Text Messenger Walkee-Talkees

Hmm... interesting.

It does look small and simple, but aren't kids too young to even have mobile devices? :dunno:
 
I'm aware that this product is aimed for deaf children, however, wouldn't adults benefit from something like this, especially for couples like I've explained in a post earlier?








~RR
 
Well, as far as range, walkies can span miles.

"Why not just use sidekick?" Some people are incapable of switching service providers, or don't have the money. since i hear it is affordable, i would like to get one.

Even for hearing people, txt'ing through walkies is much easier, due to hearing people have trouble even speaking into a walkie correctly, much less hearing from one.
 
If I am correct, text-enabled walkie-talkie uses radio waves just like a regular walkie-talkie for hearing people.
 
My daughter has a phone so I can text her, but she often leaves it in her bag so I often don't get an answer. I could see kids not wanting to have to wear one on their belt while playing. In other words, back to old fashioned yelling to call them home.
 
Regular walkie talkie use from the hearing perspective:

Hubby and I have walkie talkies. We use them:

* after church services when he's locking up buildings all over the campus so I don't need to search for him.

* shopping, if we want to split up at the store but keep in touch.

* camping, especially with kids; one for the kids, one for us.

* traveling in a "convoy", such as hurricane evacuation. We found out the hard way that you can't always get a cell phone signal when traveling. When we were driving separate cars, we couldn't let each other know if we got lost, or needed to stop for some reason. Our family was in four vehicles, and we wanted to stay together. Now we have four walkie talkies, if we need to do that again.

Walkie talkies have various ranges. You need to check what the stated range is for each model. Then, you should test it at home to see if it is accurate. We found that the actual range is usually less than the stated range. Ours work for at least two miles, maybe three depending on conditions.

You don't need a service plan for regular walkie talkies.

You can use them indoors, outdoors, thru normal (unshielded) walls, etc., no problem.

I couldn't see on the picture of the text "walkie talkie" but you need to have a way to easily switch channels like a regular walkie talkie because the airwaves are open to everyone.

You should get rechargables because they eat up batteries.
 
that one is great for hunting season or rock climbing...

when my partner and i climb together on ~200 to ~1000 ft walls in mountains, it is hard to tug the rope for our only communication. i think that text msg walkietalkie is perfect for our needs for rock climbing... my hearing friends tell me in different times that walkie talkie is very hard to hear clearly when wind is roaring and they cant hear clearly. they usually tug the ropes for communication. i teach them how to communicate each other by tugging the ropes. now it is perfeect device !

it is only way to communicate with that ones ! especially no wireless coverages in mountains.
 
Reba said:
Regular walkie talkie use from the hearing perspective:

Hubby and I have walkie talkies. We use them:

* after church services when he's locking up buildings all over the campus so I don't need to search for him.

* shopping, if we want to split up at the store but keep in touch.

* camping, especially with kids; one for the kids, one for us.

* traveling in a "convoy", such as hurricane evacuation. We found out the hard way that you can't always get a cell phone signal when traveling. When we were driving separate cars, we couldn't let each other know if we got lost, or needed to stop for some reason. Our family was in four vehicles, and we wanted to stay together. Now we have four walkie talkies, if we need to do that again.

Walkie talkies have various ranges. You need to check what the stated range is for each model. Then, you should test it at home to see if it is accurate. We found that the actual range is usually less than the stated range. Ours work for at least two miles, maybe three depending on conditions.

You don't need a service plan for regular walkie talkies.

You can use them indoors, outdoors, thru normal (unshielded) walls, etc., no problem.

I couldn't see on the picture of the text "walkie talkie" but you need to have a way to easily switch channels like a regular walkie talkie because the airwaves are open to everyone.

You should get rechargables because they eat up batteries.
Click to expand...


Sounds great and do u know any link that I could look up?
 
deafclimber said:
here is kid's walkie talkie with text msgs features -
BRATZ Text and Call Walkie Talkie, Pink - Wal-Mart. the pink one ! it DOES match with my pink climbing rope ! :)

i dunno if the kids toys work well as real walkie talkie.
Click to expand...


Actually they don't work as well as a real walkie talkie, I already asked the sale person at Target about this, since Target does have it also, but they didn't even have the boys style, only the girls style :(...
 
dkf747 said:
My daughter has a phone so I can text her, but she often leaves it in her bag so I often don't get an answer. I could see kids not wanting to have to wear one on their belt while playing. In other words, back to old fashioned yelling to call them home.
Click to expand...


Yeah, same as my oldest son's cell phone, I could text him but I don't often get an answer back quickly....

You're right, not often seeing children wanted to wear them on their belts but I know my son always had his cell phone in his pocket....so this look small enough to put it in his pocket....I think....I'm waiting for the link so I can look into more information on this new product, that I've been waiting to see it coming on the market...
 
Lots of interesting comments and questions!

Ok I contacted the manufacturer. The walkee talkees are designed for hearing kids so far. And they have a 50 feet range. Price is in the $30-$35 range and set to come in many colors other than those pictured in my first post.

We hope to have these at Deafnation Expo in Pomona. There's other applications in it that could put ubiduo and the interpretype out of business as these are good as face-to-face communication devices. 35 bucks is helluva cheaper than 2 grand!

Theres some mysterious issues regarding the manufacture of these and I'm trying to find those out.

Richard
 
Very interesting. Maybe this will work for taking notes in class... Could it be used to save text messages to my Windows Mobile Pocket PC? I have a UTStarCom PPC6700 purchased from Alltel.
 
Only 50 feet? That's about from my front door to the front door of my neighbor across the street. That's not a very far range. Two people could sign to each other at the distance.

An average single-wide mobile home is about 50-70 feet long. So you could use the "walkie talkie" text from the front of the trailer to the back. Not very impressive.

Our voice battery-operated walkie talkies ($30 per pair) range 2 miles, and our rechargeable ones ($50 per pair) range 5 miles. A range of 50 feet is not much further than the end of our driveway.

I think the manufacturer needs to improve the range before it's worth serious use. It seems like this model is just a toy.

I think the concept is wonderful. It just needs to be applied to a heavy duty, longer-range "grown-up" model.
 
Reba said:
I think the concept is wonderful. It just needs to be applied to a heavy duty, longer-range "grown-up" model.
Click to expand...

I just remembered, for hearing people there are "walkie-talkies" and there are 2-way radios. most devices for children are walkie-talkies, they're on a different frequency and have very short range, they're toys. I remember when I was 8 years old (I was hearing back then) I had a set of walkie-talkies, and the range was about 50-100 feet.

These days CB radios have become very small and hand held, and are actually smaller than the walkie-talkies I had as a kid. what we need to do is merge a TTY with one of these
Uniden - Products - Family Radios


Here's my idea, all we need to do is hook a very small TTY up to the headset jack of the radio. You can't have a "full-duplex" conversation on a radio anyway, so using GA and SK isn't a big deal. If you want it to work more like SMS on a cell phone then that's a a little different.. hmm it could be done.
 
GraysonPeddie said:
Very interesting. Maybe this will work for taking notes in class... Could it be used to save text messages to my Windows Mobile Pocket PC? I have a UTStarCom PPC6700 purchased from Alltel.
Click to expand...

It's not using any kind of cellular technology, so there's no way for any messages to get sent to your phone. At the price Richard's talking about, it's EXTREMELY unlikely it even has an IR port to make an IR connection with your PPC.
 
I might give one of these to my kids whenever they leave the house. That way, they don't get too addicted. ;)
 
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