Tech News and Commentary

Dave and the team discuss video game addiction, our summer giveaway, and more.

Margaret in Raleigh, North Carolina listens on WPTF and asked: "I'm in a quandary. I still love my flip phone and it's evidently had some water issues. Wondering where I could go to get some used flip phones. I use Verizon currently. The flip phones are small, they fit in my pocket. I'm a senior citizen and I need a small phone so it fits easily in my pocket. No big old square phones for me."

http://www.intotomorrow.com/media/podcasts/2019/05-31-2019/05-31-2019-H1S1.mp3

Margaret, Verizon still sells feature phones, fewer and fewer as time goes by but you can still find them.

Currently, they only have 6 of them listed on their site, so your options are relatively limited, but there is some good news here.

These phones are not very popular, so they are very cheap. The ones Verizon as listed online right now range from $5/month for a basic Kyocera LTE flip phone to $14/month for a ruggedized, weather proof, push-to-talk enabled, Sonim XP5.

You can also find these phones in the usual retail sites like Amazon, but if you want choices that you know will work with Verizon you can still get them from them for the time being, even if every year your options get smaller.

Eva in Amherstburg, Ontario listens on AM800 CKLW “The Information Station” and asked: "I was considering buying a Huawei 8x cell phone, it's available only on Amazon, and it says international therefore no warranty. I'd like to know your thoughts on that, should I or shouldn't I? and is it ok to buy a Huawei? I heard Google was going to pull out and I might have issues using the apps on that phone."

http://www.intotomorrow.com/media/podcasts/2019/05-31-2019/05-31-2019-H1S3.mp3

Eva, assuming Google sticks to the ban on Huawei, the main problem you’re going to run into is not so much apps themselves but long term support.

Google offers manufacturers support in a number of ways, most of which are pretty transparent to you, but if they lose that support it will be very hard for them to incorporate any features or patch any issues successfully.

If you’re considering a Huawei phone at all, security may not be your number one concern, since their reputation on that front is a little bit tarnished right now, but there are bad actors completely independent from any government that can take care of security problems with phones that can allow them to gain some access and steal some data or otherwise cause harm.

Overall, there isn’t much a reason to go out of your way to choose a phone with no warranty and a host of potential serious issues. You may be better off looking elsewhere.

Lex in Bossier City, Louisiana listens on 710 KEEL and asked: "Comment and question about a battery system I am using for my Samsung Galaxy Note 8. I use a battery pack case that lasts me all day long. I am at 100% battery power when I reach the end of my day. There have been times when I am able to go a second day without having to plugging into a charger. And I'm really happy with that. I wanted to know if there were any adverse effects to my phone that would be hurting it by charging it with this battery pack."

Tech News and Commentary

Dave and the team discuss ridesharing bans for low rated riders, Apple's iPhone 11 models, legislation to remind parents that they left their kids in the car, and more.

Our guest this hour:

Scott Solomon, Associate Teaching Professor - Rice University

Jolene in Jefferson City, Missouri and asked: "Well, they say the only dumb question is the one you don't ask. So here it goes... I happen to be a paid Amazon member with the right to watch Amazon movies. But Mediacom, my cable company, has suddenly changed my Tivo machine and I am no longer able to watch Amazon. Before you clicked "Amazon" and the movies would come up. Now, it's only Amazon Alexa. If you do not have Alexa, you can't watch Amazon movies. I'm paying for the right to watch the movies but I can not. Amazon blames it on Mediacom, Mediacom blames it on Amazon. and Tivo blames someone else. Is there any way that I can watch Amazon movies that I'm paying for on my TV - which is not a smart TV."

http://www.intotomorrow.com/media/podcasts/2019/05-31-2019/05-31-2019-H2S1.mp3

Jolene, Amazon is not to blame, and TiVo not to blame either, but Mediacom probably only ever thought of Amazon Video as something happened to come with their DVR, not a service they were providing to you.

You do have options to access Amazon Video on your TV, though you may have to invest a little bit of money.

If you have a computer that can be connected to your TV, you can just play the videos from there, though it’s definitely not the simplest, most enjoyable way to browse Amazon’s movie collection.

CHRIS; You can also buy a dedicated streaming device to access the service, since you’re interested in Amazon Video, your easiest choice may be one of Amazon’s own cheap devices, a 4K Amazon streaming stick goes for $50, but there are cheaper 1080p devices. You could also go with a non-Amazon device with access to the service, which basically means any other streaming stick. A Chromecast or Roku would both be good options for a little less money (but not much really, think around $30-35 depending on what offers you find online), the Roku is standalone but the Chromecast would require you to use a smartphone with it.

When you participate on the show – anytime 24/7 – and we HEAR you with any consumer tech question, comment, help for another listener, tech rage or just share your favorite App these days … you could win prizes.

The COOL Into Tomorrow HOT Summer Giveaway:

Check out everything you can win here!

All CALLERS -- using the AUDIO option on our Free App or 1-800-899-INTO(4686)  - automatically qualify to win prizes.

Audio archived for at least 6 months

Tech News and Commentary

Dave and the team discuss ridesharing bans for low rated riders, Apple's iPhone 11 models, legislation to remind parents that they left their kids in the car, and more.

Our guest this hour:

Scott Solomon, Associate Teaching Professor - Rice University

Jolene in Jefferson City, Missouri and asked: "Well, they say the only dumb question is the one you don't ask. So here it goes... I happen to be a paid Amazon member with the right to watch Amazon movies. But Mediacom, my cable company, has suddenly changed my Tivo machine and I am no longer able to watch Amazon. Before you clicked "Amazon" and the movies would come up. Now, it's only Amazon Alexa. If you do not have Alexa, you can't watch Amazon movies. I'm paying for the right to watch the movies but I can not. Amazon blames it on Mediacom, Mediacom blames it on Amazon. and Tivo blames someone else. Is there any way that I can watch Amazon movies that I'm paying for on my TV - which is not a smart TV."

http://www.intotomorrow.com/media/podcasts/2019/05-31-2019/05-31-2019-H2S1.mp3

Jolene, Amazon is not to blame, and TiVo not to blame either, but Mediacom probably only ever thought of Amazon Video as something happened to come with their DVR, not a service they were providing to you.

You do have options to access Amazon Video on your TV, though you may have to invest a little bit of money.

If you have a computer that can be connected to your TV, you can just play the videos from there, though it’s definitely not the simplest, most enjoyable way to browse Amazon’s movie collection.

CHRIS; You can also buy a dedicated streaming device to access the service, since you’re interested in Amazon Video, your easiest choice may be one of Amazon’s own cheap devices, a 4K Amazon streaming stick goes for $50, but there are cheaper 1080p devices. You could also go with a non-Amazon device with access to the service, which basically means any other streaming stick. A Chromecast or Roku would both be good options for a little less money (but not much really, think around $30-35 depending on what offers you find online), the Roku is standalone but the Chromecast would require you to use a smartphone with it.

When you participate on the show – anytime 24/7 – and we HEAR you with any consumer tech question, comment, help for another listener, tech rage or just share your favorite App these days … you could win prizes.

The COOL Into Tomorrow HOT Summer Giveaway:

Check out everything you can win here!

All CALLERS -- using the AUDIO option on our Free App or 1-800-899-INTO(4686)  - automatically qualify to win prizes.

Audio archived for at least 6 months

Tech News and Commentary

Dave and the team discuss Snap and record labels, a malware art project selling for over $1M, inexpensive tablets by Walmart, cameras to ensure pizza quality, an iPod upgrade, a UFO train sighting, subway trains and smartphones, Alexa deleting recording, and more.

Chantel in Ontario, listens on AM800 CKLW and asked: "I would like advice on a GPS trackable watch/phone for my son."

http://www.intotomorrow.com/media/podcasts/2019/05-31-2019/05-31-2019-H3S3.mp3

Chantel, you have a couple of options here, but your easiest one would probably be a basic phone.

Both iOS and Android offer options to track your child’s location and they both do so via their family features. Basic Android phones tend not to be great, but they’re cheap, so they may be a good option for this.

Just open the Family Link app and you will see an option to set up location tracking right there, you can use that find out where your child is.

You could also give your child a smartwatch with an active phone line, that would give you the option to reach them and it would tell you where they are, but you’re looking at a larger price tag than that of a basic phone, and they’d likely have to share someone’s number if you don’t want to pay to give them their own. That means your calls would ring on their watch as well, like the return of some terrible 20th century past when phone lines were shared… the horror.

Roberto in Puerto Rico listens to the podcast and asked: "I been using a Motorola phone for a couple of years, I think it's a complete device but my wife recommends that I move to iPhone. What do you guys think?"

Roberto, phones are way too expensive these days, if you’re happy with it and think it’s all you need, you might as well delay getting a new one.

Smartphones choice mainly comes down to personal preference. They all do the same stuff, so there’s really very little point in arguing over the very, very tiny differences around how they do things to try to decide which one is better. They’re all similar computers built by giant corporations that are just trying to get another billion before the end of the day.

If your current phone is good enough for you, might as well just keep it for the time being. It will fail sooner or later but why not squeeze a little more life out of it?

John in Raleigh, North Carolina listens on WPTF and asked: "I have Windows 10 Desktop. When I open a Word document, I get "Command can't be performed until a dialog box is open." so I drill down to the Microsoft folder and open the "templates" folder, then deleted, normal.dotm - deleted that file and then I'm able to open a word document successfully. The problem is while I'm doing that, Microsoft re-adds that file, so when I try to open a Word document a second time, I get that message again. So I need to figure out how to stop Microsoft from adding that file back after I delete it."

John are you running Word 2007 by any chance? This used to be a problem a few years ago on that version.

The root cause for this seems to be that the template contains some macro, something harmless that Microsoft puts in, but it’s still some form of macro. Some (but not all) antivirus programs will detect that macro and act to keep it contained and that triggers that message from Word.

Since this is probably a very, very old version of Word,

Tech News and Commentary

Dave and the team discuss Snap and record labels, a malware art project selling for over $1M, inexpensive tablets by Walmart, cameras to ensure pizza quality, an iPod upgrade, a UFO train sighting, subway trains and smartphones, Alexa deleting recording, and more.

Chantel in Ontario, listens on AM800 CKLW and asked: "I would like advice on a GPS trackable watch/phone for my son."

http://www.intotomorrow.com/media/podcasts/2019/05-31-2019/05-31-2019-H3S3.mp3

Chantel, you have a couple of options here, but your easiest one would probably be a basic phone.

Both iOS and Android offer options to track your child’s location and they both do so via their family features. Basic Android phones tend not to be great, but they’re cheap, so they may be a good option for this.

Just open the Family Link app and you will see an option to set up location tracking right there, you can use that find out where your child is.

You could also give your child a smartwatch with an active phone line, that would give you the option to reach them and it would tell you where they are, but you’re looking at a larger price tag than that of a basic phone, and they’d likely have to share someone’s number if you don’t want to pay to give them their own. That means your calls would ring on their watch as well, like the return of some terrible 20th century past when phone lines were shared… the horror.

Roberto in Puerto Rico listens to the podcast and asked: "I been using a Motorola phone for a couple of years, I think it's a complete device but my wife recommends that I move to iPhone. What do you guys think?"

Roberto, phones are way too expensive these days, if you’re happy with it and think it’s all you need, you might as well delay getting a new one.

Smartphones choice mainly comes down to personal preference. They all do the same stuff, so there’s really very little point in arguing over the very, very tiny differences around how they do things to try to decide which one is better. They’re all similar computers built by giant corporations that are just trying to get another billion before the end of the day.

If your current phone is good enough for you, might as well just keep it for the time being. It will fail sooner or later but why not squeeze a little more life out of it?

John in Raleigh, North Carolina listens on WPTF and asked: "I have Windows 10 Desktop. When I open a Word document, I get "Command can't be performed until a dialog box is open." so I drill down to the Microsoft folder and open the "templates" folder, then deleted, normal.dotm - deleted that file and then I'm able to open a word document successfully. The problem is while I'm doing that, Microsoft re-adds that file, so when I try to open a Word document a second time, I get that message again. So I need to figure out how to stop Microsoft from adding that file back after I delete it."

John are you running Word 2007 by any chance? This used to be a problem a few years ago on that version.

The root cause for this seems to be that the template contains some macro, something harmless that Microsoft puts in, but it’s still some form of macro. Some (but not all) antivirus programs will detect that macro and act to keep it contained and that triggers that message from Word.

Since this is probably a very, very old version of Word,

Tech News and Commentary

Dave and the team discuss a judge saying Qualcomm is a monopoly, T-Mobile and Sprint’s merger and the DoJ, huawei’s plans after losing Google’s support, 5g interference and weather forecast accuracy, Minecraft’s sales, Apple TV, Airplay 2 and Samsung, Japan running out of phone numbers, and more.

Jesse in North Carolina listens on Newsradio 680 WPTF and asked: "I live in a state that just passed a law - like many other states - that you can't hold your cell phone while you're driving down the road. I've got an older model pickup truck. Wondering what's the best way to go. Should I get a speaker system hooked up in my truck or should I go with the old Bluetooth in my ear. I gotta be hands-fee to obey the law."

http://www.intotomorrow.com/media/podcasts/2019/05-24-2019/05-24-2019-H1S1.mp3

Jesse, the Bluetooth is definitely the cheapest and easiest option. Having said that, if you’re willing to get a new radio with bluetooth built in, that will probably save you a lot of fumbling around for your bluetooth earpiece.

There’s also a third option you can consider, if your radio hapens to have an AUX input, you may be able to use a microphone you can place somewhere not too far from your face and use the audio AUX jack to feed the phone’s audio to your speakers.

Those Bluetooth mic kits are very inexpensive, often around $20 or less, and require virtually no installation, just give it 12v power and plug it into the radio.

In that case the hardest part of picking up the phone may be to remember to press AUX on the radio, but there’s no fumbling around for a small Bluetooth device that you may not want to constantly keep on your ear.

Greg in Manchester, Tennessee listens on WTN 99.7 and asked: "I woke up at 3:30 in the morning and my son was still on his computer playing games. So I'd like to figure out a timer that will turn off his computer at a set time so he doesn't stay on all night and the morning on Saturdays. Preferably free, but if I have to pay, that's okay We use Windows 10 on a desktop."

http://www.intotomorrow.com/media/podcasts/2019/05-24-2019/05-24-2019-H1S3.mp3

Greg, you don’t need to spend any extra money to achieve this. Modern operating systems, including Windows 10 have this feature built in.

In fact, Microsoft even allows you to set a schedule for an Xbox too.

The process of liming your child’s access is to first create a user for your child and then through parental controls set the limits that you’d like your child to have, for example, the amount of screen time that you deem appropriate.

You can get started at account.microsoft.com/family and follow the steps outlined there.

Like we said, this is part of Windows and there’s no extra cost to you.

Steve in Lake Villa, Illinois listens to the podcast and asked: "I was calling about the “bone-inducting” headphones. I've seen them. They seem very pricey. I'm just not sure how well they work. I travel a lot. But I like to know where I'm at in airports, that kind of thing, hear announcements, etc. Do you recommend them?"

http://www.intotomorrow.com/media/podcasts/2019/05-24-2019/05-24-2019-H1S4.mp3

Tech News and Commentary

Dave and the team discuss a judge saying Qualcomm is a monopoly, T-Mobile and Sprint’s merger and the DoJ, huawei’s plans after losing Google’s support, 5g interference and weather forecast accuracy, Minecraft’s sales, Apple TV, Airplay 2 and Samsung, Japan running out of phone numbers, and more.

Jesse in North Carolina listens on Newsradio 680 WPTF and asked: "I live in a state that just passed a law - like many other states - that you can't hold your cell phone while you're driving down the road. I've got an older model pickup truck. Wondering what's the best way to go. Should I get a speaker system hooked up in my truck or should I go with the old Bluetooth in my ear. I gotta be hands-fee to obey the law."

http://www.intotomorrow.com/media/podcasts/2019/05-24-2019/05-24-2019-H1S1.mp3

Jesse, the Bluetooth is definitely the cheapest and easiest option. Having said that, if you’re willing to get a new radio with bluetooth built in, that will probably save you a lot of fumbling around for your bluetooth earpiece.

There’s also a third option you can consider, if your radio hapens to have an AUX input, you may be able to use a microphone you can place somewhere not too far from your face and use the audio AUX jack to feed the phone’s audio to your speakers.

Those Bluetooth mic kits are very inexpensive, often around $20 or less, and require virtually no installation, just give it 12v power and plug it into the radio.

In that case the hardest part of picking up the phone may be to remember to press AUX on the radio, but there’s no fumbling around for a small Bluetooth device that you may not want to constantly keep on your ear.

Greg in Manchester, Tennessee listens on WTN 99.7 and asked: "I woke up at 3:30 in the morning and my son was still on his computer playing games. So I'd like to figure out a timer that will turn off his computer at a set time so he doesn't stay on all night and the morning on Saturdays. Preferably free, but if I have to pay, that's okay We use Windows 10 on a desktop."

http://www.intotomorrow.com/media/podcasts/2019/05-24-2019/05-24-2019-H1S3.mp3

Greg, you don’t need to spend any extra money to achieve this. Modern operating systems, including Windows 10 have this feature built in.

In fact, Microsoft even allows you to set a schedule for an Xbox too.

The process of liming your child’s access is to first create a user for your child and then through parental controls set the limits that you’d like your child to have, for example, the amount of screen time that you deem appropriate.

You can get started at account.microsoft.com/family and follow the steps outlined there.

Like we said, this is part of Windows and there’s no extra cost to you.

Steve in Lake Villa, Illinois listens to the podcast and asked: "I was calling about the “bone-inducting” headphones. I've seen them. They seem very pricey. I'm just not sure how well they work. I travel a lot. But I like to know where I'm at in airports, that kind of thing, hear announcements, etc. Do you recommend them?"

http://www.intotomorrow.com/media/podcasts/2019/05-24-2019/05-24-2019-H1S4.mp3

Tech News and Commentary

Dave and the team discuss Lukin coffee's IPO, GM's buckle-to-drive feature, PS5 news, Google Shopping, STEM students building cars for kids with disabilities, and more.

Our guest this hour:

Jerry Kroll, CEO - Electra Meccanica

Don in Mountain View, California listens Online and asked: "Is there any way to use an unsecured wi-fi system, like at the library, and be able to be secure with some software or some other way of protecting yourself from getting junk mail or people tapping into your phone. They have a wonderful WiFi system at the library but they have a big sign saying it's unsecure, so I'm reluctant to use it."

http://www.intotomorrow.com/media/podcasts/2019/05-24-2019/05-24-2019-H2S1.mp3

Don, you can secure your browser by using a VPN service, but there are a few catches.

The first catch is that it may not be free, many VPN services charge a small monthly fee, or limit your speed or the amount of data you can download while using the service. There are ways around that, for example, hosting your own VPN server, but if you didn’t know those even existed you may not be the best candidate to work on a project like that.

The second catch is that some places block VPN access, famously Starbucks used to. Your library is not likely to do that on purpose, but it may happen as a side effect of locking down ports for extra security.

We should mention that securing your WiFi browsing will do nothing to keep you from getting junk mail though, if you don’t want junk mail keep an eye on who you give your email address to, that will be more likely to help that any kind of WiFi security.

Karola in Westmoreland, Tennessee listens on 99.7 WTN and asked: "Want to know if there's anything I can get to boost my Internet. My router is at one end of the house, but when you're at the other end of the house (it's only about 1,500 square feet) the signal is sketchy. You may or may not get signal or keep it. And I was wondering if there's something I can get to boost that. And also, my daughter's cell phone will pick up pretty good in the living room but the rest of the house is pretty sketchy. Wondering if there's anything to boost that as well."

http://www.intotomorrow.com/media/podcasts/2019/05-24-2019/05-24-2019-H2S2.mp3

Karola, the easiest way to improve your WiFi around the house would be a multipoint system of some kind.

You can try a standalone repeater, but they’re not always easy to set up and sometimes force you to connect to different networks depending on where you are.

If you can spend a little more money, a mesh or pseudo-mesh system like Eero, Google WiFi, or Netgear’s Orbi will give you a much better and more seamless experience.

Those system use multiple access points, but they’re better at talking to each other, and as far as your devices are concerned there’s just one network and you don’t have to worry about jumping to the better access point and see your signal deteriorate until you do.

As for your daughter’s phone, you can buy a cellular repeater compatible with the network she uses, weBoost sells quite a few at varying price points from less than $100 to several hundred,

Tech News and Commentary

Dave and the team discuss Lukin coffee's IPO, GM's buckle-to-drive feature, PS5 news, Google Shopping, STEM students building cars for kids with disabilities, and more.

Don in Mountain View, California listens Online and asked: "Is there any way to use an unsecured wi-fi system, like at the library, and be able to be secure with some software or some other way of protecting yourself from getting junk mail or people tapping into your phone. They have a wonderful WiFi system at the library but they have a big sign saying it's unsecure, so I'm reluctant to use it."

Don, you can secure your browser by using a VPN service, but there are a few catches.

The first catch is that it may not be free, many VPN services charge a small monthly fee, or limit your speed or the amount of data you can download while using the service. There are ways around that, for example, hosting your own VPN server, but if you didn’t know those even existed you may not be the best candidate to work on a project like that.

The second catch is that some places block VPN access, famously Starbucks used to. Your library is not likely to do that on purpose, but it may happen as a side effect of locking down ports for extra security.

We should mention that securing your WiFi browsing will do nothing to keep you from getting junk mail though, if you don’t want junk mail keep an eye on who you give your email address to, that will be more likely to help that any kind of WiFi security.

Karola in Westmoreland, Tennessee listens on 99.7 WTN and asked: "Want to know if there's anything I can get to boost my Internet. My router is at one end of the house, but when you're at the other end of the house (it's only about 1,500 square feet) the signal is sketchy. You may or may not get signal or keep it. And I was wondering if there's something I can get to boost that. And also, my daughter's cell phone will pick up pretty good in the living room but the rest of the house is pretty sketchy. Wondering if there's anything to boost that as well."

Karola, the easiest way to improve your WiFi around the house would be a multipoint system of some kind.

You can try a standalone repeater, but they’re not always easy to set up and sometimes force you to connect to different networks depending on where you are.

If you can spend a little more money, a mesh or pseudo-mesh system like Eero, Google WiFi, or Netgear’s Orbi will give you a much better and more seamless experience.

Those system use multiple access points, but they’re better at talking to each other, and as far as your devices are concerned there’s just one network and you don’t have to worry about jumping to the better access point and see your signal deteriorate until you do.

As for your daughter’s phone, you can buy a cellular repeater compatible with the network she uses, weBoost sells quite a few at varying price points from less than $100 to several hundred, but there are two things to keep in mind there: 1) You need to install it somewhere with a signal so it can pick up something it can boost, that part should be doable since she has signal in part of the house, and 2) if your WiFi gets lost inside your house, the repeated cellular signal may too.

If your daughter’s carrier supports it, WiFi calling through your soon to be improved WiFi may be the way to go for her.

Christopher in Texas listens on 97.

Tech News and Commentary

Dave and the team discuss drone use by public agencies, McDonald's passport hotline, Ford partnering with Agility Robotics to create autonomous delivery vehicles, facial recognition for pandas, Alexa's future mind reading, and more.

Bob in El Paso, Texas listens to the podcast and asked: "I want to buy a new notebook computer and they're telling me the drive is an eMMC drive. And I want to know if that's upgradable. I want to get a good size solid state drive and I'm not familiar with the eMMC drive. Can you give me some help on that?"

http://www.intotomorrow.com/media/podcasts/2019/05-24-2019/05-24-2019-H3S1.mp3

Bob, don’t count on it being upgradable. Sometimes they are, but for the most part, they’re not.

eMMC memory is basically chips integrated into the motherboard and generally speaking, they’re not expected to ever be touched.

You may be able to use an SD card or a USB flash drive or hard drive to add some external memory, and if that fits your needs then the eMMC not being expandable may not be terrible problem, but if you absolutely need more memory, don’t count on being able to expand the eMMC like you could a hard drive or an SSD by simply replacing it with a bigger drive of some kind.

eMMC doesn’t share connectors with SSDs and they’re not interchangeable, it’s a probably one of the reasons they’re popular in low-cost computers, they pretty much ensure a quick upgrade cycle by the owner…

Karola in Westmoreland, Tennessee listens on 99.7 WTN and asked: "Want to know if there's anything I can get to boost my Internet. My router is at one end of the house, but when you're at the other end of the house (it's only about 1,500 square feet) the signal is sketchy. You may or may not get signal or keep it. And I was wondering if there's something I can get to boost that. And also, my daughter's cell phone will pick up pretty good in the living room but the rest of the house is pretty sketchy. Wondering if there's anything to boost that as well."

http://www.intotomorrow.com/media/podcasts/2019/05-24-2019/05-24-2019-H3S3.mp3

Karola, the easiest way to improve your WiFi around the house would be a multipoint system of some kind.

You can try a standalone repeater, but they’re not always easy to set up and sometimes force you to connect to different networks depending on where you are.

If you can spend a little more money, a mesh or pseudo-mesh systems like Eero, Google WiFi, or Netgear’s Orbi will give you a much better and more seamless experience.

Those systems use multiple access points, but they’re better at talking to each other, and as far as your devices are concerned there’s just one network and you don’t have to worry about jumping to the better access point and see your signal deteriorate until you do.

As for your daughter’s phone, you can buy a cellular repeater compatible with the network she uses, weBoost sells quite a few at varying price points from less than $100 to several hundred, but there are two things to keep in mind there: 1) You need to install it somewhere with a signal so it can pick up something it can boost, that part should be doable since she has a signal in part of the house, and 2) if your WiFi gets lost inside your house, the repeated cellular signal may too.

If your daughter’s carrier supports it,