North Carolina man orders a free phone advertised as 'unhackable' for kids to use and quickly finds the catch

A man got a ‘free’ phone that’s designed to be super safe for kids and completely unhackable, but he soon spotted a catch.

Parents can feel understandably anxious about giving their kids access to the internet, with the sheer amount of unsuitable content available online. 

Thankfully, there are plenty of options that can help kids stay safer while using the internet, such as parental controls and apps like Messenger Kids. 

There are also specialist kid-safe phones from companies like Troomi, and YouTuber Smokin’ Silicon recently gave one of their ‘free’ devices a try to see how it all works. 

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He had a fight on his hands to even get the ‘unhackable’ phone set up

The YouTuber, who previously issued a warning to anyone thinking of selling their old phone, ordered a Troomi phone for ‘free’. 

The phone is designed to allow the parent to monitor and control everything that happens on the device, giving them peace of mind. 

Unboxing the new phone, the content creator noticed that it was a ‘normal Samsung A16,’ but it had been kitted out with Troomi tech and the KidSmart operating system. 

To use the phone, the parent needs to make a Troomi account on their own device, and then link the kid’s phone to their account. 

While this might all sound simple enough, Smokin’ Silicon struggled to get it set up. 

He was asked to scan a QR, but the camera on the Troomi phone was restricted, making the whole thing a bit of an ordeal. 

However, his persistence paid off, and he finally got the handset up and running so he could take a closer look and see how secure it was. 

And it turned out to be very secure. 

The phone had been heavily restricted – even the Settings app had been disabled – meaning even the craftiest of kids would be unable to mess around with its settings.

In fact, to put any new apps onto the phone, the ‘parent’ account needed to grant permission, and there was a similar system in place on the browser. 

So it’s pretty solid on the security front and basically showed itself to be unhackable.

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He described the phone as ‘free with an asterisk’

On its website, Troomi offers phones starting from $99.95, but there are discount codes out there where you can get them for free, which appeared to be what the YouTuber had done. 

However, as he pointed out, the word ‘free’ came with an asterix. 

Although he didn’t pay for the device itself he was charged $13 and a $30 activation fee. 

Alongside that the Troomi monthly plan costs just under $35 and there’s an addition $5 for 1GB of ‘smart data’. 

This meant the free phone ended up costing around $93, but given how secure it is, we’re sure plenty of parents would happily snap one up.

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