How do people manage to keep track of their mobile phones

I have two VOIP handsets (similar to my old landline phones except they no longer use copper cable - they run over fibre), one downstairs, one upstairs. They are set up just as my old handsets 'with buttons'. We are part organisers of a local club and get lots of calls on the number we have had for decades.

I also have a mobile which came with a free smart watch. I didn't think much of the watch until I started to wear it. I now wouldn't be without the watch. I only need to have my mobile nearby. I don't need to walk about with my mobile in hand, no opportunity to steal my phone when out. I've set my watch to vibrate on my wrist rather than ring. Yes, I've taken a call on my watch when in the toilet! It was an appointment on offer in hospital following a last minute cancellation. I was really pleased not to have missed it. No-one needed to know where I was when I answered the call!

Use a landline.

I'm with the OP here. I usually charge my phone beside my bed at night (I know I'm not supposed to) and it's often least mid morning before I think to bring it down. On a Sunday I go to church, put it on silent and by about Wednesday I'm wondering why I've had no calls or messages. I'm obviously not designed to live in 21st century.

I often mislay my phone, in spite of it having a day-glo yellow cover, and find Google's find-my-phone on my PC is invaluable (https://myaccount.google.com/find-your-phone). I'm hard of hearing so don't like answering it unless I'm in a quiet place, so I actually stop it from ringing at all. If I can see someone has called, I call them back. But Google's 'find my phone' makes a very loud sound indeed even if I've turned the ring off, and it goes on making it until I've found it and picked it up.

I have arthritis in my fingers so can't hold the handset for long, but I find PopSockets, a sort of round handle that sticks on the back of your phone, a great help. Branded PopSockets are quite expensive but there are plenty of other versions. They all stick on really well. Google PopSockets and you will find them, or look on Amazon.

David49

At home Vodafone is dreadful, only 1 mile from town no data connection at all, yet 2 week ago in Italy I got 5G almost everywhere, no logic at all.

We are on the edge of all signal maps, despite being in a reasonably sized market town. They are now building between us and the nearest transmitter. we have set our phones to access our wifi which helps just a little.

As to finding it, in the house, I have the ring set through the accessible option and can hear it all through the house - now I just need to remember to take it out with me

dalrymple23

I HATE smartphones. I can't operate the blasted things. Total brain fog. Also mine (Motorola) is incredibly heavy. Arthritis in wrists makes carrying the wretched thing around even worse and unlikely to happen. So it is downstairs and I am up.

I go to bed and then fret that there might be a fire and I have no means to contact anyone. No, I do not remember to take the blasted thing with me. Anyway, reception is so atrocious, it is not worth it.

You posters who take it everywhere, do you really want to have a conversation with anyone whilst you are sitting on the loo? Just asking!

It may not be brainfog that you can't use them - I can't either.

But people who really really need to communicate with me - or really really do not want to do so and don't want me knowing where they are - can manage to do so anyway (I've responded to a couple of "calls" before now that weren't made on phones). So maybe you have something else instead?

Re anyone wanting to carry round a mobile phone with them - personally I'd go in a local hippie shop I know here and ask them (as I bet they have those embroidered cloth bags of about the size and shape of a glasses case and with a thin strap and one just slings it round the neck).

Reassured to read someone earlier in thread saying they still have more than one landline in their house still - even under this new (non-copper) system I don't want/will avoid if I possibly can. As I have my main phone off my "secondary" socket in my study and my secondary phone in the sitting room (got to - as I'd never hear my other phone ringing in there).

Norah, Yes, the new phone will be another mobile but it will function the way our landline used to function, but it will also look like, feel and be positioned as we did our landline, when we had one. I do find the flat thin shape of a mobile phone very uncomfortaable to hold and holding it for any time gives me cramp in my hand.

I do that also there is one more option if it’s an Apple phone you can find it Using the Find My app on your iPad

My phone is usually in the kitchen when I'm in the sitting room, and vice versa! And its charging point is the kitchen, so I have missed a few calls, but nothing that I can't check up on.

I don't!

Pockets in skirts just are not big enough for a smart-phone and I never wear jeans at home.

So, I am constantly wondering where I left the blinking phone, and getting to it too late when it rings.

A friend suggested I buy a brightly coloured cover for it - that might help I suppose, as the phone is black.

bobbydog24

Just to relate my experience this morning. I carry my phone in my pocket as I like to listen to Classic FM as I do my housework. At one point I decided to look at something on my phone and went looking for it. After searching for about 15 minutes, while listening to some lively classical music I realised where my phone was. 🙄

That's exactly the sort of thing I would do

Just to relate my experience this morning. I carry my phone in my pocket as I like to listen to Classic FM as I do my housework. At one point I decided to look at something on my phone and went looking for it. After searching for about 15 minutes, while listening to some lively classical music I realised where my phone was. 🙄

I try to remember to put the mobile in my bag when I'm out and on the shelf in the kitchen when I'm in the house, next to the charger. Fortunately our kitchen and living room are open plan so I can usually hear it if it goes off.
However I often leave it in the bathroom, by my computer or the washing machine, or wherevery I happen to have been.
My husband is pretty good at tracking all my lost possessions down fortunately.

I'm never without mine.

M0nica

A solution has been found - and by DD, who did some lateral thinking.

She realised the real problem is that with our 5G wireless hub it is not possible to have a landline/VOIP phone, so recently all household phone calls have had to go to DH or I on our mobile phones, so she did some searching and found we could get a phone that looks like and acts like an ordinary house phone and can sit on a stand on a wondow sill in the living room, with a ring that can be heard over a distance. However it is a mobile phone and will have a mobile number.

We will then direct all our household business calls to that and give the new number for parcel delivery, tradesmen, and we get a lot of those, so when anyone rings on business, one of us will hear the phone, and field the call, and we will check it regularly for messages as it will be visible near the front door, or in other words, provide a landline service on a mobile phone.

My phone, will then just deal with my personal calls, satnav and similar, and occasional calls when out, so will continue to revolve between handbag, desk and car.

Is it then a 3rd mobile?

We do similar using land line business and land line personal.

My tile purchased from amazon

Button not butane...don't you love predicted text

I have a tile attached to my keys, when I can find my phone i press the butane it sets of a ringtone a nd vica versa. It even tells me on the app exactly where my phone is, very handy as one day my dayghter took my keys home but the map located it at her road

Doodledog

ViceVersa

I just take mine with me from one room to another. Simple.

It's not simple if you have ADD, or have any other reason why you are likely to forget where you put it. If it were as easy as that, the OP wouldn't have posted.

I agree re reasons for being unable locate your phone quickly. I have a wee cross-body bag I made (crochet) that doesn't interfere with the buttons and I also have my Garmin watch which rings when my phone does. It also helps me locate my phone if I have forgotten where it is. Not foolproof, but helps a bit.

Glad you’ve found a solution you’re happy with. Give DD a pat on the back!

A solution has been found - and by DD, who did some lateral thinking.

She realised the real problem is that with our 5G wireless hub it is not possible to have a landline/VOIP phone, so recently all household phone calls have had to go to DH or I on our mobile phones, so she did some searching and found we could get a phone that looks like and acts like an ordinary house phone and can sit on a stand on a wondow sill in the living room, with a ring that can be heard over a distance. However it is a mobile phone and will have a mobile number.

We will then direct all our household business calls to that and give the new number for parcel delivery, tradesmen, and we get a lot of those, so when anyone rings on business, one of us will hear the phone, and field the call, and we will check it regularly for messages as it will be visible near the front door, or in other words, provide a landline service on a mobile phone.

My phone, will then just deal with my personal calls, satnav and similar, and occasional calls when out, so will continue to revolve between handbag, desk and car.

solutions to

Exactly, Rosieandhermaw. My glasses are a tool. I can’t read anything without them which is a good way of remembering to wear them. Likewise, and as you mention, I keep a pen or pencil in most rooms in case I need them, plus one in my handbag.

People have made a number of solutions the problem but they seem to have fallen on fallow ground.

MOnica from reading the suggestions - a lanyard, crossbody bag of a bum bag if you don’t generally have pockets. I’d favour the bum bag in your situation, then you could lean, bend over and it wouldn’t get in the way.

I quite agree a mobile phone is a tool. But who carries a screwdriver everywhere or would remember to do so if they had to

If you were using it half a dozen times a day, you would, possibly in one of those natty little tool belts chippies etc wear.
Let’s face it, you were asking how to remember to keep track of your phone.
That is down to you.What do you do about having a pen to hand, I wonder?
If you wanted to, you would find a way.
My phone is on the coffee table in front of me where it has been all evening.
I see no problem or hardship.