Dual Sim Phones
Pross
Posts: 39,285
Does anyone on here use a dual SIM phone as an alternative to carrying a work and personal phone? I've always had separate phones but for the new job I was looking at just getting an eSim for a work number and retaining the physical SIM for personal use. The main thing I want is to be able to easily switch off the work number outside work hours or when I'm on leave and also to be able to separate out personal or business contacts to the respective SIMS.
The alternative is to just get a SIM only package and put a physical SIM in one of my old phones so I continue to carry two phones.
The alternative is to just get a SIM only package and put a physical SIM in one of my old phones so I continue to carry two phones.
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Just use two SIMs in one phone and swap. High likelihood of losing one though.
I am not sure. You have no chance.
Where it didn’t live up to expectations was trying to separate email accounts.
I was on android and had two user profiles so that only work stuff hit one and personal stuff the other.
Different apps with specific accounts too for a few other things. Too much faff swapping between though.
Can’t do that on IOS anyway so it just comes down to managing calls and availability which can work quite successfully I’d say.
As the others say the problem comes with keeping work & personal accounts separate. Inevitably some "helpful" function will end up merging the whole lot which at worse is a massive PITA and at worse a major data security violation...
- @ddraver
Now I've separated everything my work life balance is much improved and my work emails get the attention they require. Same with texts. When I'm at work it's the work phone. In my time it's my phone.
Having two SIMs in the one phone was OK (though noted about then having no memory expansion option), apart from if one or other is being clunky on data connection, and you're switching in settings between which card is doing data, that's a bit faffy.
Haven't tried to separate work & private to any great extent, although if I want to do that I just look at the Gmail app which only picks up personal Gmail, and ignore the other app which does everything.
So you won’t have texts on your work number so you will have iMessages using your Apple ID but normal texts only to and from your main number.
iPhone to iPhone is easy if they both use the same Apple ID. Not possible if they don’t.
With android, you can set up call forwarding but this then depends on whether your carrier allows it. And if they do allow it, whether it is part of your bundled minutes or not. If not, it’ll be the standard rate which is not cheap.
I have had this working in the past.
Tbh, I never established if the root cause of the problem was ios or the phone carrier. The phone is unlocked so not a device limitation from that perspective.
On android, much as I’ve had it working, the whole thing was a ball ache when I did it. I had to use standard call forwarding codes and device automation software (macro droid) to handle it. The supposed standard settings for call forwarding never seem to work on any device.
I had some really clever automations running but they were all only ever 80-90% reliable which isn’t really good enough. But it was fun playing, unlike my iOS use it how we want you to device.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Call_forwarding#:~:text=Call forwarding is often enabled,is disabled by dialing *73.
In a previous job I got a company mobile and the personal mobile died off. I transferred the number to PAYG so I could keep it as I had had it for years. Didn't make the necessary calls to keep it live and ended up losing it.
Got made redundant and was able to port the number, so have had that for 18 years. Used to use company details for all sorts but gradually moved any accounts to personal email registrations. Current job reckoned I wasn't going to travel much and didn't need a mobile - which is fine by me, no more late calls and notifications.