Tom's Phone

For Android phones

A phone that stays simple, for someone who finds one hard

Tom's Phone turns an ordinary Android phone into a large-button phone showing a few named people, an SOS button, and nothing else to get lost in. You set it up; they just use it.

How to set it upCommon questions

Who it is for

Someone who used to manage a phone and now finds a smartphone bewildering — through failing eyesight, arthritis, a stroke, dementia, or simply never having got on with it. They can still hold a conversation and still want to call their family. The phone is the part that stopped working.

And it is for the person looking after them, who is tired of hearing “I pressed something and now it won't work.”

What it does

A few big buttons, with names on

The home screen shows the people who matter, by name, in letters large enough to read without glasses. One press calls them. There is no scrolling, no app drawer, and nothing else to press by mistake.

An SOS button

A large emergency button that calls whoever you choose — 999, a neighbour, or your own mobile. It asks for confirmation first, so it cannot go off in a pocket, and it can text the people you pick to tell them it happened.

Missed calls that get returned

A missed call shows as a name, not a number, and stays until it has been dealt with. If the missed call was yours, and you have a button on their home screen, their phone can keep gently reminding them until the two of you have actually spoken.

Nowhere to get lost

Tom's Phone becomes the phone's home screen, so pressing Home always comes back here. The app drawer and the other apps are out of the way — not hidden as a trick, just not in the way. The notification shade still pulls down, which is how you reach the phone's own settings.

Emergency medical information

Allergies, medications, conditions and who to contact, held on the phone and openable without a PIN from the SOS and call screens. Set up the phone's own emergency information as well — that is where ambulance crews look first. It never leaves the phone.

Set up by you, not by them

Everything is configured in a helper area reached by a deliberate gesture, optionally behind a PIN. You choose the buttons, the colours, the text size, and what SOS does.

What it costs

Free to try for a month, with everything working. After that it is £1 a month, or £20 once if you would rather not think about it again. It can only be bought in the UK at the moment; elsewhere the settings simply stay unlocked.

Buy it on the phone they will actually use, signed in to whatever Google account that phone uses — a purchase belongs to an account rather than to a handset.

The phone never stops working if you stop paying. Calls, the SOS button, missed calls and everything the senior touches keep going regardless. What locks is the helper's settings area — so you cannot make changes until it is bought, but nobody is ever left unable to call for help over a subscription. You can always take a backup of your setup, reset the app, or stop using it.

What you need