I got a Pixel 10 during prime day and installed GrapheneOS with Cape for the provider. So far, it's been mostly great. The only setback, for me, is the lack of support for tap to pay. I haven't been able to get any wallet app to work. I keep my iphone with minimal service mainly to still have tap to pay and do facetime with my book club.

I've tried two things. The free version is I've stuck a card which supports tap to pay inside my phone case. Big brain time, I know, but it actually works reasonably well. Many modern card phone cases now put shielding in (they didn't used to), which on one level I appreciate, but it limits its utility in this particular use case. I haven't tried one of the current cases to see if the shielding can be easily removed. A thin, flat card with etched/printed numbers is better than one with stamped/raised numbers.

Beyond that, I've been quite happy with Garmin Pay. The watch itself doesn't have a mic or LTE radio, I leave it on airplane mode the vast majority of the time, and it works without the phone nearby. As privacy-hostile-device privacy policies go, Garmin has one of the less offensive ones. I run the Garmin apps in the Owner profile's private space.

I've never had it not work for payment in years of using it, and in fact, at one one payment kiosk I tried to use Apple Pay for a particular large purchase when it made sense to, the kiosk refused repeatedly, but then accepted Garmin Pay.

Their lowest-end devices still don't support it, but I think you can get into it for an MSRP of about $250, and they tend to discount at all of the predictable times. Also, eBay.

Re: FaceTime, there's a way to do it from Android if you're invited (I don't think you can initiate it), but I haven't messed with it in years. See if you can get a good privacy book for normies on the agenda and suggest moving to Signal during the discussion.

I have a Pixel 7 Pro and I've been considering reflashing with GrapheneOS. I bought a Garmin watch which does tap-to-pay to deal with the loss of that feature.

How is the camera on GrapheneOS compared to the stock Pixel 10? Do your banking apps work without playing cat-and-mouse games?

place your debit card on the backside of your phone via a case pocket. a lot of cards these days support tap to pay.

Similar experience, so i just use my garmin watch to pay. Similar compatibility as google pay, but since it runs entirely on the watch it does not check against play integrity.

I find it hard to believe that you'd carry two devices with you just to pay, why not carry a card with your pixel?

If you use a case you could put a card behind your phone. I still use google wallet for various cards, just not tap-to-pay.

You don't want tap-to-pay to work because tap-to-pay requires a bunch of proprietary shitware in order for banks to trust it. It's basically like saying Netflix won't work because of Widevine DRM. Just tap your actual bank card, it's more secure anyway. Or your other, non-secure phone.

Paypal works for payment, at least in Germany

I do have to say that if you're interested in privacy, tap to pay or even a credit card is the opposite of that. Cash would be the way to go for private transactions.

Why Cape instead of Phreeli?