Help & support

Setting it up, and getting help

Written for the helper. If you are stuck on something that is not here, email support@toms-phone.com and say which phone you are using — it genuinely helps.

Setting it up

About twenty minutes, best done with the phone in front of you and before you hand it over.

Install it and open itGet Tom's Phone from Google Play on the phone the senior will use. It opens into a short setup rather than straight into the finished screen.
Put their name inSetup asks for this first. The top of the screen then reads “[Name]'s Phone” when nothing else is happening, which is quietly reassuring on a phone that is not theirs by habit yet.
Let it be the Home and Phone appSetup offers the home screen. The dialler comes afterwards, under Start here — Set as Phone app, along with allowing calls. Both matter: the first is what stops them getting lost, the second is what lets calls use the big, simple call screen. Without them the app still runs, but it is just another app.
Add the people who matterTwo to four is usually right. Each gets a large button in a colour you choose. Resist adding everybody — a screen of eight names is harder to use than a screen of three, and choosing is the part that is difficult.
Set up the SOS buttonChoose what it calls and who gets a text. Then use the test mode and watch them try it, because a button nobody has ever pressed is not a safety feature.
Fill in the medical informationAllergies, medications, conditions, and who to contact. It opens without a PIN from the SOS and call screens. Fill in the phone's own emergency information as well, in the phone's settings under Safety and emergency — that is the one ambulance crews are trained to look for.
Take a backup, then hand it overUnder Admin, export your settings and keep the file somewhere safe. It is the difference between a lost phone, or a forgotten PIN, being annoying and being an evening's work. It does not include the medical information, which never leaves the phone, so keep that written down too — and restoring a backup puts SOS back into TEST, so set it live again afterwards.

Preparing the phone

This comes before setting it up, and it is the part people skip. An afternoon here saves a fortnight of small problems that look like the app's fault and are not.

If the phone is second-hand

A spare phone from a drawer is a perfectly good choice — this does not need a new one. But go through it properly first.

Sign the previous owner's Google account out before you reset it, not after. A phone reset while somebody is still signed in locks itself to that account on the way back up, and it will ask for a password nobody in the room has. This is the single thing most likely to cost you the evening. The only way past it afterwards is the previous owner's password — so do it while you can still easily ask. On a Samsung, sign out of the Samsung account too; it has a lock of its own.
Then factory reset it, so none of the last owner's photos, messages or accounts are sitting behind a home screen they may well go exploring on.
Check it is not locked to a network you are not using. Phones sold in the UK since the end of 2021 are unlocked; older contract phones often are not.
Check how old it is. Tom's Phone needs Android 9 or newer, but a phone that stopped getting security updates years ago is a phone holding contacts and medical notes with no way to fix a problem found later — so newer is better where you have the choice.
Look at the battery. This phone will sit on a charger nearly all the time, and a tired battery in a warm charging stand is the part that gives out first.

Before you hand it over

Set the screen lock to None— not even Swipe. The phone is meant to be usable the instant it is picked up, and there is a specific reason beyond convenience: with any lock set, the lock screen reappears in front of the home screen when a call ends or the screen wakes. The senior has to get past it before they can do anything. With no lock there is nothing in the way. That is a fair trade on a dedicated phone with nothing private on it, which is the only phone this is meant for. Tom's Phone advises this but never changes it for you.
Put a SIM in. It needs calls and texts — the battery and SOS alerts go out as texts — but mobile data is optional; the app works without it, though you will want Wi-Fi at home for updates.
Set the brightness and screen timeout to suit the room the phone will actually live in.

Keeping it charged

A dedicated phone lives differently from a personal one. It is not in a pocket being noticed all day, so a flat battery can go unspotted for hours — and a flat phone is a phone nobody can reach.

Put the stand beside the chair they actually sit in, not where it looks tidiest. The phone needs to be within reach of the person, not of the socket.
A charging stand they can drop the phone onto beats a cable they have to line up.
By default the screen stays on while the phone is charging, which is what you want on a stand — and is another reason to leave it plugged in rather than treat the charger as an overnight thing.
Turn on the low-battery text, so you hear about it rather than finding out when a call does not connect. It is set per person: open your own contact under People & buttons and switch on Send battery alerts to this contact. Safety then has a test button to check it arrives.
Save their number in your own phone, and let it through Do Not Disturb. A battery or SOS text that arrives silently at 3am is the same as no text at all.
Keep a second charger at your own house. The phone will come to you at some point.

Getting back into the helper settings

Slide a finger sideways along the top line of the home screen — the line with their name on. Not a tap, not a long press: a long, deliberate slide, most of the width of the screen. A short flick will not do it, and it has to be that top line rather than the ones below it.

There is no icon, on purpose, so it cannot be opened by accident — which does mean anyone else who looks after this phone needs telling.

If the gesture is forgotten, or does not work

You are never locked out. Hand the home screen back to the phone's own launcher first — this needs nothing from Tom's Phone, so it works even when the slide will not:

Swipe down from the very top of the screen and open the phone's own settings.
Go to Apps ▸ Default apps.
Set the Home appback to the phone's usual one.

The phone now behaves like an ordinary phone again, and Tom's Phone appears in the app list like any other app. Open it from there and try the slide once more, unhurried, with no risk of the senior watching over your shoulder. Nothing is lost — your contacts and setup are exactly as you left them, and you can set it back as the Home app when you are done.

This page exists partly for that last bit. The instructions are also inside the app, under About & help — but they are no use to someone who cannot get in to read them, so they need to live somewhere reachable from any browser.

What is where

The helper settings are one page of sections. These descriptions are the app's own, so what you read here is what you will see on the phone.

Start here: Name, making this the Home and Phone app, and allowing calls.
Device setup: Wi-Fi, screen lock, brightness and timeout — set on the phone itself, and easier before Tom's Phone becomes the Home app.
People & buttons: Contacts, and which of them get a button on the home screen.
Safety: SOS emergency button, medical information, and battery alerts.
Calls & voicemail: How calls sound and behave, voicemail, and recent calls.
Screen & touch: Text size, colours, screen power, margins, and the tap test.
Admin: Helper PIN, backing up, and stopping Tom's Phone.
About & help: Website, feedback, privacy policy, and subscription.

If something is wrong

The home screen has gone back to normal: Something has taken the Home role back — usually a system update, or a tap on “always” against another launcher. Open Tom's Phone from the app list, slide along the top line to reach the settings, then go to Start here and use Set as Home app. The first settings screen will already be showing “Not set as the Home app yet” so you can see at a glance that this is what happened.
Calls do not use the big call screen: The Phone role has been lost in the same way. Same place — Start here, then Set as Phone app. The first settings screen shows “Not set as the Phone app yet” while it is missing.
They are missing calls because the phone is silent: Check Do Not Disturb and the ringer on the phone itself. Tom's Phone stops the volume keys lowering the ring on its own screens, but it cannot override a system-wide silent mode.
The phone is dead every time you visit: Turn on the low-battery text so you hear about it before they do. Charging habits are the single most common reason one of these phones stops working.
I want to stop using it: Exit app and Reset Tom's Phone both live under Admin. Exit app takes you to the Android settings for choosing your home screen and dialler — set them back to the phone's own and Tom's Phone is an ordinary app again, still installed, nothing deleted. Reset Tom's Phone erases everything it has stored. Neither is behind the paywall, and neither is backing up or restoring your settings.

Common questions

Can they still get out of it and into the normal phone?: Not by accident, which is the point. Tom's Phone becomes the home screen, so pressing Home comes back to it. Getting to the helper settings needs a long, deliberate sideways slide along the top line — not something a wandering finger finds. You can add a PIN on top of that if they are the exploring sort.
What happens when somebody rings who is not in the contacts?: By default it rings as normal and shows as “Unknown” rather than a number they cannot place. If nuisance calls are the problem, there is a setting that lets only saved contacts ring — everything else is silently blocked before it disturbs them. Add the doctor and the pharmacy as contacts first. An incoming emergency number is never blocked, and blocking pauses itself for 48 hours after an emergency call, so the ambulance service or the surgery can always ring back.
Does the SOS button call 999 straight away?: Only if you set it to. It always asks for confirmation first so it cannot fire in a pocket, and you choose what it dials — 999, your own mobile, a neighbour, or the surgery. It can also text the people you pick to tell them it happened. There is a test mode so you can try the whole thing without calling anyone real — it does still send those texts, clearly marked as a test, so warn whoever is on the list first.
Will I know if something is wrong?: You can be texted when the battery is low and again when it is back on charge — the most common reason a phone quietly stops working. Missed calls are not texted to you. What happens instead is at their end: if you have a button on their home screen, their phone keeps reminding them about your missed call until the two of you have actually spoken.
I have forgotten the helper PIN.: The PIN prompt has a “Forgot PIN?” button, and it goes to the one way past a forgotten PIN: resetting the app, which clears everything and starts again at first-launch. That is why the backup exists — export your settings from Admin when you finish setting up, keep the file somewhere safe, and a forgotten PIN costs you five minutes instead of an evening. The backup does not carry the medical information, so keep that written down as well. The PIN never blocks the emergency medical information itself.
Can I try it on my own phone first?: Yes, and it is a good idea. Install it, set it as the Home and Phone app, and use it for an afternoon. When you are done, the Exit app button in the helper settings takes you to the Android settings for choosing your home screen and dialler, and you set them back to your usual ones. One thing to know before you pay: a purchase belongs to a Google account rather than to a handset, so buy it on the phone they will actually use, with whatever account that phone is signed in to.
Does it work on an iPhone?: No. Apple does not let an app replace the home screen and the dialler, which is what makes this work. Android only.
What happens to my information?: It stays on the phone. Contacts, settings, and medical information are never uploaded, and the app never reads the phone's own address book. The only thing that reaches us is a crash report, sent only on a connection that doesn't charge for data — normally Wi-Fi — and you can turn that off. The only thing that reaches anybody else is a battery or SOS text, to the contacts you choose. The full detail is in the privacy policy.

Still stuck

Email support@toms-phone.com. Tell us what phone it is and what you expected to happen — and please do not wait until you are furious. Ideas for things that would help are just as welcome as faults. What the app stores and sends is set out in the privacy policy.