Is there a dock for my iphone that will amplify the ringer and alerts?

August 14, 2014 9:15 AM

I want to come home and put my phone down in a dock and not carry it around all the time. I'm trying to reduce both anxiety (from checking work email) and distracted/divided attention (from playing games while talking or watching TV). Is there a good (small/cheap/easy to use) dock or other solution for this? I don't care about playing music or anything else. I just want a ringer I can hear a room away.

If the answer is - "no, just get a speaker dock," then any advice about smallest/loudest? I'd love a small footprint.

posted by mercredi to Technology (9 answers total)

I'm serious about this: put it in a cup. Like a red solo cup.
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 9:31 AM on August 14, 2014 [2 favorites]

If you want to get fancy and have a "home phone" like experience again, you could always get one of these:
VTech Handset
posted by Grither at 9:33 AM on August 14, 2014

I've had this dock from Altec Lansing for several years. It's the smallest, yet loudest footprint that I can imagine.

Put it in to charge, turn up your phone volume and you can hear it across the house.
Unless you live in a mansion or something.
posted by John Kennedy Toole Box at 10:02 AM on August 14, 2014

We sometimes put our phone in a large metal mixing bowl to amplify the speaker.
posted by belladonna at 10:30 AM on August 14, 2014

Lay an aluminum clipboard on top of it. So frickin' loud.
posted by Mister Moofoo at 11:24 AM on August 14, 2014 [1 favorite]

I've used a Sony clock radio as a dock; if it's set to use input from the iPhone, and there's no music/podcast currently playing, then the ringer or alarms are amplified by the clock radio.

Bonus: large clock I can see, radio I can play in the kitchen.

Potential problem: this particular clock wants to start playing the current podcast whenever I dock the phone, and I haven't yet figured out how to disable this; I can just manually stop the podcast when it happens, though.

My clock is pretty old, though. Here's another example clock that looks similar in functionality.
posted by amtho at 12:02 PM on August 14, 2014

Any cheap ihome type dock will do this. It just plays the ringer and alerts out of it's speakers while the phone is in it. I haven't had one of those for a while, but the old ones were VERY loud for their size. Not totally awesome sound, but what you want here is volume anyways not audiophile-grade music playback.
posted by emptythought at 12:10 PM on August 14, 2014 [1 favorite]

a red solo cup
If that is too light so it falls over, try a glass that is actual glass. I put my phone in one when I listen to audiobooks.
posted by soelo at 1:48 PM on August 14, 2014

I put my phone in the ashtray in the car to amplify it. It probably doubles the volume.
posted by persona au gratin at 1:32 AM on August 15, 2014