5 ms·

Honestly, I have been fantasizing about a device used purely for text messaging, with multiple connection modes (LoRA, LTE, Wifi, etc) and then just dedicate it

Honestly, I have been fantasizing about a device used purely for text messaging, with multiple connection modes (LoRA, LTE, Wifi, etc) and then just dedicate it to messaging. A small device just to send and receive messages either directly, and/or integrate with popular messaging services, but only messaging. Something to optimize battery, screen (only really need Eink or something low power), and other aspects for that mode of communication.

red_hare 5y ago
It's outdated now but there was the Peek Email device which gets pretty close and is, IMO, beautiful hardware: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peek_(mobile_Internet_device) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peek_(mobile_Internet_device)
- Daegalus 5y ago
  Oh that is really nice hardware. But ya, similar to that. Maybe I will sit down and see if I can design something myself.
  - iszomer 5y ago
    ARMAchat.
marc__1 5y ago
You are pretty much describing pager 2.0. Interesting how the world goes around
- Daegalus 5y ago
  ya, I can see that. I think its just the overwhelming nature of every little thing going on right now. Having a way to take a break but not completely be off the grid would be nice.
  - reaperducer 5y ago
    Having a way to take a break but not completely be off the grid would be nice. A smart watch gets me most of the way there. I can still get and send text messages to my wife, and look at our shared grocery list, and do simple technology-assisted things. But I'm free of the temptation to look at HN, or doomscroll a news app, or participate in similar over-distractions.
    - 542354234235 5y ago
      Smartwatches are the opposite for me. It feels so oppressive to have a notification machine actually tethered to my body.
- 542354234235 5y ago
  It’s the ereader for phones. Sure you can read books on your phone or tablet, but having a separate, dedicated device that is free of other distractions and optimized for the specific task is incredibly useful for a lot of people. But I don’t really see it as technology going around, but more as trial and error for what is better bundled and what isn’t. Like I don’t see the calculator or voice recorder making a huge comeback for your average person.
nine_k 5y ago
Oh, a pager 2.0! An omni-pager! But once you consider an email client, it turns much larger.
- n_o_u 5y ago
  Zawinski's Law
jfim 5y ago
Not exactly what you mentioned, but the Punkt MP02 has support for SMS and Signal I believe. https://www.punkt.ch/en/products/mp02-4g-mobile-phone/ https://www.punkt.ch/en/products/mp02-4g-mobile-phone/
- gurchik 5y ago
  I was looking into a device to use for on-call, intending to get a "dumb phone" that was a trade for a long battery life and a small form factor in exchange for only being able to call and text (which is all I would need anyway for on-call). A lot of "dumb phones" no longer work in the US, or are on the way out. The Punkt MP02 is one of the exceptions that has the specs I want and has 4G support. Unfortunately, while I am sure it is worth every penny, I couldn't afford the $350 price tag.
  - xupybd 5y ago
    Have you tried AliExpress. They have loads of phones. Many dumb phones that are really cheap.
- philips 5y ago
  Thank you for mentioning this device! I have been wondering if there was a feature phone + signal!
Jtsummers 5y ago
https://www.crowdsupply.com/sutajio-kosagi/precursor https://www.crowdsupply.com/sutajio-kosagi/precursor I was half-interested in buying a pair of these to try that with. However, an honest assessment of my ability to commit and complete it made me skip it. If this is successful and a second device (or less expensive version of this) comes out I'll reconsider.
aceazzameen 5y ago
Reminds me of the 90s when people had beepers, and everyone would send each other long strings of numbers that they knew how to translate into sentences. Beepers were in a way, the original texting device.
- genewitch 5y ago
  I understand your point, here - so don't take offense, please. The Hellschreiber was invented in the 1920s, and the "protocol" is still in use today. CW transmission of symbols (Morse code, for instance) began around 1913, this is after, of course, spark gap transmitters (such as those used on the Titanic) and telegraph. I personally cannot understand or use CW/Morse, but i have radios and software that do it for me. There are extremely tiny, battery powered CW radios, usually costing $50-$300. If one can use CW and understand it, that's wireless, telephoneless communication. Hellschreiber, though, requires a display (or clever OCR, due to the way it is transmitted over 3 identical horizontal lines), but a chiclet style keyboard could be used. Unfortunately i don't know of any consumer-y way to do any of this. APRS(c. 1984) 100% could do tiny, text-only messaging, and in fact does already, but requires licensing. I can send a text message to anyone at an internet connected device with a screen, or anyone, anywhere with a radio that supports it. X.25(1976) also exists, as does PACTOR(1991), both of which in theory don't need much more than a display and a way to input characters. Back to my point, though, telegraphs have existed since before 1792, and the idea was to be able to see semaphore further away. Electrical telegraphy(1809) was first 35 wires in 35 tubes of acid and the operator had to watch for bubbles in each tube. But about 110 years after that, teletype became more prevalent, and there we have Hellschreiber.
  - gkbrk 5y ago
    Always nice to see people mention radio stuff on HN. Just a quick remark, I believe Hellschreiber is transmitted as a single line, just displayed as multiple in order to get around the skew caused by timing differences.
    - genewitch 5y ago
      You're correct, although it's not technically "a line" it's a column of "on" or "off" - the receiver is, per the protocol, supposed to output at least one copy of each character. The wiki mentions that having three possible rows allows for deviations in timing, however, three rows also allows for deviation of frequency. Today's radios, combined with FLOSS (or at least 'source available') software can get timing synchronized within 20ms, including the delay in actually getting the RF out of the 'antenna' - pci latency, soundcard buffer latency, radio soundcard latency (if you're using a radio that connects via USB, see ic-7100 for example). When I use WSJT-X, which is "weak signal" software, i routinely notice less than 1s timing deviation median. WSJT-X relies on the system clock that the software uses to be accurate, as transmissions start at published times - like exactly on the minute boundary, :00. all reception reports include the time delta. As another data point, slow hell mode uses 30hz of bandwidth, and i have used kiwisdr websites to 'hear myself' nearly everywhere in the world using slow hell mode. No one else is using this mode, so i generally have to use kiwisdr to test different modes, antennas, and radios. Another open source project, iirc.
derefr 5y ago
I think I'd get 90% of the value from such a device, out of having a regular smartphone, but locked down to running only a single app, that works as follows: • The app is an email client, so anyone with an email address can reach you through it, and you can send email through it; • but the email client is a proprietary one, associated with its own special email service provider (so you have a separate email address with them, and if you want to receive your regular email there, you have to set up forwarding); • and the email servers that this email service provider runs are special, in that they will deliver others' messages sent to your address, to your account's IMAP inbox, only after a 24hr delay; and they will forward the messages you send through the SMTP server, out to the next server in the SMTP chain, only after a 24hr delay. Given such an app+service, people could still reach me, but nobody could ever reach me synchronously. And I couldn't reach them synchronously, either. It'd be like the feeling of latency that comes from corresponding using physical letters, but with those letters happening to arrive wherever you are, rather than at a postbox. (I guess most similar to corresponding using letters when you're at a war front. A courier walks up to you and hands you a letter, sent from home 24hrs before.) Given the delay, there'd be no real point to messaging anyone more than once a day. I'd write an e-letter to each person, updating them on what's been going on with me, and then I'd turn my phone off. No point in wasting battery on it when any message is going to be at least 24hrs old when I receive it. May as well just check it in the evening, or the next day. If I see or hear something nice, I can take a picture / record a voice memo of it with the smartphone per usual, and include that picture in the letter I write that day. I could even vlog, I suppose. (Do you call it vlogging if it's done over email instead of over the web?) I could still subscribe to newsletters. And I could ask people to forward me clippings of interesting things they find on the web, as if it was 1996. But doomscrolling on social media? Impossible. Acting as a remote IT helpdesk oracle to diagnose some failure someone's having? Also impossible. If someone really needed a specific, single question answered, they could ask me, but only if they don't need the answer urgently. Better to just ask someone else, unless they don't have any better option. But having an "evergreen" conversation about an interesting topic would still work just fine. Heck, even participating in a Play By Email (PBEM) tabletop RPG — do people still run those? — would work fine.
- hattmall 5y ago
killingtime74 5y ago
Here you go: https://www.zoleo.com/en-au/satellite-communicator/ https://www.zoleo.com/en-au/satellite-communicator/. It switches seamlessly between wifi cellular and satellite
xNeil 5y ago
That's what the JioPhone does, but only in India :)

red_hare 5y ago

It's outdated now but there was the Peek Email device which gets pretty close and is, IMO, beautiful hardware: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peek_(mobile_Internet_device) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peek_(mobile_Internet_device)

Daegalus 5y ago
Oh that is really nice hardware. But ya, similar to that. Maybe I will sit down and see if I can design something myself.
- iszomer 5y ago
  ARMAchat.

marc__1 5y ago

You are pretty much describing pager 2.0. Interesting how the world goes around

Daegalus 5y ago
ya, I can see that. I think its just the overwhelming nature of every little thing going on right now. Having a way to take a break but not completely be off the grid would be nice.
- reaperducer 5y ago
  Having a way to take a break but not completely be off the grid would be nice. A smart watch gets me most of the way there. I can still get and send text messages to my wife, and look at our shared grocery list, and do simple technology-assisted things. But I'm free of the temptation to look at HN, or doomscroll a news app, or participate in similar over-distractions.
  - 542354234235 5y ago
    Smartwatches are the opposite for me. It feels so oppressive to have a notification machine actually tethered to my body.
542354234235 5y ago
It’s the ereader for phones. Sure you can read books on your phone or tablet, but having a separate, dedicated device that is free of other distractions and optimized for the specific task is incredibly useful for a lot of people. But I don’t really see it as technology going around, but more as trial and error for what is better bundled and what isn’t. Like I don’t see the calculator or voice recorder making a huge comeback for your average person.

nine_k 5y ago

Oh, a pager 2.0! An omni-pager! But once you consider an email client, it turns much larger.

n_o_u 5y ago
Zawinski's Law

jfim 5y ago

Not exactly what you mentioned, but the Punkt MP02 has support for SMS and Signal I believe. https://www.punkt.ch/en/products/mp02-4g-mobile-phone/ https://www.punkt.ch/en/products/mp02-4g-mobile-phone/

gurchik 5y ago
I was looking into a device to use for on-call, intending to get a "dumb phone" that was a trade for a long battery life and a small form factor in exchange for only being able to call and text (which is all I would need anyway for on-call). A lot of "dumb phones" no longer work in the US, or are on the way out. The Punkt MP02 is one of the exceptions that has the specs I want and has 4G support. Unfortunately, while I am sure it is worth every penny, I couldn't afford the $350 price tag.
- xupybd 5y ago
  Have you tried AliExpress. They have loads of phones. Many dumb phones that are really cheap.
philips 5y ago
Thank you for mentioning this device! I have been wondering if there was a feature phone + signal!

Jtsummers 5y ago

https://www.crowdsupply.com/sutajio-kosagi/precursor https://www.crowdsupply.com/sutajio-kosagi/precursor I was half-interested in buying a pair of these to try that with. However, an honest assessment of my ability to commit and complete it made me skip it. If this is successful and a second device (or less expensive version of this) comes out I'll reconsider.

aceazzameen 5y ago

Reminds me of the 90s when people had beepers, and everyone would send each other long strings of numbers that they knew how to translate into sentences. Beepers were in a way, the original texting device.

genewitch 5y ago
I understand your point, here - so don't take offense, please. The Hellschreiber was invented in the 1920s, and the "protocol" is still in use today. CW transmission of symbols (Morse code, for instance) began around 1913, this is after, of course, spark gap transmitters (such as those used on the Titanic) and telegraph. I personally cannot understand or use CW/Morse, but i have radios and software that do it for me. There are extremely tiny, battery powered CW radios, usually costing $50-$300. If one can use CW and understand it, that's wireless, telephoneless communication. Hellschreiber, though, requires a display (or clever OCR, due to the way it is transmitted over 3 identical horizontal lines), but a chiclet style keyboard could be used. Unfortunately i don't know of any consumer-y way to do any of this. APRS(c. 1984) 100% could do tiny, text-only messaging, and in fact does already, but requires licensing. I can send a text message to anyone at an internet connected device with a screen, or anyone, anywhere with a radio that supports it. X.25(1976) also exists, as does PACTOR(1991), both of which in theory don't need much more than a display and a way to input characters. Back to my point, though, telegraphs have existed since before 1792, and the idea was to be able to see semaphore further away. Electrical telegraphy(1809) was first 35 wires in 35 tubes of acid and the operator had to watch for bubbles in each tube. But about 110 years after that, teletype became more prevalent, and there we have Hellschreiber.
- gkbrk 5y ago
  Always nice to see people mention radio stuff on HN. Just a quick remark, I believe Hellschreiber is transmitted as a single line, just displayed as multiple in order to get around the skew caused by timing differences.
  - genewitch 5y ago
    You're correct, although it's not technically "a line" it's a column of "on" or "off" - the receiver is, per the protocol, supposed to output at least one copy of each character. The wiki mentions that having three possible rows allows for deviations in timing, however, three rows also allows for deviation of frequency. Today's radios, combined with FLOSS (or at least 'source available') software can get timing synchronized within 20ms, including the delay in actually getting the RF out of the 'antenna' - pci latency, soundcard buffer latency, radio soundcard latency (if you're using a radio that connects via USB, see ic-7100 for example). When I use WSJT-X, which is "weak signal" software, i routinely notice less than 1s timing deviation median. WSJT-X relies on the system clock that the software uses to be accurate, as transmissions start at published times - like exactly on the minute boundary, :00. all reception reports include the time delta. As another data point, slow hell mode uses 30hz of bandwidth, and i have used kiwisdr websites to 'hear myself' nearly everywhere in the world using slow hell mode. No one else is using this mode, so i generally have to use kiwisdr to test different modes, antennas, and radios. Another open source project, iirc.

derefr 5y ago

I think I'd get 90% of the value from such a device, out of having a regular smartphone, but locked down to running only a single app, that works as follows: • The app is an email client, so anyone with an email address can reach you through it, and you can send email through it; • but the email client is a proprietary one, associated with its own special email service provider (so you have a separate email address with them, and if you want to receive your regular email there, you have to set up forwarding); • and the email servers that this email service provider runs are special, in that they will deliver others' messages sent to your address, to your account's IMAP inbox, only after a 24hr delay; and they will forward the messages you send through the SMTP server, out to the next server in the SMTP chain, only after a 24hr delay. Given such an app+service, people could still reach me, but nobody could ever reach me synchronously. And I couldn't reach them synchronously, either. It'd be like the feeling of latency that comes from corresponding using physical letters, but with those letters happening to arrive wherever you are, rather than at a postbox. (I guess most similar to corresponding using letters when you're at a war front. A courier walks up to you and hands you a letter, sent from home 24hrs before.) Given the delay, there'd be no real point to messaging anyone more than once a day. I'd write an e-letter to each person, updating them on what's been going on with me, and then I'd turn my phone off. No point in wasting battery on it when any message is going to be at least 24hrs old when I receive it. May as well just check it in the evening, or the next day. If I see or hear something nice, I can take a picture / record a voice memo of it with the smartphone per usual, and include that picture in the letter I write that day. I could even vlog, I suppose. (Do you call it vlogging if it's done over email instead of over the web?) I could still subscribe to newsletters. And I could ask people to forward me clippings of interesting things they find on the web, as if it was 1996. But doomscrolling on social media? Impossible. Acting as a remote IT helpdesk oracle to diagnose some failure someone's having? Also impossible. If someone really needed a specific, single question answered, they could ask me, but only if they don't need the answer urgently. Better to just ask someone else, unless they don't have any better option. But having an "evergreen" conversation about an interesting topic would still work just fine. Heck, even participating in a Play By Email (PBEM) tabletop RPG — do people still run those? — would work fine.

hattmall 5y ago

killingtime74 5y ago

Here you go: https://www.zoleo.com/en-au/satellite-communicator/ https://www.zoleo.com/en-au/satellite-communicator/. It switches seamlessly between wifi cellular and satellite

xNeil 5y ago

That's what the JioPhone does, but only in India :)