The HMD Fuse has been the most heavily marketed children’s phone in the UK – Vodafone and Three put real weight behind it, and the idea behind it deserves attention. HarmBlock+, its on-device AI, is designed to block explicit imagery from being viewed, captured or shared. If you saw the adverts and thought “that’s the right idea”, that was a fair thing to think. Since then, though, a security researcher has published serious findings about the Fuse, and UK sales have been paused; more on that below.
So why are you searching for an alternative? From our conversations with parents, I’d guess it’s one of four things: the price (£498 SIM-free, or carrier bundles from around £33 a month that total £800+ over the term), the contract (a 24–36 month commitment for a first phone feels long), the size of the phone itself (it’s a full 6.56-inch Android smartphone – for an eight- or nine-year-old, that’s a lot of phone), or the philosophy: the Fuse is designed to grow into an ordinary smartphone as protections relax with age, and some families want the opposite – a simpler line, held longer. And since the summer there’s a fifth: the security questions covered below.
We make Sayph, one of the alternatives below, so we’re not neutral. We do say where the Fuse is the better buy.
In brief
Keep the Fuse on your list if your child is 12+, you want one carrier bill covering everything, and “a proper smartphone, protected” is exactly the brief – once it’s back on sale and HMD has answered the security findings below. Choose Sayph if you want the protection question settled by design rather than degrees – no app store, no browser, no social media, ever – at £189 + £4.99/month, no contract, any SIM. Choose Pinwheel if you want curated apps with the fullest parental app-management system. Choose OtherPhone if AI content filtering inside WhatsApp is the priority. Choose Wingio if you want a controls-first setup on a choice of Samsung handsets, or a brick phone for maximum simplicity.
An update on the Fuse’s security (October 2026)
Since we first wrote this guide, an independent security researcher, Paul Moore, has published findings on the Fuse and its HarmBlock+ system. He says he spent seven months reporting them privately to HMD and to Xplora, the company that runs the HarmBlock+ parent app, before going public. Among other things, he reports that:
- a flaw in the parent-account system let someone else take over a parent’s account, see the child’s live location, manage their apps and switch off the phone’s protections remotely;
- in his tests, turning the phone on its side made an image the filter had blocked reappear around 70% of the time;
- a child could remove the protections with a factory reset, and the filter doesn’t scan 433 approved apps, including ChatGPT and Wikipedia.
Moore reports that the parent service was offline from 8 July to 10 September 2026. VodafoneThree has taken the Fuse off its website and, in a statement Moore quotes, says it has paused sales while the issues are reviewed; at the time of writing, HMD’s own UK store lists the Fuse as out of stock. We haven’t seen a public technical response from HMD or from SafeToNet, which makes HarmBlock, so we can’t tell you which of these issues have since been fixed. Moore’s full write-up has the detail.
We take no pleasure in this. HMD set out to tackle a real harm, and the idea behind HarmBlock is a good one. But it shows the limit of any filter: it has to catch harmful content every time, on every screen, and keep its own systems secure while it does. Sayph takes the other route. The browser, app store and social apps that most of that content arrives through aren’t on the phone, so there’s nothing to filter. No phone is tamper-proof, ours included, but there’s far less to get wrong.
The alternatives, weighed
Sayph – simpler by design, a third of the cost (ours)
The Fuse protects a child on the open internet; Sayph doesn’t put them there. No app store, no browser, no social media – built into the operating system, not togglable. Calls, messaging (every message visible to you in Sayph Space, plus AI summaries that flag what needs attention), camera, music, maps, location. £189 one-off + £4.99/month on any UK SIM: over two years about £309 against roughly £820 for a Fuse carrier bundle. UK designed and supported; MadeForMums Gold 2026. The trade, if you see it as one (we designed it this way on purpose): no WhatsApp, and no growth path – Sayph holds a line rather than relaxing one. Our view is that the more apps you put on a phone, the more temptation there is to use it, and no amount of clever filtering gets around that. We’ve written the direct head-to-head at Sayph vs HMD Fuse.
Pinwheel – the curated-apps middle ground
A managed Android (from £189 + £15.99/month) with 1,500+ approvable apps you approve individually – more app freedom than Sayph, more parental machinery than the Fuse. It lacks anything like HarmBlock, but its app-curation and text-monitoring tools are extensive. US company with a UK arm. Full picture in our Pinwheel alternatives guide.
OtherPhone – the closest rival in spirit
The Fuse’s nearest competitor in philosophy: built on the Nothing Phone (3a) Lite, with AI safety filtering in real time – uniquely, inside WhatsApp too – at £279 + £5.99/month, no carrier contract. Launched with Mumsnet. Differences that matter: its safety layer is software that parents can later remove entirely, and it’s a young product from a young company.
Wingio – controls on a standard Samsung
Pre-configured Samsung A-series (from £149) with device-level controls: read messages, approve contacts, geofence, disable cameras. £7.99/month or £199 once. No HarmBlock equivalent – and the oversight is much the same as Sayph’s, so the real difference is the handset range and the fact that, with an app store attached, it can grow into a full smartphone.
A brick phone – the £20 counter-argument
If the Fuse feels like too much phone, the simple other end is a £20 Nokia: calls, texts, no internet to protect anyone from. It works best under 11; past that the group-chat exclusion bites – our secondary school guide weighs exactly this.
Side by side
| HMD Fuse | Sayph | Pinwheel | OtherPhone | Wingio | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cost | £498 SIM-free / from ~£33/mo bundled (sales paused) | £189 + £4.99/mo | from £189 + £15.99/mo | £279 + £5.99/mo | from £149 + £7.99/mo |
| Two-year cost* | ~£820 (bundle) | ~£309 | ~£573 | ~£423 | ~£340+ |
| Contract required | Typically 24–36mo via carrier (or SIM-free) | No | No | No | No |
| Content protection | HarmBlock+ AI; researcher reports ways round it | No open internet at all | Curated apps, no AI blocker | AI filtering, removable layer | Monitoring, no AI blocker |
| Grows into full smartphone | Yes – by design | No – by design | Yes, gradually | Yes (safety removable) | Partially |
| Best age fit | ~11–15 | 8–13 | 8–14 | 11–15 | 8–14 |
*Handset + subscription/bundle, excl. standalone SIM where needed. Prices checked July 2026 – carrier pricing especially moves; confirm before buying. Fuse sales have been paused since the summer.
How to decide
We’d suggest the Fuse question is really the smartphone question: is it time for your child to be on the open internet with serious protection, or is it not yet time for the open internet at all? If the first – weigh OtherPhone and Pinwheel, and the Fuse if it returns to sale with the security findings addressed. If the second – you don’t need £500 of protected smartphone; you need a phone that was never the problem in the first place, which is the safe-by-design approach, ours among them. Age is the tiebreaker: the younger the child, the stronger the case for not-yet.
Frequently asked questions
Is there a cheaper alternative to the HMD Fuse?
Yes – every phone in this guide runs cheaper over two years. The biggest gap: Sayph at about £309 total versus about £820 for a Fuse carrier bundle. The fair caveat is that they’re different philosophies, not just different prices.
Can I get the HMD Fuse without a contract?
It was £498 SIM-free, but at the time of writing HMD’s UK store lists it as out of stock and VodafoneThree has paused sales. If a protected smartphone is the brief, the £279 OtherPhone is the nearest alternative.
Is anything else as good as HarmBlock?
HarmBlock was widely seen as the category leader, but a security researcher has since reported several ways round it, including turning the phone on its side. OtherPhone’s AI filtering is the nearest rival and uniquely covers WhatsApp, but parents can remove it. Sayph makes the comparison moot by having no open internet to filter.
HMD Fuse or Sayph for an 8–10 year old?
At that age we’d say Sayph, and not only because we make it: the Fuse is a full-size smartphone designed to grow towards independence a 9-year-old doesn’t need yet, at nearly triple the cost. From 12 up, the comparison gets close – here’s the head-to-head.
Sayph is £189 with free UK delivery, plus £4.99/month – no contract, any UK SIM. See how Sayph works or order today.
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