Survey shows slew of users successfully converted their family to a single smartphone brand

Chances are that many members of your family use smartphones from multiple manufacturers. In mine, we have a mix of Samsung, Xiaomi, and HONOR. While all these devices are powered by Android, there are some OEM quirks that make communication between them in specific scenarios clunkier than it should be. As a tech enthusiast, why wouldn’t you offer guidance and encourage them to purchase devices from a single company?

It has some benefits, as my colleague Rita El Khoury discovered. Her “Pixel family” now makes it easier to troubleshoot and resolve problems on devices, keeps devices updated much more smoothly, and gives you Google’s brilliant backup and restore features — a must for those less savvy than ourselves.

Of course, you could do this with any manufacturer, not just Google, and we were wondering if you had tried something similar in your household. So, we ran a reader poll, invited input from our community, and the answers are now available below.

We received over 2,000 votes on this survey, and it’s surprising just how many readers have attempted this challenge at some point. In fact, 58.2% of respondents are either in the process of moving family members to a single brand, have tried and failed, or have succeeded. Granted, the article rather invites those interested in the topic to vote, but it is worth noting that the concept is far more popular than initially thought.

In total, 34.6% of readers have successfully completed the great brand migration, which is a pretty remarkable achievement. As Rita explains in her article, she was able to offload older phones to family members as she upgraded, making the process a little easier.

Notably, commenter bimboy201 explains that this is their strategy, too:

I end up doing a version of this where I justify an upgrade for myself so I can give my mother-in-law a hand-me-down. She really doesn’t mind so long as I help her when she needs it and she has a phone that works.

Reader stevenmbadams echoes this strategy:

I am doing the same thing. My Mother in Law has a Galaxy S21 that stopped getting all updates, so it’s time to move her to a Pixel. My son has a Motorola G 5G and I am going to get him a Pixel Pro for the better camera. Both my wife and I have 8 Pros and they are the first devices we have kept past the 2 year mark and LOVE them. Only Pixels for us.

If you’re in my predicament, where my parents’ phones are brand new and don’t need to be replaced, it’s a little trickier.

Interestingly, it appears that Pixels or Samsungs aren’t the only pathway. Reader Alistair Parsons’ family uses another brand entirely:

My family all have POCO phones because price and familiarity. Most of my clients and family have AnyDesk on their phones for remote support.

Notably, a much smaller voting portion are still trying to convert family members, with 14.7% of respondents currently enjoying this undertaking. They should probably hold on, though, as just 8.9% of voting readers have tried and failed. The poll results suggest that the success rate for this process is pretty high.

That said, 41.8% of readers “don’t see the need” to migrate family members to a sole brand. This makes it the single option that received the largest share of the vote.