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📬 Did someone forward this to you? Sign up here. Tomorrow: Your smart home is brilliant until the power goes out. I’ll show you what still works, what quits immediately and the quick blackout test to run before winter storms do it for you.
Welcome to your Wednesday, {{first_name | friend}}. You know that heart-dropping moment when you pat an empty pocket and watch your Uber peel away? Last seen battery at 2%, and by the time you notice it’s gone, it’s probably dead and silent. Oh, the pain.
Most people think a powered-off phone becomes a useless shiny brick. What do you think?
📱 Can you find an iPhone that’s been turned off? A) No, off means off, B) Only if it’s plugged in, C) Yes, for up to 24 hours or D) Only if you yell “Marco” loud enough? Keep reading, the answer pings at the end.
Quick question before the turkey and tinsel take over: Where do all your holiday photos live? If the answer is “on my computer,” one crash could wipe out years of memories. Back them up with Carbonite and save 60%.* More below.
💧 Tomorrow in Splash of AI: How to catch your 2027 health plan changes before February, turn your pet into a rock anthem with Gemini and find out why ChatGPT never answers the same way twice. It’s free. Sign up now at SplashOfAI.com. — Kim
TODAY’S DEEP DIVE
Human resources
Image: ChatGPT/Kim Komando
🤯 WOW! Your phone can wait on hold for you and ping you the second a real person picks up. And starting Jan. 1, California will require big companies to offer a simple way to reach a human, with a good-faith goal of connecting you in 15 minutes.
The Short Version: Use the five methods proven to beat phone trees, let Hold Assist or Hold for Me sit on hold, grab the callback, email executive customer relations and file a free FCC complaint against your phone or internet company. Steps below.
📖 Read time: 2 minutes
Nathan in Pensacola, Fla., called his internet company and spent 20 minutes yelling, “REPRESENTATIVE!” at a robot. The robot won. He emailed me, fed up: “How do I get a real person?”
Nathan, I’ve got you. The old tricks still work, your phone has new ones, and starting in January, the law is finally on our side.
🗣️ 5 ways to escape customer service robot jail
“I need to cancel my service.” Cancellations go straight to a person.
“New service.” Sales lines pick up fastest, and they can transfer you.
“I’m returning a call.” Phone trees assume someone’s expecting you.
Asked for an account number? Hit #. Many systems skip ahead.
Stuck in a loop? Rattle off nonsense three times. Most systems give up and transfer you.
📱 5 fresh moves
Let your phone sit on hold. iPhone 12 or newer? During a call, tap More > Hold Assist. Your iPhone listens for a live person and alerts you when one picks up, with a transcript of anything you missed. Pixel owners, open the Phone app > Settings > Hold for Me, then tap Hold for me once the music starts.
Grab the callback. Look for “call me back” in the phone menu, the chat window or the app. You keep your spot in line without the elevator music.
Go over their heads. Search the company’s name plus “executive customer relations.” Big companies have a team that handles complaints sent to the CEO’s office. A short, polite email with your account number and what you want lands on a real person’s desk.
File the complaint with teeth. Fighting your phone, internet or TV company? File free at consumercomplaints.fcc.gov. The FCC forwards it, and the company must answer you in writing within 30 days. Funny how fast they find your account.
Let Gemini make the call. On eligible Pixel 11 phones, Google’s Gemini AI can navigate phone menus, wait on hold and talk to customer service for you. Open Gemini and type @Call for me (that’s the command that tells Gemini to use its AI phone-calling tool), then say which business you want to contact and why. You can follow the conversation through a live transcript and jump in anytime. The catch? It’s a limited U.S. beta requiring a Google AI subscription.
Things are starting to get better. Starting Jan. 1, 2027, California’s new law requires large businesses to give customers a way to reach a real person instead of getting trapped in chatbot purgatory. Companies must make a good-faith effort to connect you within 15 minutes or offer an appointment within one business day. Chatbots can’t masquerade as humans, either.
🗣️ Text/post this stat: Your iPhone or Pixel can wait on hold for you and alert you when a real person picks up. Tap More > Hold Assist on iPhone. GetKim.com
📩 Send this to someone who has memorized the hold music.
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IN PARTNERSHIP WITH
You can’t recapture the holidays
The holidays are all about making memories. Family photos, videos of the grandkids, those special times you wish you could bottle up forever. But here’s something many people don’t think about. What happens if your computer crashes and all those precious moments suddenly disappear? You can’t go back and capture those memories.
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This holiday season, protect more than the presents under the tree. Give yourself one less thing to worry about. Carbonite works quietly in the background all year long. And right now, my readers can save 60%, with plans starting at just $37.99 a year.
Thank you for supporting our sponsors, who keep this newsletter free.
WEB WATERCOOLER
🧠 RAM it through: OpenAI boss Sam Altman thinks the memory in your laptop is wasted on you. He called RAM sitting idle in personal computers “quite terrible” from an allocation perspective. His fix? Let AI companies use that memory to power the cloud, then rent it back to you. That’s your landlord saying your guest room is wasted, so he’s moving in and charging you rent. I’ll keep my RAM, thank you.
🛰️ Prices lost in space: Starlink went surge pricing, Uber-style. In select U.S. markets, your monthly bill can swing up or down about 20% based on how many neighbors are hogging the satellites. One Missouri customer’s Residential Max plan jumped from $130 to $156. (Ouch.) Starlink says it’ll review prices roughly every quarter. FYI, check your inbox for a notice. I got charged for a satellite dish the other day. I was furious. The rep told me it’d be on the house.
🏠 Your deed is public record. So is the fraud: Title pirates use that information to forge documents and transfer your home to their name. Home Title Lock monitors your deed 24/7 and alerts you if anything changes. Get your free Title History Report plus a 14-day free trial.*
🎤 Faith meets fiction: So a nonexistent singer with 360,000 Instagram followers has a song about heaven reaching people grieving here on Earth. May the Lord Studio’s AI-made “Tell Me, How is Heaven?” (check it out here) has 2.6 million YouTube views since July. But an AI singer posing as a real artist? Check the channel’s About page before you share.
🎭 Help desk impostors: I hate how believable a fake IT request sounds when it arrives on Teams. Microsoft said crooks impersonated help desk staff, convincing employees to open Quick Assist and share access codes. At one company, they targeted three workers, then 16 more about 90 minutes later, compromising 11 high-level accounts and copying files out. Before your team hands over remote access, have them call the actual IT department at a known number. A spider crawled on my computer. Don’t worry, it’s under ctrl.
KIM’S DAILY DEALS
As an Amazon Associate, some links pay us a commission at no extra cost to you. Keeps this newsletter free. Thank you.
🛞 Wheel-y smart gear
Stash these in your car. Thank me later.
🚗 Roadside rescuer: Jump-starter (30% off, $70)
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Turn your key and hear nothing but clicks? Don’t panic. This 6,000-amp pack jumps gas engines and diesels up to 10 liters. One full charge lasts for 60 jumps. Phone dead, too? There’s a USB port for that.
Image: HPBS
📱 Grip that won’t quit: Stick a phone holder (19% off, $13) to your dash or windshield. Your GPS stays in view, your eyes stay on the road.
Clean getaway: Black+Decker’s handheld vacuum (17% off, $50) has a rotating nozzle and crevice tool to suck up crumbs between seats.
⚡ Fast (charging) lane: This 84W car charger (15% off, $17) juices up to four phones at once, with two retractable cords and two extra ports.
Hang in there: These best-selling headrest hooks (36% off, $7, four-pack) hold 55 pounds each. Groceries stay put instead of sliding around.
🚦 The road to savings: Your next road trip upgrade awaits. Shop my Amazon picks. →
Prices and deals were accurate at the time of publication.
🎤 PODCAST: DIGITAL LIFE HACK
AI can read your furnace’s age
Your furnace has a birthday, and a photo of the label is all AI needs to decode it. Plus, Consumer Reports found each smart appliance it tested sent up to 135,000 text messages a week to their makers. We break down what’s in them.
🎧 Or search “Komando” wherever you get your podcasts. I’m everywhere.
DEVICE ADVICE
⚡️ 3-second tech genius: Trying to fix one typo and keep tapping the wrong spot? On iPhone, press and hold the space bar until the keyboard goes blank, then slide your finger to move the cursor exactly where you want. On Android with Gboard, slide left or right along the space bar. Much better than poking at the screen five times.
😒 Black Friday hasn’t started: Someone tell the marketers. Gmail can show who’s sending the most. On desktop, click More > Manage subscriptions. In the app, tap the three lines > Manage subscriptions. You’ll see senders sorted by volume. Hit Unsubscribe next to the worst offenders.
🥫 Your iPhone knows what’s in that snack: With Apple Intelligence, you can use your camera to look up nutrition. Open Camera, point it at your food, tap Siri mode, then Look Up Nutrition if it appears. Try yogurt. You might see health benefits, nutritional values, protein and how processed it is. Handy when the packaging makes everything sound healthy.
📞 Where’s that hang-up button? On Android, you can end calls with the power button instead. Open Settings > Accessibility > Power button ends call. On Samsung, look under Interaction and dexterity, or search “Side button to end calls.” No more fumbling for the red icon. The catch? You can’t lock your phone during a call anymore.
🪟 Too many windows open? Windows has a trick for that. Grab the title bar of the window you want to keep and give it a quick shake with your mouse. Everything else minimizes. Shake it again, and they all come back. Not working? Go to Settings > System > Multitasking and turn on Title bar window shake. A little aggressive, but it works.
📺 The new Apple TV 4K: Here’s the good. Built-in microphones let you say, “Hey, Siri” hands-free. Find My can track down the remote and make it beep. It’s also faster, with 128GB of storage. The bad? They want $299,* roughly $150 more than a Roku Ultra, and there’s still no 4K at 120Hz. For that money, I’d like the remote to find me.
😴 YouTube, I don’t need you playing all night: If you like falling asleep to podcasts or videos, there’s a sleep timer built in. While watching, tap the gear icon > Sleep timer and choose how long it plays, like 20 minutes or End of video. It’ll stop automatically. Won’t save you from those jump-scare ads, though.
BROUGHT TO YOU BY
❤️ The Apple Watch I bought my brother
4.7 ⭐ 300+ reviews
I got my brother the new $399 Apple Watch Series 12.* Here’s why I picked it for him:
Checks your heart rate every five seconds, all day long. That’s 60 times more often than the Series 11.
Tracks heart rate variability (HRV) up to 24 times more often, giving you a better look at stress and recovery.
Adds a new Readiness score that weighs your sleep, activity and vitals, then gives you a simple read: recover, pace yourself, ready or go for it.
Puts an ECG app, fall detection, Emergency SOS and medication reminders right on your wrist.
And yes, I told my brother to set up his Medical ID the day it arrives. Humor me. 😊
WHAT THE TECH?
Image: @tau_robotics via Instagram
🤖 Scrub-a-dub bot
Imagine outsourcing the one chore so disgusting you negotiate with yourself to avoid it.
Meet Sergey, Tau Robotics’ humanoid cleaner who tackles toilets, as well as vacuuming, mopping and wiping counters. The invite-only San Francisco service runs $100 for two robots to clean for an hour.
Don’t picture an independent robot butler yet. Humans steer these machines remotely, with AI helping out. Each cleaning is recorded to train the robots.
Watch it go here. So your bathroom gets cleaned, but somewhere there’s a video of your questionable hygiene habits. Lovely.
LOGGING OUT …
🎓 What you learned today: Your phone can wait on hold for customer service, Starlink goes surge pricing, an AI Christian singer racks up views, fake IT workers hijack accounts and humanoid robots can scrub your toilet. Not bad for one email. If the grid goes down, can you still open your garage, unlock your door or keep Wi-Fi alive? Tomorrow, I’ll walk you through the smart-home checks to make now, not during a storm tantrum.
📲 The answer: C) Yes, for up to 24 hours. On most iPhone 11 and newer models, Find My can help locate your iPhone even after it’s been turned off. If the battery fully dies, it can keep sharing its location for up to five hours in Power Reserve. Tiny overachiever.
How? Your iPhone sends out a low-power Bluetooth signal that nearby Apple devices can detect and relay through Apple’s Find My network. It’s encrypted, anonymous and surprisingly handy when your phone decides to take an unscheduled field trip.
Want to make sure it works on your phone? Go to Settings > tap your name > Find My > Find My iPhone > turn on Find My network. Speaking of tech, what’s the latest in pirate technology? The iPatch.
📸 The kids won’t be this little next year: The photos are the only way to keep this moment. Make sure they’re safe. Get Carbonite for 60% off, plans start at $37.99 a year.*
💛 You shouldn’t need a magic word to reach a real person. Pick up when someone you love calls. No phone tree required. Thank you for being here! Drop a rating below with a comment. I read them all. — Kim
Kim Komando • Komando.com • 510+ radio stations • Trusted by millions daily
🏆 THE KIM CHALLENGE: Forward this to ONE person who needs to hear it today. Pick the person who popped into your head while reading. You know who it is.
Photo credit(s): ChatGPT/Kim Komando, HPBS, Apple, @tau_robotics via Instagram
Companies and products denoted by an asterisk (*) within this publication are paid sponsors or advertisements. As an Amazon Associate, the publisher earns from qualifying purchases. Statements regarding products denoted by a double asterisk (**) have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration; such products are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. This newsletter is provided for informational and entertainment purposes only and does not constitute legal, financial, medical, or professional advice of any kind. Readers should consult with a qualified professional before making any decisions based on this content. The publisher disclaims all liability for any loss, damage, or injury resulting from the use of or reliance on the information contained herein.