console, on the Account tab: Report a problem. It reaches me directly. If a child is in danger, contact your local emergency services first.
You can export or delete everything yourself from your console, right now, without asking anyone. If you'd rather I did it, send me a note — I'll do it and confirm when it's done.