📺 Your TV listens when it’s off

🤯 WOW! Consumer Cellular doesn’t own a single cell tower. It rents AT&T’s and T-Mobile’s. Dave pays $95 a month for that signal. His wife pays $105. Unlimited everything with a new 5G phone runs $59 or less. No coverage lost anywhere in that sentence.

📖 Read time: 2.5 minutes

I love this note. 

Full disclosure before I answer: Consumer Cellular sponsors my radio show, and they’re my carrier, too. They buy airtime. They don’t buy my opinion.

Twenty years and $200 a month, William. I can’t fix the first part. The bill? Easy.

Here’s the part Big Wireless hopes you never learn: Consumer Cellular runs on AT&T’s and T-Mobile’s networks, and you pick whichever works best where you live. Your bill could land on the exact towers William’s on. Same signal, same bars, same neighborhood.

Now the money. 

The average single line runs about $80 a month. At Consumer Cellular, unlimited everything with a new 5G phone is $59 a month or less. Do that twice, like William and his wife, and you’re keeping roughly $1,000 a year. That’s a vacation, a new laptop or 200 fancy coffees. Every year.

That’s the brochure math. There is a catch. Three, actually.

1. Busy-hour slowdowns. Discount carriers rent space, and when a tower is slammed (think packed big bowl stadium, major holiday weekend in a desirable place), the big guys serve their own customers first. Your data can crawl for a bit. Calls and texts still go through, no prob.

2. No perk fireworks. No bundled streaming, no “$1,000 off with trade-in” fine print. FYI, those goodies are baked into your $95 a month plan, and they usually chain you to a 36-month contract.

3. Fewer stores on every corner. Most everything happens online or by phone. With Consumer Cellular, the support team is U.S.-based, and they pick up.

That’s the whole list. Nobody’s signal disappears. Nobody loses their number.

Here’s the play for you, your parents or that friend who’s been “meaning to look into it” since 2023.

A switch takes about 15 minutes with a real human on the phone. So yes, William, there’s a catch. My advice? Catch the savings, release the carrier.

After 20 years, you two finally get something new to argue about: who saved more. And go buy her flowers just because. She’s still your bride.

📩 Send this to someone whose phone bill makes you both wince. They’re sitting on $1,000 a year.

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📺 Ear on standby: Researchers tested retail LG OLEDs and found them scanning nearby devices and Wi-Fi networks, tracking location details and sending data to LG Ad Solutions. Some solution, right? The sets could also save microphone audio while in standby, even without internet, then upload it after reconnecting. Really. Translation? A detailed household profile could be sold to advertisers or exposed in a breach. “Off” apparently is a lifestyle choice now.

Family chat ambush: What a nightmare. A stranger added a Missouri couple, their relatives and their 16-year-old son to a chat, then posted a fake explicit image (paywall link) of their 24-year-old daughter. The family blocked the number before any money demand arrived. Public photos or one compromised account could expose an entire family. Make accounts private, use unique passwords and two-factor authentication, end unknown sessions and never pay. 

🛡️ Nagging rights: Your browser is about to bug you twice as often for updates, and I support it. Chrome 153 came out, and Google is moving stable updates from every four weeks to every two because AI is speeding up both bug discovery and attacks. Faster patches mean smaller windows for flaws to expose your passwords, shopping info and data, so please install the update before snoozing it becomes a hobby. Nothing says computer safety like reopening 38 tabs you forgot you needed.

Cloudy with a chance of surcharges: A Northern Virginia mom held her utility bill up to a camera, and her face did the accounting. She lives near roughly 570 data centers, which need huge amounts of power and water. State reports say unchecked growth could add $10B to $18B in grid costs by 2040, raising a typical customer’s monthly bill by $37. Regulators created a new rate class, GS-5, so power hogs demanding at least 25 megawatts pay their own way. Cloud storage needs your wallet on backup.

🔭 Couch meets cosmos: Picture the world’s largest photo album, except every thumbnail is a star, galaxy, black hole or asteroid, and nobody charges admission. DESI’s new public map holds 5.6 trillion pixels and about 4 billion objects across 75% of the sky. Scientists use it to investigate dark energy, the mysterious force expanding our universe that may be weakening. I zoomed in far enough to make my property taxes feel wonderfully insignificant. Try it!

Your car key fob is yelling, “Steal me!” It broadcasts its location. Even from inside the house. The fix? Simple.

Hit the link below, so you’re in the know. 👇

▶️ Thieves steal cars without keys →

⚡️ 3-second tech genius: Apple Maps works indoors. Search Chicago O’Hare Terminal 3, zoom in and there’s every shop, restaurant and restroom, mapped. See L1 in the corner? Tap it to hop between floors. Basically a mall directory in your pocket, minus the sticky YOU ARE HERE arrow. It won’t work everywhere yet, but airports and big venues are gold.

Reading it once doesn’t mean you know it: That contract, report or plan you actually need to remember? Make ChatGPT drill you on it. Upload it to a regular chat, type @study on the web and choose Study, then say, “Quiz me on the five things I’d most regret not knowing. One question at a time. Repeat anything I miss until I get it right twice.” Beats highlighting half the page and hoping it sticks. More tips like this on my official site. 😉

🔒 A thief wants more than your money: They want to be you. Open credit cards in your name. Take out loans. File a tax return and pocket your refund. A credit freeze helps, but it only stops new accounts. It does nothing to protect the ones you already have. Coveron monitors everything, your accounts, your Social Security number, your medical records, and alerts you the moment something looks wrong. Get 71% off with my exclusive link today.* 

See tomorrow’s traffic today: Google Maps can predict your drive before you take it. Search your destination, tap Directions > three dots > Set depart or arrive time, pick your window, tap Set. Now you know if that 8 a.m. meeting means a 6:40 departure or a 7:15 one. That’s 35 minutes of sleep. You’re welcome.

🖥️ One computer, several desktops: Give your apps separate rooms. On Windows, press Win + Tab > New desktop, then flip between them with Win + Ctrl + left or right arrow. On Mac, open Mission Control, click Add in the Spaces bar, and switch with Control + left or right arrow. Work on one, personal on the other. Your boss never has to meet your bracket.

🎙️ The best free audio editor: I love this program. Audacity got a fresh coat of paint and, finally, dark mode. Digitize old tapes, clean up noisy recordings, trim songs, tuck music under a voice-over, strip vocals or cut an entire podcast. No subscription, no trial, no upsell. Grab it for free for your Windows and Mac.

Be on the show! Is tech helping you parent? Or making it harder? Got a tip to help others? Send it here. 

Dashcams used to be the boring little insurance witness on your windshield. Now they’re auditioning for TikTok fame.

Drivers are uploading crashes, road rage and “instant karma” clips by the millions, sometimes with product links conveniently attached. One clip (above) captures the driver’s surprise when a truck mows through a gas station.

Another viral hit-and-run video even became an ad for the dashcam company after its footage reportedly helped police. Your car has a tiny, unpaid reality TV producer watching for drama.

Give it a look yourself. Need a dashcam? Here’s my pick and it’s on sale. It has a great track record.

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🎓 What you learned today: The “cheap carrier” catch is mostly tower traffic, smart TVs are getting nosier, scammers can turn family chats into blackmail traps, Chrome wants faster updates and the cloud’s power bill may be landing on yours. Not bad for one email. Tomorrow, I’ll show you which services stuff in the most ads, when ad-free is actually worth it and why streaming is starting to feel a whole lot like cable. Don’t miss it.

📱 The answer: C) Nearly 6 in 10. iPhones are roughly 58% of U.S. smartphones. Among teens, it’s closer to 9 in 10. Even before Apple’s unveiling today, most of the country already has a ticket on the upgrade train. (Green-bubble friends, you’re loved, too.)

Oh, and let’s not forget this 20-year-old gem from Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer, scoffing at the absurd $500 iPhone price, secure that it won’t appeal to business customers because it “doesn’t have a keyboard.” 

Oh, Steve, those were the days. Whatever Apple announces today, my wallet felt a disturbance around 10:18 a.m.

🛑 Brittle nails, thinning hair and new wrinkles are your collagen crashing: Expensive creams cannot fix that. I put NativePath in my morning tea every single day. Dissolves instantly. Zero taste. Rebuilds from the inside out. Get it for a fraction of the retail price, plus free shipping and free gifts.** 

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, MUSICOZY, @extrezionx via TikTok

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