I think this will not go down well here on HackerNews because I'm going to suggest sticking up to Apple. Here is my experience. I tried with cheaper phones that we can just replace when they lose, drop it, or many other reasons.
Get them on iPhones, Macs, Apple TV, and iPads. They can be used ones or hand-me-downs, but that ecosystem works for them. Here is a setup for the in-laws.
An Apple TV drives as the "Apple Home" Setup while an iPad (the backup) is mounted near the TV. That room/area is the "talking to the kids area" where they just know how to respond or start a video call. The only other button they learned was to switch between their favorite local cable provider and the Apple TV. It did take a lot of repeated practice from "I can see on the iPad but not TV" to "seeing and talking on the big TV".
iPhones/Macs (instead of selling yours, give them your old one) are the easiest to set up and maintain. The contacts sync, and they have stopped complaining about getting back their phone contacts. The father-in-law once hand-wrote about a 5-paged A4 with about 200+ odd numbers and came to me to sync to the new phone. They are not losing their photos anymore and can spend hours browsing photos of their gigantic family members.
Tip: Set up your Apple TV screensaver with a specific Album and keep sharing photos there. Now, watch the grandparents, grand-everyone just sit in front of the screensaver and spend hours talking, laughing, arguing, crying, and sleeping off.
My issue is that I don't know how to avoid the apple password never getting in the way (fail them cause account lockdown). Is it possible to totally restrict access to settings/password entering in iPad?
LOL! So, this used to happen a lot when the kids wanted to play with the grandparents phones. So, I explain nicely to everyone that the devices are out of bounds for everyone and no-one touches the devices any more. That solves that. However, on rare occasions, there are needs to enter the Apple password -- my wife have a few other cousins who helps out. For parents with no access to external help, I suggest printing out on a paper and keeping it safe (use a font-size large of a serif fonts). If your local language is not English, complex password but based off the local language are easier -- (in locale) my dear friend's NAME that died during WWII on this DATE, etc. ;-)
Update: For cultural context and to avoid confusion with others around the world who have separate living spaces, my in-laws lives in a pretty large sprawl of almost a colony on their own with their brothers, sisters, cousins, and the entire families. On Google Maps, I had actually named the central home of that locality (my in-laws) to a specific name based on their family name -- making it easy for deliveries by post (Amazon, Post Office, Air Cargo deliveries, etc). In that part of the world, addresses are not precise and still goes on word of mouth.
I'm honestly surprised Apple didn't spin their Fleetsmith acquisition into a free, privacy friendly parental/caretaker oriented MDM for home users. Instead, they decided to wade into the crowded waters of "cheap MDM for basic business needs that requires a business license".
Get them on iPhones, Macs, Apple TV, and iPads. They can be used ones or hand-me-downs, but that ecosystem works for them. Here is a setup for the in-laws.
An Apple TV drives as the "Apple Home" Setup while an iPad (the backup) is mounted near the TV. That room/area is the "talking to the kids area" where they just know how to respond or start a video call. The only other button they learned was to switch between their favorite local cable provider and the Apple TV. It did take a lot of repeated practice from "I can see on the iPad but not TV" to "seeing and talking on the big TV".
iPhones/Macs (instead of selling yours, give them your old one) are the easiest to set up and maintain. The contacts sync, and they have stopped complaining about getting back their phone contacts. The father-in-law once hand-wrote about a 5-paged A4 with about 200+ odd numbers and came to me to sync to the new phone. They are not losing their photos anymore and can spend hours browsing photos of their gigantic family members.
Tip: Set up your Apple TV screensaver with a specific Album and keep sharing photos there. Now, watch the grandparents, grand-everyone just sit in front of the screensaver and spend hours talking, laughing, arguing, crying, and sleeping off.