Modern mobiles are pretty small, but there are times where you put them "out of reach" i.e. when wandering round your own home, doing DIY, gardening, car repair - anywhere you're concerned the handset might get dirty or damged.
So, have a very small expendable bleeper/vibrate unit (pager) that normally clips to the back of the phone when not in use. These devices are short range and really cheap, so if one is lost or damaged it's of no concern. They charge from the cellphone battery when not in use and have about an 8 hour life. They are "keyed" to the phone they last charged from. They are small and light enough to wear around the neck or on a wristband. They should also be water resistant.
So when you go somewhere you don't want to take the phone, just take the minipager.-- 8th of 7, Jul 01 2002 remote ringer do it yourself http://www.cpcares.com/TELERING.htmlAlso baked: http://www.surplussales.com/Communications/Comms-1.html [pashute, Jul 01 2002, last modified Oct 21 2004] My modern phone not only has multiple handsets, but both base units and handsets can be set to ring (or not). Which means that you can always hear the phone ring, no matter where you are. Of course, given my family, you can't always find a handset in time.-- DrCurry, Jul 01 2002 Baked and I'm too friggin tired to provide any of the 10,000 links I know I could turn up with a simple Google search.-- phoenix, Jul 02 2002 EDIT: Opoops, I should have mentioned that this is for cellphones, not landlines. Text corrected.-- 8th of 7, Jul 02 2002 But surely if you're a long way from your phone and dirty-handed you'll never be able to clean up and return to your phone in time to answer it in time anyway?
(I am *boggled* by the extent to which people feel they have to be contactable. Is this not what answering machines/services are for?)-- JKew, Jul 02 2002 I'm *boggled* too. Ridiculous to see someone wearing a headset while walking a dog, jogging, hiking, tending a garden, taking out trash... Those should be times of escape - especially for the flies.-- thumbwax, Jul 02 2002 I'm so tired I actually returned to this idea.
One quesiton: What's the point of a cellular phone you don't carry with you? Did you run out of paperweights?-- phoenix, Jul 03 2002 random, halfbakery