15 ms·

The Quest for a Dumber Phone

164 points by kevin_hu 4y ago

sw104 4y ago
I honestly don't understand the point of people avoiding smartphones on principle. I'm not sure if it's a contrarian way of thinking, a way to stand out or what. Why not just dumb down a smartphone? I have a Pixel 5 because it's the smallest form factor Android smartphone available. I never installed any entertainment (games, social media, video streaming) apps on it. Those that came pre-installed (ie. YouTube), I uninstalled or disabled. After this, I disabled notifications for everything besides calls and messages (SMS, Signal, email). I cleaned my emails so only genuine stuff ever pops up, and I make it a point to not check my phone, except for set times throughout the day, unless I'm being bombarded by messages or calls (as would happen in an emergency). The phone that is left sits in my pocket 99% of the day, but still has the tools that I may need (Maps, Uber) should my forward planning be thwarted by unexpected occurrences (lost my pre-planned route to a new place, a cancelled bus/train). My daily smartphone use is maybe 10 minutes. Some people have commented that they didn't think I had one, because I'm barely holding it. I don't understand the need to get rid of tools which could help in an emergency or unexpected circumstances. I anecdotally had a friend who uses a dumbphone because he wanted to simplify things, and he ended up pestering the people he was around to check their maps or to look something up. In the end he went back to a smartphone. You can do this with any smartphone, cheap or expensive. I did it with a Pixel 5 just because I liked the form factor of something that can easily slip into my running bag, pockets etc. Plus, as a bonus, the low usage of the device should keep it going for a couple of years until my next dumb smartphone.
- bobdvb 4y ago
  I believe some people do it to avoid the temptation. Perhaps they feel they lack the self-control?
xcambar 4y ago
> Disclosure: Every [the website every.to] co-founder and CEO Dan Shipper is an investor in Light. I do appreciate the disclosure.
- yadoomerta 4y ago
  idk why you're being downvoted, it did read like an insidious content marketing piece. At least there was a disclosure. With that said, I've been trying to lock down my smartphone to offline-only apps + text + calls, totally agree with the mission, I've felt so much more distractable of late
- Panzer04 4y ago
  Would have appreciated it at the start to be honest - but I guess it's better than nothing at all.
post_break 4y ago
Here's an example of living with the light phone: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C7G1pWYVtBg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C7G1pWYVtBg Honestly I think using an Android phone with minimal apps, or having two profiles, one for work, one for play/weekends makes the most sense. And on iPhone using screen time to force your grip from app vices makes more sense than the self punishment of these phones. That said my ADHD makes me want to buy one of these https://skysedge.com/unsmartphones/RUSP/index.html https://skysedge.com/unsmartphones/RUSP/index.html
- ajsnigrutin 4y ago
  > Here's an example of living with the light phone: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C7G1pWYVtBg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C7G1pWYVtBg That's expensive for a phone with basically zero features... Why not just buy a nokia 3310 (the new one) for around 60eur, where you get a better, faster phone, with basically the same limitations as any other of the dumbphones, but it's cheaper and works faster and has a better screen? Also, the ergonomics are better, dual sim, sd card slot for music... and again, no apps, no emails, no notifications.. just a phone as it used to be (well.. with music and bluetooth).
  - dbalatero 4y ago
    This idea of "more features, better deal" is a common thing people bring up. However, one of the stronger "features" that draws me to the Light Phone is that they are an opinionated company that designs their product specifically to prevent the distraction/engagement-seeking style of apps that are so prevalent in smartphone ecosystems. Whether or not that's a feature that resonates with you is, of course, another story! For me I have the money, would like to vote with it by supporting a company aligned with my interests, and don't mind paying that premium. You might have different finances and prefer the $60 EUR option, and that's fine too. If you check out Jose's channel (from the article), he reviews tons of these phones and there's likely a sweet spot in there for most people that are curious.
  - sparrish 4y ago
    Because texting on a Nokia touchpad is terrible plus I'd like to have driving directions and prompts.
TSiege 4y ago
This was a very thoughtful piece. I appreciate the honest discussion of the struggle between giving up great apps for the sake of being distraction free. I've looked into the light phone but there's no support for Spotify, which is a big detractor for. I believe they added basic map functionality, but no streaming music is hard as my taste has exceeded my personal digital library
- disantlor 4y ago
  consider streaming/downloading (& supporting) independant radio like WFMU.org not saying it's going to scratch all the itches that Spotify would, but it definitely will scratch some you didnt realize you had, which is a fun experience on it's own
- dbalatero 4y ago
  I have a separate audio player that I was carrying with my flip before I went to the Light Phone. A bunch of them have Spotify support, and it seems like you can spend from $100 to $400 to $800 to $thousands, depending on your appetite. Separate devices has its downsides (net price can be higher, more pocket space), but also has the upside of having devices focused and potentially higher quality. An option if you're thinking of it!
dbalatero 4y ago
I had a flip phone the last year and switched to a Light Phone 2 the other day after I dropped the flip phone and broke some internal connections. It's been great for my focus, information overload, and the minor inconveniences are, well, minor. The next OS is supposed to get calendars + 2-way sync, so between that and directions/music/podcasts, it's a pretty full featured device while still preventing a lot of mindless engagement. Occasionally I break out the iPhone for a Lyft ride to the airport or something, but beyond that there hasn't been much of a need.
cheesetoastie 4y ago
This turns any phone into a dumb phone for free :) https://specialprojects.studio/project/envelope/ https://specialprojects.studio/project/envelope/
patchorang 4y ago
I've posted this here before, but I've figured out a way that makes an iPhone work as a semi-smart phone for me. I delete all app that I waste time in, but keep one that are useful. (I won't blow two hours scrolling Lyft, and it's very helpful sometimes) I then set screentime permissions to block websites I don't want to use (like reddit), and prevent app downloads. I set a screentime password and give it to my partner. This way I get all the "benefits" of a smartphone with none of the scrolling and time wasting. It's also very easy to switch it back to a full smartphone, get the password from my partner and turn off screentime. I'll do this when I travel internationally for work. Hope this setup helps some others.
- rootusrootus 4y ago
  This reminds me of when my dad used to ask my mother to hide the peanut butter so he couldn't find it. He was still fat, so clearly that wasn't a perfect solution.
  - googlryas 4y ago
    Maybe he would have been really fat if he didn't hide it
- giantrobot 4y ago
  I don't use many apps outside a browser, e-mail, and text. Two things that help me are I leave my phone on silent all the time and I disable all notifications. I can't stand notifications. I don't need them. I'm not 911, no one is contacting me with a life threatening emergency, I'll get back to their call or text whenever. I love having a smartphone because it's a cybernetic appliance. It's awesome. I just don't need it constantly occupying my attention. It's annoying how many apps, even system ones, that want to show notifications all the time. I wish iOS supported an affirmative toggle, let me disable all notifications by default and then let me turn them on one by one. Do not disturb by default and let me affirmatively enable "ok to disturb". I filed ERs to that effect when I was at Apple but I'm sure they went to the Future/NTBF black hole.
- nlavezzo 4y ago
drbeast 4y ago
[dead]
setgree 4y ago
I long for a dumber phone, but I’ve been thinking about all the supplementary devices I’d need to buy to make up for it — basically a printer (+ ink) for tickets and a GPS device with car ride services and google maps built in for getting around. I _feel_ as though I need those things, at any rate.
- TacticalCoder 4y ago
  > I’ve been thinking about all the supplementary devices I’d need to buy to make up for it — basically a printer (+ ink) for tickets and a GPS device with car ride services and google maps built in for getting around. I've got a printer at home. Sister in law printed a plane ticket on it the other day, just in case there'd be an issue with her phone. Instead of "GPS device + car ride services" I've got an old-fashioned thing: a car. The car happens to have its own GPS so I can get around. It may not suit everybody of course.
  - setgree 4y ago
    I am with you until the car bit, but I live in Brooklyn and haven’t driven in years. Google Maps is essential for me, I fear
    - dbalatero 4y ago
      I'm also in Brooklyn. Light Phone 2 has directions including MTA transit. For tickets, I do print them out. Sometimes I'll draw a little map for fun and use that instead of the phone directions, for simple things. Once I draw the map I find that I actually memorize 90% of it anyways and often don't end up looking at it. As for car ride services, I just stopped using them except for super essential times, at which point I can pull my iPhone out of a drawer.
- SoftTalker 4y ago
  You can have a tablet in the car for maps and use the phone's hotspot feature to connect it (or download the maps in advance if you think about it). But that's still two devices instead of one, which ends up being more complicated, not less.
em500 4y ago
Focusing on the phone seems like missing the mark. The addictive thing is not the phone, but the internet. Even with a dumbphone you can easily waste as much time on your laptop's web-browser (and people did: FB and Youtube were already big before the iPhone was a thing). Conversely, if you turn off data, there are not many possibilities to spend huge amounts of time on your phone. (And yes, there are still plenty of useful offline smartphone apps.)
- wwweston 4y ago
  When I finally got a smart phone 5 years after the iPhone came out, one of the first things I tried to do was train myself by not getting service on it for over 3 months. The idea was to make sure I had other kinds of content on it that weren't update-hits; mostly eBooks and saved long-form articles, plus some map apps for navigation. So data engagement was limited to WiFi islands and focused on practical business. This was definitely only partially effective, probably because I already had bad habits from my laptop. OTOH, to this day I do have at least a rudimentary deeper reading/writing flow for my phone I can focus on without too much conscious effort, so it wasn't useless. My conclusion is that most of us probably would benefit from either intentional choices or self-imposed restrictions... but most of us could also probably benefit more from a combination of both.
  - ignoramous 4y ago
    > My conclusion is that most of us probably would benefit from either intentional choices or self-imposed restrictions... but most of us could also probably benefit more from a combination of both. This sentence is a good tldr for the book, Atomic Habits.
- stagger87 4y ago
  It's not the bottle that's addictive, it's the alcohol inside. Just don't open the bottle and there are not many possibilities to drink!
  - rhn_mk1 4y ago
hcal 4y ago
I've been using my Samsung smartwatch with LTE as a smartphone that's hard to abuse. Thursday through Sunday I only carry it and leave my "real" phone at home. It's pretty nice because I still have Bluetooth calls in my car and navigation in a pinch. I can still stream music and ask Google to look things up for me. Actual calls on the watch are fine, but I do keep a pair of bluetooth headphones on me so I don't have to take business calls on speakerphone. If texting is your addiction, technically this doesn't solve it but it doesn't increase the friction so maybe it's less of a temptation. I don't text that much so it's not a big deal to me. Doomscrolling is my downfall and fortunately not really doable on a watch.
- andrew-dc 4y ago
  Oh man, I have been wondering about this experience myself - though if it would all work with no smartphone at all (I have been rolling with the LightPhone II for a few years now). It had seemed like stand-alone watches were nearly there, but not quite the last time I dug into it. But it works for you?
  - hcal 4y ago
    It depends on what you mean by stand-alone. It works for me as a stand-alone device for days at a time, but you still need a phone to set up the watch and my phone plan is like an addon to the phone so you need that to set up the account. I don't think you can set up a line for these watches in the US without the "host" phone.
- trekkie1024 4y ago
  Likewise, with an Apple Watch. Works great but only issue is the battery life < a day when it’s being used that way.
  - jamiek88 4y ago
    The Apple Watch Ultra battery is much better in those circumstances. I used to struggle to last a day now I charge every other day and still have 20% ish left.
ttthomas 4y ago
I too have quested for a Dumber Phone. As an easily distracted engineer who values my time, I enjoy being on a dumb device, particularly one without Maps. Things hat I've tried: - Punkt MP02 (Pigeon): small black & white Android phone with a non-standard launcher. Doesn't support MMS on Google Fi, which is needed to participate with friends & family (USA), so it sits on a shelf. - Unihertz Atom: tiny Android phone, storage chip began dying within 3 months. Supports MMS, but my previous company's MDM locked it out due to a lack of recent security updates and their phone plan required a login to receive MMS! I also looked into the Hisense e-Ink phones (Android), but they are hacky to use this it in the USA (lack of frequencies & Google Play). In eventually realized that I already had perfectly good hardware (Pixel 4) that I could turn into a dumb-phone without generating more e-waste. I began compiling my own locked-down distro, but in the end I just wrote a shell script to turn an Android phone into a dumb phone: https://github.com/tstromberg/quietude https://github.com/tstromberg/quietude. For example: - For a truly "dumb" phone: `quietude.sh disable all` - Disable distractions but keep the app store: `quietude.sh disable distractions` The key here is that apps are disabled in a way which can only be enabled again by plugging the phone in with a USB cable. This keeps me from mindlessly re-enabling apps when I am bored in line somewhere. I also get to keep PagerDuty, Plugshare, Lyft, Google Photos, and whatever other apps I find convenient to have available.
- dbalatero 4y ago
  I'm a Light Phone user, but I really like the look of your quietude script. It seems like a really flexible option.
- krunck 4y ago
  I've got a Punkt MP01. I love it. I charge it every two weeks. It's durable. And it works. There is a problem with it not working with group SMS. The MP02(current version) fixes this I think.
bovermyer 4y ago
What about landlines? I feel like that's an option people rarely talk about. I use my iPhone as a camera, for text chatting with (less than 5) people, and for navigation, mostly. Sometimes I use it as a phone. I could see replacing the phone feature (except for emergencies) with a landline.
- cpsns 4y ago
  Due to where I live I have to maintain a wired phone as I can’t get a reliable cell signal. I just have a voip phone adapter connected to a random old phone and I use voip.ms for the actual service. It costs effectively nothing to run. It’s not a landline in the transitional sense, but those largely don’t exist anymore.
  - bovermyer 4y ago
    My house still has phone wiring and my ISP still offers landline services, and I'm not in a primitive area.
    - cpsns 4y ago
      Yes, but it’s probably not a landline in the way most people think. Almost all those services use voip backends now with only the last mile being copper.
      - 310260 4y ago
        Exactly! And especially if it's provided by a cable ISP. It's just VoIP. Maybe with some QoS on their network and battery backup. It's not a real circuit-switched network with its own power supply like traditional POTS service.
      - bovermyer 4y ago
        Well that's unfortunate.
AstixAndBelix 4y ago
I've realized there's a single simple thing that makes these dumb phones useless: closed source. That's right, closed source services. If we were able to write our own minimal Messenger, Whatsapp, Signal, Viber, etc. clients without fear of getting a cease and desist letter from a trillion dollar company we could easily sideload them into any phone with an internet connection. Phones are meant to be used for communication, but communication is not SMSs or emails anymore, it's a bunch of proprietary services which dictate what platforms we can use to access them.
- ploum 4y ago
  Exactly that. I’m also worried to see KaiOS phones featuring proeminent Google apps. I don’t want Google in a minimal phone. That’s why I’ve really big hopes for Mudita: they open-sourced their whole OS (I didn’t checked the code but it seems to be fully on github). My biggest problem with dumbphones is that, in Belgium, nearly all banks now require you to use their app. (my solution so far: keeping an old smartphone with broken screen in a drawer, only for banking purposes). Also, I realized that my use is completely different while traveling: I’ve an app for belgian railway, I synchronize PDF tickets to my phone and I also need the companion app for my bike GPS. My solution so far: using the Hisense A5, with eink screen. No google, most apps don’t work but bike GPS works great. Problem is that Firefox and Protonmail also work great, which is not a minimal phone anymore.
- Nextgrid 4y ago
  > without fear of getting a cease and desist letter Seems like the problem is the law and legal system being abused to prevent adversarial interoperability. The official clients being closed source doesn't change anything.
jdlyga 4y ago
For me, having an iPhone helps. On Android, I'm always downloading new keyboards, launchers, and endlessly tweaking the device. There isn't a lot to customize on an iPhone, so I'm not distracted by tinkering, breaking things, and fixing them. I do that enough on my other devices, and it's not something I want in my pocket distracting me constantly. It's the same reason why I go with Gnome distros for a computer I'm trying to do work on (I am endlessly distracted by KDE's customizability).
extr0pian 4y ago
I had researched dumb phones recently only to learn that the two most important functions of a smartphone (for me) is the GPS and having a decent camera, and these things are either crippled or missing entirely from dumb phones. It's simply easier to dumb down your existing smartphone, especially if you have an Android phone. In my case, I have a 2017 Pixel 2 XL running LineageOS, with a text only home screen launcher (OLauncher). I only have SMS, phone/contacts, camera, open street maps, KOReader, Music, Podcasts, Notes, and Calculator. That's it. Everything else has been purged or disabled, including the web browser, via ADB. I don't really use it all unless I'm driving. I wrote about my setup here: https://chuck.is/phone https://chuck.is/phone
- devoutsalsa 4y ago
  Being about to use various instant messaging platforms, especially WhatsApp, is also nice.
  - gog 4y ago
    Nokia has a model that works with WhatsApp.
    - ricksunny 4y ago
      Which model?
      - gog 4y ago
        Nokia 6300 4G
        ricksunny 4y ago
        Thanks! Will check it out. Whatsapp is a requisite comm tool for me and less-habit-forming compared with some other popular apps.
  - extr0pian 4y ago
luxuryballs 4y ago
I wish I could give up iMessage but I can’t, mostly due to peer pressure. Likewise, I don’t see how I could ever use SMS again when messages are so easily obtainable that they may as well be considered public. People have been charged with driving related crimes just based off of timestamps on SMS messages, for one example, and they didn’t need a warrant. I’m unable to comprehend why anyone would think it’s wise to use SMS.
Dudical 4y ago
The most helpful thing I've done was to set my iphone screen to grayscale by default [1]. Now if I look at my phone for any period of time and then look up the whole world appears to be so colorful (even in the dead of winter). The choice of how to spend my time becomes easier and I still have a smartphone in order to live comfortably in the urban world (open qr code menus, order car or scooter rides, present digital documentation or event tickets, etc.) [1] https://intercom.help/flipdapp/en/articles/1970782-how-to-set-up-a-grayscale-shortcut https://intercom.help/flipdapp/en/articles/1970782-how-to-se...
rhacker 4y ago
Smart "Phones" would have: Automatic Recording (of all calls) - with prompts optionally (consent), Speech to Text, Spam Protection, "Captchas for calls" Instead we got this: https://i.etsystatic.com/28431667/r/il/d1a61f/3334764950/il_1588xN.3334764950_tus7.jpg https://i.etsystatic.com/28431667/r/il/d1a61f/3334764950/il_... with a browser in it.
kibwen 4y ago
I recently "upgraded" to a new phone, not because I wanted to, but because my prior phone was too old to receive security updates. The new phone, despite being newer tech, is abjectly worse at being a usable device: the fingerprint is in a worse location and has terrible accuracy, scrolling or zooming anything is a stuttering nightmare, it's too heavy and wide to be comfortably used one-handed, and so on. It's so much worse it makes me not want to use it. And, ironically, being discouraged from using my phone has made me marginally happier throughout the day. So thanks, I guess, for making an inferior product??
- neogodless 4y ago
  What research and shopping criteria should one employ to ensure they get an objectively worse phone?
superkuh 4y ago
I use a Nokia 6030 phone; the old indestructible brick one. It still works where I am. But I don't use it because I want to get away from the internet. I just don't use smart phones because they're terrible computers. I use a computer for computing, a GPS for navigation, and a camera for photos. And each of these devices is better at it's job with fewer downsides than any general purpose device. Mostly the "smart phones/internet/etc" are ruining society reaction is the same type of thing as the reactions to the introduction to newspapers/books, electricity, radio, television, etc. These were all destroying society and addicting the youth. But they aren't addictive. The only existing medically recognized behavioral addiction (ie, not a real addiction like to a drug like methamphetamine) is "gambling disorder".
- vageli 4y ago
  The Nokia 6030 is my favorite phone ever. Practically indesctructible and with multi-day batter life, but unfortunately can no longer be used in the US due to migration off of 3g.
  - superkuh 4y ago
    The Nokia 6030 is actually GSM (2G) and T-Mobile still supports GSM phones at least in my region (upper midwest) of the USA. Even while 3G is dropped already. Verizon doesn't though. I had to switch telcos to keep using my 6030 a few years back.
    - maxerickson 4y ago
      How is the coverage? Mine got a lot better when I got a phone that supported their newer 4.5 and 5 g frequencies, so I can't imagine it is great.
BirAdam 4y ago
I bought a Mudita Pure. I don't use it. I just wanted to support the creation of a dumb phone that aligned with my principles. Unfortunately for me, having a smart phone is essentially a requirement for both my work and my family. I am unwilling to give up either of these and therefore the smartphone is present. In general, I agree with many commenters here. Separate devices with dedicated purposes tend to do a better job, and smartphones are designed to be both useful and addictive. As a result, I view the smartphone as a very dangerous tool. It can be used to great effectiveness, and it can become a blight on society. When I was a child, I dreamed of a computer roughly the size of beeper that had no screen. Instead, I thought people would have a headset similar to Apple's wired earbuds with a microphone and we'd compute via voice with an internet connection to fetch data. Sadly, we're here 30 years later and there's still no sign of such a future. Amazon tried, Apple is trying, Google is trying, and no one is winning in that space. Apparently, it's both hard and unwanted. Today, I think my idea was naive, because such a device would likely play a minute thirty of ads before giving you the result of your query, and I would end up tossing the thing out the window of a moving car.
- jareklupinski 4y ago
  the interface you mentioned reminds me of how people in the movie "Her" interact with their futuristic devices they still use a smaller display they keep in their pocket for visual content, but it exists as an accessory to view things queued up by the voice interface I love the idea and the approach, I wish there was a way I can use this on a real subway (in the movie there seemed to be a lot more distance between people/users)
  - BirAdam 4y ago
    I never saw “Her”, but I suppose I will give it a watch.
inasmuch 4y ago
I'm grateful to not have much of a problem with my smartphone usage, but I often find myself researching dumb phones in search of something somehow better because I quite dislike my phone (and all the others I've seen/heard of) as a device. It's too big, I hate touchscreens, and I hate Bluetooth. I'd like to see someone develop a new smartphone platform with all the niceties like GPS, a decent camera, easy cloud (and/or manual) backups of my data, and either a lot of onboard storage or easy SD compatibility, but offer it in a completely different physical format that is more conducive to efficient, intermittent productive/tool-like use and less tuned for consumption. Small form factor, maybe a fold-out QWERTY keyboard (my LG Env3 is the only phone I've ever actually liked), headphone jack, etc. Something reasonably durable that can take a drop or be submerged and simply won't be "fun" enough to spend much passive time on. As for apps, I like all my basics to be built by the same company that built the hardware, but combining that with an open platform for third-party options seems like an easy win, even if I don't end up using those other apps myself. I recently got my old iPod up and running again because I loathe the touchscreen/Bluetooth headphone combination for listening to music. But it feels so stupid to be carrying an additional device. I now carry a camera with me too because I dislike smartphone image processing. This also feels stupid. It's silly that we've concluded the only two options are pocket computers that can't do much at all, or pocket computers that can do anything, but only in this one way that many people find harmful.
blacklion 4y ago
It is interesting to see how different communication patterns are compating to your own bubble. For me dumb phone is no use, as I don't use cellular voice for anything (I've talk with my friends and parents on daily basis, but it is always Telegram/Skype voice call, not cellular voice), and only usage of SMS for me is force-feeded 2FA for banks and other services which don't know better (unfortunately)... Who will I call, we all are all around the Globe? Why I will text?.. Ok, week ago I had birthday party and there were a fair amount of guests, so some of my friends now in same location as me. Do they have local phone numbers? I bet, they have, because without it it is impossible to open bank account or rent a flat. Do I know these numbers? No. Because for what reason, we all communicate in messengers for years. These accounts are fixed identities for us, and phone numbers are for governments and banks. I could simply turn off my smartphone with same effect as have dumb phone :-) Oh, maybe, I need to call ambulance once a year... Edit: Idea of phone which is technically LTE Modem with all chat/voice protocols under the unified phone-like interface, plus ability to run some offline GPS, like Organic Maps or OsmAnd, looks good, but politically impossible due to close nature of most chat/voice apps.
- dorchadas 4y ago
  This is my issue. I wish I had a dumber phone. Like, one that allowed only certain things by default - messaging apps, gps trackers, Spotify being the big ones. If there was one like that, I'd buy it almost immediately.
andrew-dc 4y ago
Having not used a smart phone for ~5 years now, I can say that it is totally a workable solution - however, there are, of course trade-offs, and several persistent annoyances. Rather than get into a list, I will present the one thing that I find the most frustrating: Our society expects you to have and use a smart phone for nearly everything. This might be less annoying if it meant only new functions or supplemented old things, but in my experience it's the opposite. It's often the most simple low-fi things we have been doing for ages, that have been overhauled to require a smartphone, app, and data plan. It's hard to be looked at as 'the person complicating things', when everybody else expects you to carry a luxury item (and an expensive monthly service bill), just to perform a basic task, like paying a bill, or reading a menu. I'm not one to wander around expecting society to cater to my own needs, but I openly admit that I find this Twilight Zone-like first-world problem (What do you mean, you can't use our app?) the most infuriating. With that said, you can still get by in most situations, but I don't see the above getting better on into the future, unless there is some cultural revolution about how view and use technology.
- titanomachy 4y ago
  Calling a smartphone a "luxury item" if you live in America (or similar) is a bit disingenuous. Anything that has 85% market penetration is by definition not a luxury item. In some countries this could be an accurate description, though. And I agree with the overall sentiment, I would like it to be easier to get through my day without using a smartphone.
  - lastofthemojito 4y ago
    Yeah, even as a smartphone owner, I find it annoying how some places just assume you're able (and willing!) to install some arbitrary app to do business with them, etc. That being said, it really doesn't have to be all that expensive. Sure, if you buy the newest iPhone every year and get a high-end Verizon plan, that'll cost some dough. But you can get a used or low-end smartphone and a cheap plan - they're out there: https://www.tomsguide.com/us/best-cheap-cell-phone-plans,review-4504.html https://www.tomsguide.com/us/best-cheap-cell-phone-plans,rev...
wheelerof4te 4y ago
I really wish that the world gravitated towards more hardware-related gadgety future. I was quite fond of the Japanese vision of future, where there is an item/gadget/accessory for everything. That way, people could choose to which degree they want to interact with their technology. But here we are, stuck in the IoT software-focused world.
- jstarfish 4y ago
  Same here. Variety is the spice of life. One day I noticed I have some Thought Problems, and after thinking about it I realized that most of my daily interactions take place with the same two devices. Doing work on the same computer you game on, deal with family drama, communicate with co-workers and family, etc. takes its toll-- there's never any new stimulus, just living in the same 10'x10' cube playing with the same two toys for years on end. When you have a particularly stressful interaction with either, you're still forced to continue using it. (No wonder the kids are miserable. We replaced toys with smartphones.) Things improved when I broke away to console gaming, set up a dedicated work computer, and did personal stuff on another. DSLR for pictures instead of phone. Moved away from taking notes on the computer and do data/object modeling with physical objects (anything from index cards to Legos). Etc. The only thing I use my phone for these days is reading news on the toilet, which is apt because it's all the same shit to flush either way. I would actually kill myself if I had to spend any more of my time interacting with the world through a singular device. It's not a life worth living.
- QuercusMax 4y ago
  Or even the Star Trek (TNG-era) future - people put things on PADDs which seem to generally be for individual purposes / projects. They're cheap / disposable (replicable?), and are treated more like physical paper notebooks than expensive smart tablets.
imwillofficial 4y ago
I had a LightPhone 2 and it was great. Unfortunately with my work, I need slack and such so it couldn’t be my daily driver.
SoftTalker 4y ago
You don't need a dumb phone, you just need decide who's in charge. I used to want a dumb phone, but there are a few things (mainly maps/navigation) that I find genuinely useful that dumb phones can't do. So I decided that it's my phone and I'm the one who decides how to use it. I have a reasonably new iPhone. I spend maybe 15 minutes a day on it (excluding navigation), total. I have removed apps I don't use. I disabled Siri, FaceID, most notifications, and location is turned off unless I'm using maps. I have one page on my home screen and there are maybe a dozen apps on it (and that still includes a few I have never used so I could pare down further).
- throwaway4aday 4y ago
  I'm glad you're able to resist temptation so well. For others it can be more of a problem. For some it is equivalent to an alcoholic carrying around a pint of vodka that also happens to make phone calls.
  - rtontic 4y ago
    Wow that is actually a good startup idea.
nyx_land 4y ago
The problem with trying to replace a smartphone with a dumbphone is that most people (young people at least) don't use calling and texting anymore unless forced to. I'd rather have something in between a laptop and a smartphone that is designed to be comfortable for carrying around in a small bag or pocket, but that also has a physical keyboard and is designed to be used productively for programming or writing for example. As it stands, smartphones are the worst of both worlds though: the form factor of what is essentially a legacy communication device, but none of the human interfaces necessary to make it useful enough to really take advantage of all its computing power (and often also its software cripples the device unless you're running a custom android ROM). What people hate about smartphones isn't that they're constantly plugged in but that they have a device on them all the time that is basically designed to turn the user into the ideal consumer: a passive addict with no attention span. If it was more common to have access to portable hardware that is designed to empower users being creative and productive, maybe it'd be a different story. But then again, I think most human beings probably want exactly what they're getting with smartphones and are miserable and alienated at the human condition itself of being so susceptible to seeking out low effort short term dopamine feedback loops.
- thfuran 4y ago
  >I'd rather have something in between a laptop and a smartphone that is designed to be comfortable for carrying around in a small bag or pocket, but that also has a physical keyboard and is designed to be used productively for programming or writing for example. Something like what? A small laptop is little more than a display attached to a thin keyboard. I'm not sure how you'd get something much smaller while retaining a physical keyboard and still being reasonably useable for programming.
  - poglet 4y ago
    It looks like palmtop or haldheld pc's are the formfactor that is being described. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HP_300LX https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HP_300LX
  - fsflover 4y ago
    Librem 5 phone runs desktop Linux, and you can connect any bluetooth or usb keyboard to it thus turning it into a laptop for programming.
marttt 4y ago
I've intentionally never owned a smartphone. Dumb phones abandoned by my family have been serving me very well for years (strategy: use them until they stop working; get next one; repeat). My daily work is in forestry, as a brush cutter -- occasionally, GPS would be necessary (unavoidable even). For 95% of the cases, though, I've found a workaround by postponing the map-related tasks (e.g. making sure I understand the borders of a particular forest subcompartment correctly) to the next day and hand-drawing the shape of the subcompartment from an online map to a piece of paper. With the drawing in hand, I can usually accurately confirm the borders by visual observation. Once more, this probably only works for simple blue collars, not for guys that need to do more on-site planning. Other than that, I occasionally miss a tolerable camera (for digitizing expenditure checks) and QR code reading ability. All in all, living with old dumb phone is fun. Zero cost if you break it or ruin it in the forest (mud!). I hate my current Nokia, though -- but can't ditch it because it still works, lol. I still miss my Nokia 3310 (the original one), which I used every day for 12(!) years in a row, starting in around 2001 as a high school student and finally letting it go in around 2013 when I was a young father. It was one hell of a phone. My current favorite oldscool dumb phones are the "senior phones" with huge buttons. This ZTE s202 was really enjoyable to use (belonged to my grandpa), and the no-bs design somehow feels really elegant: https://i.hinnavaatlus.ee/p/1200/99/43/S20220must__6ee8.jpg https://i.hinnavaatlus.ee/p/1200/99/43/S20220must__6ee8.jpg
- ryan-duve 4y ago
  What is the current Nokia you have that you hate?
  - marttt 4y ago
    It's a Nokia 2600 Classic: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_2600_classic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_2600_classic Really slow UI; too much of everything. Not even close to the simplicity of the 3310.
- 4ggr0 4y ago
  Hope you don't mind me asking - How come that a brush cutter is on HN? Did you use to work in IT or are you a hobbyist/part-timer?
beebeepka 4y ago
This thread makes me feel like a geezer but I am not even that old. "Resisting to install / use apps" sounds alien to me. I feel society has moved on and we're pretty much expected to have these devices. I even bought one for my job because they require an auth and I have to verify its me again at random intervals. So secure, so authenticated. I hate it
DerekBickerton 4y ago
It's not some burdensome 'quest' though. Just get a Nokia 105[0] which uses the Series 30[1] operating system and has no Internet connectivity. It comes preloaded with a few basic games so you can kill time waiting for things or pacify yourself in awkward social situations. [0] https://www.nokia.com/phones/en_int/nokia-105 https://www.nokia.com/phones/en_int/nokia-105 [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Series_30%2B https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Series_30%2B
college_physics 4y ago
It takes only a tiny fraction of a smartphone's capabilities to make us dumb. The endless scrolling and liking on social (which is now a pandemic) could arguably be served by a much slimmed down device. NB: Maybe thats something Meta should build and offer "for free". I dont know how we could ever get immunized against big tech dumbness and start really using smartphones in smart ways. They pack exceptional hardware. Mine even has an FM radio (thats something to do with electromagnetic waves). Its just a matter of software. Which is a matter of mindsets, control and economics. I like to think that a society that manages to truly use smartphones as smart devices will get to the next level of civilization
gman83 4y ago
I use Niagara Launcher which is a very simple Android launcher. Then I've set up my phone though Family link with my wife as my "parent" so that I need to ask her permission when I want to install a new app, and when I want to use apps like YouTube for more than 15 minutes per day. It's kind of a dumb system but it works for me.
- ikr678 4y ago
  Doesnt matter what the system is if it works. You've introduced just enough friction to disrupt the habits you want to break without bricking your device like some other commenters have. I try to keep friction in my life for other habits I don't want to develop (don't keep alcohol or junk food at home, keep credit card in a specific drawer to limit impulse spending).
rmac 4y ago
Needs: NFC (pay) + GPS. Punkt mp02 + prepaid contactless debit card. Cut out chip + antenna from card and glue to inside of battery cover. The above is the best dumb phone at m. Apple pay ux + signal (pigeon) + no ui-based app distractions. For GPS best bet is to get a puck for the car or go whole hog and rock a smartwatch % payments
jackfischer 4y ago
I tried the Light Phone II but found it too limiting. While they did an admirable job trying to get functionality like maps usable it wasn't practical enough overall. Currently using the Unihertz Titan Pocket with the minimalist phone launcher as my daily driver.
- guidoism 4y ago
  I actually ordered a Light Phone II a few days ago. I'm not looking to completely replace my iPhone 11 — It works great and I use it all the time and I don't feel like I need to limit myself. What sent me on a quest for a dumb(er) phone was to be able to leave the house without my main phone because I didn't want to be contacted unless it was an emergency (by either my wife or my kids). It sucks that the phone has essentially become the main way for all communication — From emergency texts to please remember the milk to hey how is it going to happy birthday to our child from the kids' orthodontist! My wife and I lament about this merging of priorities into phone form all the time. We've been experimenting with basically being in Do Not Disturb mode all the time and yes, people get annoyed when it takes hours to respond, but our lives are better. What I really want though, it is be just about completely disconnected. So, I'm going to experiment with using a second phone number for when I'm out and about for a few hours. I plan on using a dumb(er) phone with this phone number. I really wanted to the Punkt or the Mutida but they don't have GPS which to me is a feature I don't think I can live without and they have problems with some of the carriers in the US which I didn't want to have to deal with. I hope we can end up with different feature sets on phones going forward.
  - jackfischer 4y ago
    The emphasis on disconnecting resonates. The Light Phone guys discuss it with AIM as an example of the old state of affairs. https://medium.com/the-light-phone/we-re-not-anti-technology-we-re-just-human-4ea39b2db46e https://medium.com/the-light-phone/we-re-not-anti-technology... >We didn’t always have a small computer with us at all times. In the days of AIM, “away messages” and “signing off”, there was a specific chair and a specific desk with our family computer, and when you sat in that chair and that desk and listened patiently to the modem sounds connecting, then you could be on the internet. Leaving that chair left the internet behind. Do Not Disturb helps with external, incoming communication but not with outgoing.
godshatter 4y ago
I think trying to avoid all apps is unnecessary, just the ones designed to addict you which is almost all social media and a lot of mobile games. My weather app doesn't try to get me to doomscroll :) I have been against social media for a long time, though I do have a FB account I log into once yearly or so. I block ads because I don't like the distractions. I stopped logging in to YT because I didn't like how everything changes to try to draw me farther and farther in. Now I keep a separate list of bookmarks to content owners and decide what I want to watch on my terms. I don't know how to get others there, though. Things feel so obviously designed to grab my attention and keep me there and I can't stand it, I don't get how others don't seem to care and jump in with both feet. But then again I can't look a donut in the eye and not fall victim to them. So who am I to talk?
chazeon 4y ago
After COVID especially, NYC restaurants start to ask customers to scan QR code to get menu, not sure about other places. These penetrations into the real lives are making living with dumb phone more and more difficult. Of course, China has been like this years ago.
fortran77 4y ago
I'd be happy to see the interface of phones from 20 years ago return, so my 89 year old mother can deal with it. Even the few current models of "flip phones" have too many features, and the phones specifically designed for old people are terrible.
n2dasun 4y ago
I used a Sonim XP5 for about 2 years. My criteria were just that (besides regular phone and text uses) it function as an mp3 player and be able to connect it to my vehicle with Bluetooth. Starting to get the itch to switch to it again.
anonymousnotme 4y ago
If it helps, one can have one's provider disable data. I did this, my phone can only make calls and SMS. One also does not need to worry about hackers hacking the phone.
petodo 4y ago
the problem is not smartphone but people without self control you can use smartphone exactly same way as dumbphone and still have smart features available when needed problem with dumbphones is mainly horrible camera, so you would need to carry camera if you wanna capture something, smartphone with self control solves this issue, nobody forces you to use anything but Phone and Messages apps and you will still have great camera and GPS, which are both lacking at dumbphones if you use phone this way you should have pretty great battery life even with smartphone, you can choose some power efficient SoC combined with huge battery, for instance in Sony Xperia 10 IV, which is also relatively compact (narrow, but longer) if you wanna save your time delete all social media apps and preferably also block these sites in browser, then also turn off notifications for everything but Phone and Messages, eventually Email if you need and your problem is solved if you wanna go a bit more extreme you could use custom ROM without gapps, but honestly as someone using this config for almost decade I am hardly limited by apps because pretty much everything works even without gapps
- A4ET8a8uTh0 4y ago
  Hmm. I don't automatically disagree, but the same argument is put forth for excessive food, drink, drugs intake and self-control is, by itself, not a real answer, but a diversion of sorts typically given by the item's manufacturer/seller. As in, it is both true, but also misleading -- especially so in the case of cellphones. By their very design these days, smart phones are created with a singular goal of keeping the attention of the user. Incessant A/B testing, analytics and dark patterns use make them more addictive than an average willpower can handle. It can be done, but that individual is officially fighting off efforts of companies with budgets sometimes rivaling those of nation states. I can agree that the problem is people, but I think we disagree on the exact nature of the problem.
  - petodo 4y ago
    > the same argument is put forth for excessive food, drink, drugs intake and self-control is, by itself, not a real answer, but a diversion of sorts typically given by the item's manufacturer/seller. But it is a real answer. Solution to being fat is not some miracle pill or miracle diet, but lower the food/calories consumption and more exercise/movement (which is both again self control), simple as that. Seems like people nowadays are so childish they can't even admit how stupid and lazy they are and they prefer to blame someone else for their own misfortune caused by themselves. No one forced you to become fat by excessive eating. You can always become slim, if you start eating reasonable amounts of food and start exercising, but of course you can ignore this and try each year new miracle diet, same as people moving away from smartphones to dumbphones to fix their self control issues. > smart phones are created with a singular goal of keeping the attention of the user. Incessant A/B testing, analytics and dark patterns use make them more addictive than an average willpower can handle. I think you are confusing smartphones with apps/sites. Smartphones themselves and their manufacturers (maybe besides Apple since they produce complete package) are certainly not using any of those methods to make them more addictive. People are addicted to social media apps, not the phones, phones are just tools. It's like blaming silverware producers for being fat, because you eat sugary/unhealthy food. If you wanna blame someone blame companies developing/producing apps/services, your blame on smartphone companies is misdirected. I don't think Xiaomi or Samsung (these two have pretty much all Android market in Europe) produce many addicting apps, while I am certain Facebook, Bytedance, Twitter and other companies produce addictive services/apps.
looseyesterday 4y ago
I think the answer to this is more technology not less. I personally use black and white display on my iPhone combined with freedom site blocker and all notifications switched off. This way I am in control of what I want to do.
cik 4y ago
It's fascinating to me how this is a topic of conversation in parts of the world, and a fait accompli in others. In Israel, may Hareidim use "kosher phones", which the world would recognise as dumb phones. Some allow for texting, some don't... that's it. Honestly, I love the idea. I've reduced my smart phone usage at this point to convenience of paying for public transit, small credit card purchases, 2FA, and chat - but only to get in on the real world. It's made me happy.
nikau 4y ago
Is it that hard to just long press on a notification from whatever stupid social media app is distracting you and turning it off?
Buffout 4y ago
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prometheus76 4y ago
I love Kyocera's dumb phones. The only thing I miss is having a decent camera in my pocket. Every other aspect of smartphones are a disease. I don't miss it at all.
t0bia_s 4y ago
Hopefully one day we will have cellphone with eink display and simple apps for sync email, calendar, notes, contacts... That is all I actually need with me. In size of dumbphone with battery for week.
- incomingpain 4y ago
  To answer your question from the flagged Czech thread. >Why? Is it too political? When I look at the "active" threads on HN. The majority are political. For example, NY Jails want to ban mail. It's entirely political for a tiny portion of the world, but clearly allowed. Your problem is that you came up against communism.
  - t0bia_s 4y ago
    "Your problem is that you came up against communism." I don't understand what is wrong with that? Also... I don't understand, why there is flagging without any explanation? How can I learn from it?

164 points by kevin_hu 4y ago

I honestly don't understand the point of people avoiding smartphones on principle. I'm not sure if it's a contrarian way of thinking, a way to stand out or what. Why not just dumb down a smartphone? I have a Pixel 5 because it's the smallest form factor Android smartphone available. I never installed any entertainment (games, social media, video streaming) apps on it. Those that came pre-installed (ie. YouTube), I uninstalled or disabled. After this, I disabled notifications for everything besides calls and messages (SMS, Signal, email). I cleaned my emails so only genuine stuff ever pops up, and I make it a point to not check my phone, except for set times throughout the day, unless I'm being bombarded by messages or calls (as would happen in an emergency). The phone that is left sits in my pocket 99% of the day, but still has the tools that I may need (Maps, Uber) should my forward planning be thwarted by unexpected occurrences (lost my pre-planned route to a new place, a cancelled bus/train). My daily smartphone use is maybe 10 minutes. Some people have commented that they didn't think I had one, because I'm barely holding it. I don't understand the need to get rid of tools which could help in an emergency or unexpected circumstances. I anecdotally had a friend who uses a dumbphone because he wanted to simplify things, and he ended up pestering the people he was around to check their maps or to look something up. In the end he went back to a smartphone. You can do this with any smartphone, cheap or expensive. I did it with a Pixel 5 just because I liked the form factor of something that can easily slip into my running bag, pockets etc. Plus, as a bonus, the low usage of the device should keep it going for a couple of years until my next dumb smartphone.

bobdvb 4y ago
I believe some people do it to avoid the temptation. Perhaps they feel they lack the self-control?

xcambar 4y ago

> Disclosure: Every [the website every.to] co-founder and CEO Dan Shipper is an investor in Light. I do appreciate the disclosure.

yadoomerta 4y ago
idk why you're being downvoted, it did read like an insidious content marketing piece. At least there was a disclosure. With that said, I've been trying to lock down my smartphone to offline-only apps + text + calls, totally agree with the mission, I've felt so much more distractable of late
Panzer04 4y ago
Would have appreciated it at the start to be honest - but I guess it's better than nothing at all.

post_break 4y ago

Here's an example of living with the light phone: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C7G1pWYVtBg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C7G1pWYVtBg Honestly I think using an Android phone with minimal apps, or having two profiles, one for work, one for play/weekends makes the most sense. And on iPhone using screen time to force your grip from app vices makes more sense than the self punishment of these phones. That said my ADHD makes me want to buy one of these https://skysedge.com/unsmartphones/RUSP/index.html https://skysedge.com/unsmartphones/RUSP/index.html

ajsnigrutin 4y ago
> Here's an example of living with the light phone: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C7G1pWYVtBg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C7G1pWYVtBg That's expensive for a phone with basically zero features... Why not just buy a nokia 3310 (the new one) for around 60eur, where you get a better, faster phone, with basically the same limitations as any other of the dumbphones, but it's cheaper and works faster and has a better screen? Also, the ergonomics are better, dual sim, sd card slot for music... and again, no apps, no emails, no notifications.. just a phone as it used to be (well.. with music and bluetooth).
- dbalatero 4y ago
  This idea of "more features, better deal" is a common thing people bring up. However, one of the stronger "features" that draws me to the Light Phone is that they are an opinionated company that designs their product specifically to prevent the distraction/engagement-seeking style of apps that are so prevalent in smartphone ecosystems. Whether or not that's a feature that resonates with you is, of course, another story! For me I have the money, would like to vote with it by supporting a company aligned with my interests, and don't mind paying that premium. You might have different finances and prefer the $60 EUR option, and that's fine too. If you check out Jose's channel (from the article), he reviews tons of these phones and there's likely a sweet spot in there for most people that are curious.
- sparrish 4y ago
  Because texting on a Nokia touchpad is terrible plus I'd like to have driving directions and prompts.

TSiege 4y ago

This was a very thoughtful piece. I appreciate the honest discussion of the struggle between giving up great apps for the sake of being distraction free. I've looked into the light phone but there's no support for Spotify, which is a big detractor for. I believe they added basic map functionality, but no streaming music is hard as my taste has exceeded my personal digital library

disantlor 4y ago
consider streaming/downloading (& supporting) independant radio like WFMU.org not saying it's going to scratch all the itches that Spotify would, but it definitely will scratch some you didnt realize you had, which is a fun experience on it's own
dbalatero 4y ago
I have a separate audio player that I was carrying with my flip before I went to the Light Phone. A bunch of them have Spotify support, and it seems like you can spend from $100 to $400 to $800 to $thousands, depending on your appetite. Separate devices has its downsides (net price can be higher, more pocket space), but also has the upside of having devices focused and potentially higher quality. An option if you're thinking of it!

dbalatero 4y ago

I had a flip phone the last year and switched to a Light Phone 2 the other day after I dropped the flip phone and broke some internal connections. It's been great for my focus, information overload, and the minor inconveniences are, well, minor. The next OS is supposed to get calendars + 2-way sync, so between that and directions/music/podcasts, it's a pretty full featured device while still preventing a lot of mindless engagement. Occasionally I break out the iPhone for a Lyft ride to the airport or something, but beyond that there hasn't been much of a need.

cheesetoastie 4y ago

This turns any phone into a dumb phone for free :) https://specialprojects.studio/project/envelope/ https://specialprojects.studio/project/envelope/

patchorang 4y ago

I've posted this here before, but I've figured out a way that makes an iPhone work as a semi-smart phone for me. I delete all app that I waste time in, but keep one that are useful. (I won't blow two hours scrolling Lyft, and it's very helpful sometimes) I then set screentime permissions to block websites I don't want to use (like reddit), and prevent app downloads. I set a screentime password and give it to my partner. This way I get all the "benefits" of a smartphone with none of the scrolling and time wasting. It's also very easy to switch it back to a full smartphone, get the password from my partner and turn off screentime. I'll do this when I travel internationally for work. Hope this setup helps some others.

rootusrootus 4y ago
This reminds me of when my dad used to ask my mother to hide the peanut butter so he couldn't find it. He was still fat, so clearly that wasn't a perfect solution.
- googlryas 4y ago
  Maybe he would have been really fat if he didn't hide it
giantrobot 4y ago
I don't use many apps outside a browser, e-mail, and text. Two things that help me are I leave my phone on silent all the time and I disable all notifications. I can't stand notifications. I don't need them. I'm not 911, no one is contacting me with a life threatening emergency, I'll get back to their call or text whenever. I love having a smartphone because it's a cybernetic appliance. It's awesome. I just don't need it constantly occupying my attention. It's annoying how many apps, even system ones, that want to show notifications all the time. I wish iOS supported an affirmative toggle, let me disable all notifications by default and then let me turn them on one by one. Do not disturb by default and let me affirmatively enable "ok to disturb". I filed ERs to that effect when I was at Apple but I'm sure they went to the Future/NTBF black hole.
nlavezzo 4y ago

drbeast 4y ago

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setgree 4y ago

I long for a dumber phone, but I’ve been thinking about all the supplementary devices I’d need to buy to make up for it — basically a printer (+ ink) for tickets and a GPS device with car ride services and google maps built in for getting around. I _feel_ as though I need those things, at any rate.

TacticalCoder 4y ago
> I’ve been thinking about all the supplementary devices I’d need to buy to make up for it — basically a printer (+ ink) for tickets and a GPS device with car ride services and google maps built in for getting around. I've got a printer at home. Sister in law printed a plane ticket on it the other day, just in case there'd be an issue with her phone. Instead of "GPS device + car ride services" I've got an old-fashioned thing: a car. The car happens to have its own GPS so I can get around. It may not suit everybody of course.
- setgree 4y ago
  I am with you until the car bit, but I live in Brooklyn and haven’t driven in years. Google Maps is essential for me, I fear
  - dbalatero 4y ago
    I'm also in Brooklyn. Light Phone 2 has directions including MTA transit. For tickets, I do print them out. Sometimes I'll draw a little map for fun and use that instead of the phone directions, for simple things. Once I draw the map I find that I actually memorize 90% of it anyways and often don't end up looking at it. As for car ride services, I just stopped using them except for super essential times, at which point I can pull my iPhone out of a drawer.
SoftTalker 4y ago
You can have a tablet in the car for maps and use the phone's hotspot feature to connect it (or download the maps in advance if you think about it). But that's still two devices instead of one, which ends up being more complicated, not less.

em500 4y ago

Focusing on the phone seems like missing the mark. The addictive thing is not the phone, but the internet. Even with a dumbphone you can easily waste as much time on your laptop's web-browser (and people did: FB and Youtube were already big before the iPhone was a thing). Conversely, if you turn off data, there are not many possibilities to spend huge amounts of time on your phone. (And yes, there are still plenty of useful offline smartphone apps.)

wwweston 4y ago
When I finally got a smart phone 5 years after the iPhone came out, one of the first things I tried to do was train myself by not getting service on it for over 3 months. The idea was to make sure I had other kinds of content on it that weren't update-hits; mostly eBooks and saved long-form articles, plus some map apps for navigation. So data engagement was limited to WiFi islands and focused on practical business. This was definitely only partially effective, probably because I already had bad habits from my laptop. OTOH, to this day I do have at least a rudimentary deeper reading/writing flow for my phone I can focus on without too much conscious effort, so it wasn't useless. My conclusion is that most of us probably would benefit from either intentional choices or self-imposed restrictions... but most of us could also probably benefit more from a combination of both.
- ignoramous 4y ago
  > My conclusion is that most of us probably would benefit from either intentional choices or self-imposed restrictions... but most of us could also probably benefit more from a combination of both. This sentence is a good tldr for the book, Atomic Habits.
stagger87 4y ago
It's not the bottle that's addictive, it's the alcohol inside. Just don't open the bottle and there are not many possibilities to drink!
- rhn_mk1 4y ago

hcal 4y ago

I've been using my Samsung smartwatch with LTE as a smartphone that's hard to abuse. Thursday through Sunday I only carry it and leave my "real" phone at home. It's pretty nice because I still have Bluetooth calls in my car and navigation in a pinch. I can still stream music and ask Google to look things up for me. Actual calls on the watch are fine, but I do keep a pair of bluetooth headphones on me so I don't have to take business calls on speakerphone. If texting is your addiction, technically this doesn't solve it but it doesn't increase the friction so maybe it's less of a temptation. I don't text that much so it's not a big deal to me. Doomscrolling is my downfall and fortunately not really doable on a watch.

andrew-dc 4y ago
Oh man, I have been wondering about this experience myself - though if it would all work with no smartphone at all (I have been rolling with the LightPhone II for a few years now). It had seemed like stand-alone watches were nearly there, but not quite the last time I dug into it. But it works for you?
- hcal 4y ago
  It depends on what you mean by stand-alone. It works for me as a stand-alone device for days at a time, but you still need a phone to set up the watch and my phone plan is like an addon to the phone so you need that to set up the account. I don't think you can set up a line for these watches in the US without the "host" phone.
trekkie1024 4y ago
Likewise, with an Apple Watch. Works great but only issue is the battery life < a day when it’s being used that way.
- jamiek88 4y ago
  The Apple Watch Ultra battery is much better in those circumstances. I used to struggle to last a day now I charge every other day and still have 20% ish left.

ttthomas 4y ago

I too have quested for a Dumber Phone. As an easily distracted engineer who values my time, I enjoy being on a dumb device, particularly one without Maps. Things hat I've tried: - Punkt MP02 (Pigeon): small black & white Android phone with a non-standard launcher. Doesn't support MMS on Google Fi, which is needed to participate with friends & family (USA), so it sits on a shelf. - Unihertz Atom: tiny Android phone, storage chip began dying within 3 months. Supports MMS, but my previous company's MDM locked it out due to a lack of recent security updates and their phone plan required a login to receive MMS! I also looked into the Hisense e-Ink phones (Android), but they are hacky to use this it in the USA (lack of frequencies & Google Play). In eventually realized that I already had perfectly good hardware (Pixel 4) that I could turn into a dumb-phone without generating more e-waste. I began compiling my own locked-down distro, but in the end I just wrote a shell script to turn an Android phone into a dumb phone: https://github.com/tstromberg/quietude https://github.com/tstromberg/quietude. For example: - For a truly "dumb" phone: `quietude.sh disable all` - Disable distractions but keep the app store: `quietude.sh disable distractions` The key here is that apps are disabled in a way which can only be enabled again by plugging the phone in with a USB cable. This keeps me from mindlessly re-enabling apps when I am bored in line somewhere. I also get to keep PagerDuty, Plugshare, Lyft, Google Photos, and whatever other apps I find convenient to have available.

dbalatero 4y ago
I'm a Light Phone user, but I really like the look of your quietude script. It seems like a really flexible option.
krunck 4y ago
I've got a Punkt MP01. I love it. I charge it every two weeks. It's durable. And it works. There is a problem with it not working with group SMS. The MP02(current version) fixes this I think.

bovermyer 4y ago

What about landlines? I feel like that's an option people rarely talk about. I use my iPhone as a camera, for text chatting with (less than 5) people, and for navigation, mostly. Sometimes I use it as a phone. I could see replacing the phone feature (except for emergencies) with a landline.

cpsns 4y ago
Due to where I live I have to maintain a wired phone as I can’t get a reliable cell signal. I just have a voip phone adapter connected to a random old phone and I use voip.ms for the actual service. It costs effectively nothing to run. It’s not a landline in the transitional sense, but those largely don’t exist anymore.
- bovermyer 4y ago
  My house still has phone wiring and my ISP still offers landline services, and I'm not in a primitive area.
  - cpsns 4y ago
    Yes, but it’s probably not a landline in the way most people think. Almost all those services use voip backends now with only the last mile being copper.
    - 310260 4y ago
      Exactly! And especially if it's provided by a cable ISP. It's just VoIP. Maybe with some QoS on their network and battery backup. It's not a real circuit-switched network with its own power supply like traditional POTS service.
    - bovermyer 4y ago
      Well that's unfortunate.

AstixAndBelix 4y ago

I've realized there's a single simple thing that makes these dumb phones useless: closed source. That's right, closed source services. If we were able to write our own minimal Messenger, Whatsapp, Signal, Viber, etc. clients without fear of getting a cease and desist letter from a trillion dollar company we could easily sideload them into any phone with an internet connection. Phones are meant to be used for communication, but communication is not SMSs or emails anymore, it's a bunch of proprietary services which dictate what platforms we can use to access them.

ploum 4y ago
Exactly that. I’m also worried to see KaiOS phones featuring proeminent Google apps. I don’t want Google in a minimal phone. That’s why I’ve really big hopes for Mudita: they open-sourced their whole OS (I didn’t checked the code but it seems to be fully on github). My biggest problem with dumbphones is that, in Belgium, nearly all banks now require you to use their app. (my solution so far: keeping an old smartphone with broken screen in a drawer, only for banking purposes). Also, I realized that my use is completely different while traveling: I’ve an app for belgian railway, I synchronize PDF tickets to my phone and I also need the companion app for my bike GPS. My solution so far: using the Hisense A5, with eink screen. No google, most apps don’t work but bike GPS works great. Problem is that Firefox and Protonmail also work great, which is not a minimal phone anymore.
Nextgrid 4y ago
> without fear of getting a cease and desist letter Seems like the problem is the law and legal system being abused to prevent adversarial interoperability. The official clients being closed source doesn't change anything.

jdlyga 4y ago

For me, having an iPhone helps. On Android, I'm always downloading new keyboards, launchers, and endlessly tweaking the device. There isn't a lot to customize on an iPhone, so I'm not distracted by tinkering, breaking things, and fixing them. I do that enough on my other devices, and it's not something I want in my pocket distracting me constantly. It's the same reason why I go with Gnome distros for a computer I'm trying to do work on (I am endlessly distracted by KDE's customizability).

extr0pian 4y ago

I had researched dumb phones recently only to learn that the two most important functions of a smartphone (for me) is the GPS and having a decent camera, and these things are either crippled or missing entirely from dumb phones. It's simply easier to dumb down your existing smartphone, especially if you have an Android phone. In my case, I have a 2017 Pixel 2 XL running LineageOS, with a text only home screen launcher (OLauncher). I only have SMS, phone/contacts, camera, open street maps, KOReader, Music, Podcasts, Notes, and Calculator. That's it. Everything else has been purged or disabled, including the web browser, via ADB. I don't really use it all unless I'm driving. I wrote about my setup here: https://chuck.is/phone https://chuck.is/phone

devoutsalsa 4y ago
Being about to use various instant messaging platforms, especially WhatsApp, is also nice.
- gog 4y ago
  Nokia has a model that works with WhatsApp.
  - ricksunny 4y ago
    Which model?
    - gog 4y ago
      Nokia 6300 4G
      - ricksunny 4y ago
        Thanks! Will check it out. Whatsapp is a requisite comm tool for me and less-habit-forming compared with some other popular apps.
- extr0pian 4y ago

luxuryballs 4y ago

I wish I could give up iMessage but I can’t, mostly due to peer pressure. Likewise, I don’t see how I could ever use SMS again when messages are so easily obtainable that they may as well be considered public. People have been charged with driving related crimes just based off of timestamps on SMS messages, for one example, and they didn’t need a warrant. I’m unable to comprehend why anyone would think it’s wise to use SMS.

Dudical 4y ago

The most helpful thing I've done was to set my iphone screen to grayscale by default [1]. Now if I look at my phone for any period of time and then look up the whole world appears to be so colorful (even in the dead of winter). The choice of how to spend my time becomes easier and I still have a smartphone in order to live comfortably in the urban world (open qr code menus, order car or scooter rides, present digital documentation or event tickets, etc.) [1] https://intercom.help/flipdapp/en/articles/1970782-how-to-set-up-a-grayscale-shortcut https://intercom.help/flipdapp/en/articles/1970782-how-to-se...

rhacker 4y ago

Smart "Phones" would have: Automatic Recording (of all calls) - with prompts optionally (consent), Speech to Text, Spam Protection, "Captchas for calls" Instead we got this: https://i.etsystatic.com/28431667/r/il/d1a61f/3334764950/il_1588xN.3334764950_tus7.jpg https://i.etsystatic.com/28431667/r/il/d1a61f/3334764950/il_... with a browser in it.

kibwen 4y ago

I recently "upgraded" to a new phone, not because I wanted to, but because my prior phone was too old to receive security updates. The new phone, despite being newer tech, is abjectly worse at being a usable device: the fingerprint is in a worse location and has terrible accuracy, scrolling or zooming anything is a stuttering nightmare, it's too heavy and wide to be comfortably used one-handed, and so on. It's so much worse it makes me not want to use it. And, ironically, being discouraged from using my phone has made me marginally happier throughout the day. So thanks, I guess, for making an inferior product??

neogodless 4y ago
What research and shopping criteria should one employ to ensure they get an objectively worse phone?

superkuh 4y ago

I use a Nokia 6030 phone; the old indestructible brick one. It still works where I am. But I don't use it because I want to get away from the internet. I just don't use smart phones because they're terrible computers. I use a computer for computing, a GPS for navigation, and a camera for photos. And each of these devices is better at it's job with fewer downsides than any general purpose device. Mostly the "smart phones/internet/etc" are ruining society reaction is the same type of thing as the reactions to the introduction to newspapers/books, electricity, radio, television, etc. These were all destroying society and addicting the youth. But they aren't addictive. The only existing medically recognized behavioral addiction (ie, not a real addiction like to a drug like methamphetamine) is "gambling disorder".

vageli 4y ago
The Nokia 6030 is my favorite phone ever. Practically indesctructible and with multi-day batter life, but unfortunately can no longer be used in the US due to migration off of 3g.
- superkuh 4y ago
  The Nokia 6030 is actually GSM (2G) and T-Mobile still supports GSM phones at least in my region (upper midwest) of the USA. Even while 3G is dropped already. Verizon doesn't though. I had to switch telcos to keep using my 6030 a few years back.
  - maxerickson 4y ago
    How is the coverage? Mine got a lot better when I got a phone that supported their newer 4.5 and 5 g frequencies, so I can't imagine it is great.

BirAdam 4y ago

I bought a Mudita Pure. I don't use it. I just wanted to support the creation of a dumb phone that aligned with my principles. Unfortunately for me, having a smart phone is essentially a requirement for both my work and my family. I am unwilling to give up either of these and therefore the smartphone is present. In general, I agree with many commenters here. Separate devices with dedicated purposes tend to do a better job, and smartphones are designed to be both useful and addictive. As a result, I view the smartphone as a very dangerous tool. It can be used to great effectiveness, and it can become a blight on society. When I was a child, I dreamed of a computer roughly the size of beeper that had no screen. Instead, I thought people would have a headset similar to Apple's wired earbuds with a microphone and we'd compute via voice with an internet connection to fetch data. Sadly, we're here 30 years later and there's still no sign of such a future. Amazon tried, Apple is trying, Google is trying, and no one is winning in that space. Apparently, it's both hard and unwanted. Today, I think my idea was naive, because such a device would likely play a minute thirty of ads before giving you the result of your query, and I would end up tossing the thing out the window of a moving car.

jareklupinski 4y ago
the interface you mentioned reminds me of how people in the movie "Her" interact with their futuristic devices they still use a smaller display they keep in their pocket for visual content, but it exists as an accessory to view things queued up by the voice interface I love the idea and the approach, I wish there was a way I can use this on a real subway (in the movie there seemed to be a lot more distance between people/users)
- BirAdam 4y ago
  I never saw “Her”, but I suppose I will give it a watch.

inasmuch 4y ago

I'm grateful to not have much of a problem with my smartphone usage, but I often find myself researching dumb phones in search of something somehow better because I quite dislike my phone (and all the others I've seen/heard of) as a device. It's too big, I hate touchscreens, and I hate Bluetooth. I'd like to see someone develop a new smartphone platform with all the niceties like GPS, a decent camera, easy cloud (and/or manual) backups of my data, and either a lot of onboard storage or easy SD compatibility, but offer it in a completely different physical format that is more conducive to efficient, intermittent productive/tool-like use and less tuned for consumption. Small form factor, maybe a fold-out QWERTY keyboard (my LG Env3 is the only phone I've ever actually liked), headphone jack, etc. Something reasonably durable that can take a drop or be submerged and simply won't be "fun" enough to spend much passive time on. As for apps, I like all my basics to be built by the same company that built the hardware, but combining that with an open platform for third-party options seems like an easy win, even if I don't end up using those other apps myself. I recently got my old iPod up and running again because I loathe the touchscreen/Bluetooth headphone combination for listening to music. But it feels so stupid to be carrying an additional device. I now carry a camera with me too because I dislike smartphone image processing. This also feels stupid. It's silly that we've concluded the only two options are pocket computers that can't do much at all, or pocket computers that can do anything, but only in this one way that many people find harmful.

blacklion 4y ago

It is interesting to see how different communication patterns are compating to your own bubble. For me dumb phone is no use, as I don't use cellular voice for anything (I've talk with my friends and parents on daily basis, but it is always Telegram/Skype voice call, not cellular voice), and only usage of SMS for me is force-feeded 2FA for banks and other services which don't know better (unfortunately)... Who will I call, we all are all around the Globe? Why I will text?.. Ok, week ago I had birthday party and there were a fair amount of guests, so some of my friends now in same location as me. Do they have local phone numbers? I bet, they have, because without it it is impossible to open bank account or rent a flat. Do I know these numbers? No. Because for what reason, we all communicate in messengers for years. These accounts are fixed identities for us, and phone numbers are for governments and banks. I could simply turn off my smartphone with same effect as have dumb phone :-) Oh, maybe, I need to call ambulance once a year... Edit: Idea of phone which is technically LTE Modem with all chat/voice protocols under the unified phone-like interface, plus ability to run some offline GPS, like Organic Maps or OsmAnd, looks good, but politically impossible due to close nature of most chat/voice apps.

dorchadas 4y ago
This is my issue. I wish I had a dumber phone. Like, one that allowed only certain things by default - messaging apps, gps trackers, Spotify being the big ones. If there was one like that, I'd buy it almost immediately.

andrew-dc 4y ago

Having not used a smart phone for ~5 years now, I can say that it is totally a workable solution - however, there are, of course trade-offs, and several persistent annoyances. Rather than get into a list, I will present the one thing that I find the most frustrating: Our society expects you to have and use a smart phone for nearly everything. This might be less annoying if it meant only new functions or supplemented old things, but in my experience it's the opposite. It's often the most simple low-fi things we have been doing for ages, that have been overhauled to require a smartphone, app, and data plan. It's hard to be looked at as 'the person complicating things', when everybody else expects you to carry a luxury item (and an expensive monthly service bill), just to perform a basic task, like paying a bill, or reading a menu. I'm not one to wander around expecting society to cater to my own needs, but I openly admit that I find this Twilight Zone-like first-world problem (What do you mean, you can't use our app?) the most infuriating. With that said, you can still get by in most situations, but I don't see the above getting better on into the future, unless there is some cultural revolution about how view and use technology.

titanomachy 4y ago
Calling a smartphone a "luxury item" if you live in America (or similar) is a bit disingenuous. Anything that has 85% market penetration is by definition not a luxury item. In some countries this could be an accurate description, though. And I agree with the overall sentiment, I would like it to be easier to get through my day without using a smartphone.
- lastofthemojito 4y ago
  Yeah, even as a smartphone owner, I find it annoying how some places just assume you're able (and willing!) to install some arbitrary app to do business with them, etc. That being said, it really doesn't have to be all that expensive. Sure, if you buy the newest iPhone every year and get a high-end Verizon plan, that'll cost some dough. But you can get a used or low-end smartphone and a cheap plan - they're out there: https://www.tomsguide.com/us/best-cheap-cell-phone-plans,review-4504.html https://www.tomsguide.com/us/best-cheap-cell-phone-plans,rev...

wheelerof4te 4y ago

I really wish that the world gravitated towards more hardware-related gadgety future. I was quite fond of the Japanese vision of future, where there is an item/gadget/accessory for everything. That way, people could choose to which degree they want to interact with their technology. But here we are, stuck in the IoT software-focused world.

jstarfish 4y ago
Same here. Variety is the spice of life. One day I noticed I have some Thought Problems, and after thinking about it I realized that most of my daily interactions take place with the same two devices. Doing work on the same computer you game on, deal with family drama, communicate with co-workers and family, etc. takes its toll-- there's never any new stimulus, just living in the same 10'x10' cube playing with the same two toys for years on end. When you have a particularly stressful interaction with either, you're still forced to continue using it. (No wonder the kids are miserable. We replaced toys with smartphones.) Things improved when I broke away to console gaming, set up a dedicated work computer, and did personal stuff on another. DSLR for pictures instead of phone. Moved away from taking notes on the computer and do data/object modeling with physical objects (anything from index cards to Legos). Etc. The only thing I use my phone for these days is reading news on the toilet, which is apt because it's all the same shit to flush either way. I would actually kill myself if I had to spend any more of my time interacting with the world through a singular device. It's not a life worth living.
QuercusMax 4y ago
Or even the Star Trek (TNG-era) future - people put things on PADDs which seem to generally be for individual purposes / projects. They're cheap / disposable (replicable?), and are treated more like physical paper notebooks than expensive smart tablets.

imwillofficial 4y ago

I had a LightPhone 2 and it was great. Unfortunately with my work, I need slack and such so it couldn’t be my daily driver.

SoftTalker 4y ago

You don't need a dumb phone, you just need decide who's in charge. I used to want a dumb phone, but there are a few things (mainly maps/navigation) that I find genuinely useful that dumb phones can't do. So I decided that it's my phone and I'm the one who decides how to use it. I have a reasonably new iPhone. I spend maybe 15 minutes a day on it (excluding navigation), total. I have removed apps I don't use. I disabled Siri, FaceID, most notifications, and location is turned off unless I'm using maps. I have one page on my home screen and there are maybe a dozen apps on it (and that still includes a few I have never used so I could pare down further).

throwaway4aday 4y ago
I'm glad you're able to resist temptation so well. For others it can be more of a problem. For some it is equivalent to an alcoholic carrying around a pint of vodka that also happens to make phone calls.
- rtontic 4y ago
  Wow that is actually a good startup idea.

nyx_land 4y ago

The problem with trying to replace a smartphone with a dumbphone is that most people (young people at least) don't use calling and texting anymore unless forced to. I'd rather have something in between a laptop and a smartphone that is designed to be comfortable for carrying around in a small bag or pocket, but that also has a physical keyboard and is designed to be used productively for programming or writing for example. As it stands, smartphones are the worst of both worlds though: the form factor of what is essentially a legacy communication device, but none of the human interfaces necessary to make it useful enough to really take advantage of all its computing power (and often also its software cripples the device unless you're running a custom android ROM). What people hate about smartphones isn't that they're constantly plugged in but that they have a device on them all the time that is basically designed to turn the user into the ideal consumer: a passive addict with no attention span. If it was more common to have access to portable hardware that is designed to empower users being creative and productive, maybe it'd be a different story. But then again, I think most human beings probably want exactly what they're getting with smartphones and are miserable and alienated at the human condition itself of being so susceptible to seeking out low effort short term dopamine feedback loops.

thfuran 4y ago
>I'd rather have something in between a laptop and a smartphone that is designed to be comfortable for carrying around in a small bag or pocket, but that also has a physical keyboard and is designed to be used productively for programming or writing for example. Something like what? A small laptop is little more than a display attached to a thin keyboard. I'm not sure how you'd get something much smaller while retaining a physical keyboard and still being reasonably useable for programming.
- poglet 4y ago
  It looks like palmtop or haldheld pc's are the formfactor that is being described. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HP_300LX https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HP_300LX
- fsflover 4y ago
  Librem 5 phone runs desktop Linux, and you can connect any bluetooth or usb keyboard to it thus turning it into a laptop for programming.

marttt 4y ago

I've intentionally never owned a smartphone. Dumb phones abandoned by my family have been serving me very well for years (strategy: use them until they stop working; get next one; repeat). My daily work is in forestry, as a brush cutter -- occasionally, GPS would be necessary (unavoidable even). For 95% of the cases, though, I've found a workaround by postponing the map-related tasks (e.g. making sure I understand the borders of a particular forest subcompartment correctly) to the next day and hand-drawing the shape of the subcompartment from an online map to a piece of paper. With the drawing in hand, I can usually accurately confirm the borders by visual observation. Once more, this probably only works for simple blue collars, not for guys that need to do more on-site planning. Other than that, I occasionally miss a tolerable camera (for digitizing expenditure checks) and QR code reading ability. All in all, living with old dumb phone is fun. Zero cost if you break it or ruin it in the forest (mud!). I hate my current Nokia, though -- but can't ditch it because it still works, lol. I still miss my Nokia 3310 (the original one), which I used every day for 12(!) years in a row, starting in around 2001 as a high school student and finally letting it go in around 2013 when I was a young father. It was one hell of a phone. My current favorite oldscool dumb phones are the "senior phones" with huge buttons. This ZTE s202 was really enjoyable to use (belonged to my grandpa), and the no-bs design somehow feels really elegant: https://i.hinnavaatlus.ee/p/1200/99/43/S20220must__6ee8.jpg https://i.hinnavaatlus.ee/p/1200/99/43/S20220must__6ee8.jpg

ryan-duve 4y ago
What is the current Nokia you have that you hate?
- marttt 4y ago
  It's a Nokia 2600 Classic: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_2600_classic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_2600_classic Really slow UI; too much of everything. Not even close to the simplicity of the 3310.
4ggr0 4y ago
Hope you don't mind me asking - How come that a brush cutter is on HN? Did you use to work in IT or are you a hobbyist/part-timer?

beebeepka 4y ago

This thread makes me feel like a geezer but I am not even that old. "Resisting to install / use apps" sounds alien to me. I feel society has moved on and we're pretty much expected to have these devices. I even bought one for my job because they require an auth and I have to verify its me again at random intervals. So secure, so authenticated. I hate it

DerekBickerton 4y ago

It's not some burdensome 'quest' though. Just get a Nokia 105[0] which uses the Series 30[1] operating system and has no Internet connectivity. It comes preloaded with a few basic games so you can kill time waiting for things or pacify yourself in awkward social situations. [0] https://www.nokia.com/phones/en_int/nokia-105 https://www.nokia.com/phones/en_int/nokia-105 [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Series_30%2B https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Series_30%2B

college_physics 4y ago

It takes only a tiny fraction of a smartphone's capabilities to make us dumb. The endless scrolling and liking on social (which is now a pandemic) could arguably be served by a much slimmed down device. NB: Maybe thats something Meta should build and offer "for free". I dont know how we could ever get immunized against big tech dumbness and start really using smartphones in smart ways. They pack exceptional hardware. Mine even has an FM radio (thats something to do with electromagnetic waves). Its just a matter of software. Which is a matter of mindsets, control and economics. I like to think that a society that manages to truly use smartphones as smart devices will get to the next level of civilization

gman83 4y ago

I use Niagara Launcher which is a very simple Android launcher. Then I've set up my phone though Family link with my wife as my "parent" so that I need to ask her permission when I want to install a new app, and when I want to use apps like YouTube for more than 15 minutes per day. It's kind of a dumb system but it works for me.

ikr678 4y ago
Doesnt matter what the system is if it works. You've introduced just enough friction to disrupt the habits you want to break without bricking your device like some other commenters have. I try to keep friction in my life for other habits I don't want to develop (don't keep alcohol or junk food at home, keep credit card in a specific drawer to limit impulse spending).

rmac 4y ago

Needs: NFC (pay) + GPS. Punkt mp02 + prepaid contactless debit card. Cut out chip + antenna from card and glue to inside of battery cover. The above is the best dumb phone at m. Apple pay ux + signal (pigeon) + no ui-based app distractions. For GPS best bet is to get a puck for the car or go whole hog and rock a smartwatch % payments

jackfischer 4y ago

I tried the Light Phone II but found it too limiting. While they did an admirable job trying to get functionality like maps usable it wasn't practical enough overall. Currently using the Unihertz Titan Pocket with the minimalist phone launcher as my daily driver.

guidoism 4y ago
I actually ordered a Light Phone II a few days ago. I'm not looking to completely replace my iPhone 11 — It works great and I use it all the time and I don't feel like I need to limit myself. What sent me on a quest for a dumb(er) phone was to be able to leave the house without my main phone because I didn't want to be contacted unless it was an emergency (by either my wife or my kids). It sucks that the phone has essentially become the main way for all communication — From emergency texts to please remember the milk to hey how is it going to happy birthday to our child from the kids' orthodontist! My wife and I lament about this merging of priorities into phone form all the time. We've been experimenting with basically being in Do Not Disturb mode all the time and yes, people get annoyed when it takes hours to respond, but our lives are better. What I really want though, it is be just about completely disconnected. So, I'm going to experiment with using a second phone number for when I'm out and about for a few hours. I plan on using a dumb(er) phone with this phone number. I really wanted to the Punkt or the Mutida but they don't have GPS which to me is a feature I don't think I can live without and they have problems with some of the carriers in the US which I didn't want to have to deal with. I hope we can end up with different feature sets on phones going forward.
- jackfischer 4y ago
  The emphasis on disconnecting resonates. The Light Phone guys discuss it with AIM as an example of the old state of affairs. https://medium.com/the-light-phone/we-re-not-anti-technology-we-re-just-human-4ea39b2db46e https://medium.com/the-light-phone/we-re-not-anti-technology... >We didn’t always have a small computer with us at all times. In the days of AIM, “away messages” and “signing off”, there was a specific chair and a specific desk with our family computer, and when you sat in that chair and that desk and listened patiently to the modem sounds connecting, then you could be on the internet. Leaving that chair left the internet behind. Do Not Disturb helps with external, incoming communication but not with outgoing.

godshatter 4y ago

I think trying to avoid all apps is unnecessary, just the ones designed to addict you which is almost all social media and a lot of mobile games. My weather app doesn't try to get me to doomscroll :) I have been against social media for a long time, though I do have a FB account I log into once yearly or so. I block ads because I don't like the distractions. I stopped logging in to YT because I didn't like how everything changes to try to draw me farther and farther in. Now I keep a separate list of bookmarks to content owners and decide what I want to watch on my terms. I don't know how to get others there, though. Things feel so obviously designed to grab my attention and keep me there and I can't stand it, I don't get how others don't seem to care and jump in with both feet. But then again I can't look a donut in the eye and not fall victim to them. So who am I to talk?

chazeon 4y ago

After COVID especially, NYC restaurants start to ask customers to scan QR code to get menu, not sure about other places. These penetrations into the real lives are making living with dumb phone more and more difficult. Of course, China has been like this years ago.

fortran77 4y ago

I'd be happy to see the interface of phones from 20 years ago return, so my 89 year old mother can deal with it. Even the few current models of "flip phones" have too many features, and the phones specifically designed for old people are terrible.

n2dasun 4y ago

I used a Sonim XP5 for about 2 years. My criteria were just that (besides regular phone and text uses) it function as an mp3 player and be able to connect it to my vehicle with Bluetooth. Starting to get the itch to switch to it again.

anonymousnotme 4y ago

If it helps, one can have one's provider disable data. I did this, my phone can only make calls and SMS. One also does not need to worry about hackers hacking the phone.

petodo 4y ago

the problem is not smartphone but people without self control you can use smartphone exactly same way as dumbphone and still have smart features available when needed problem with dumbphones is mainly horrible camera, so you would need to carry camera if you wanna capture something, smartphone with self control solves this issue, nobody forces you to use anything but Phone and Messages apps and you will still have great camera and GPS, which are both lacking at dumbphones if you use phone this way you should have pretty great battery life even with smartphone, you can choose some power efficient SoC combined with huge battery, for instance in Sony Xperia 10 IV, which is also relatively compact (narrow, but longer) if you wanna save your time delete all social media apps and preferably also block these sites in browser, then also turn off notifications for everything but Phone and Messages, eventually Email if you need and your problem is solved if you wanna go a bit more extreme you could use custom ROM without gapps, but honestly as someone using this config for almost decade I am hardly limited by apps because pretty much everything works even without gapps

A4ET8a8uTh0 4y ago
Hmm. I don't automatically disagree, but the same argument is put forth for excessive food, drink, drugs intake and self-control is, by itself, not a real answer, but a diversion of sorts typically given by the item's manufacturer/seller. As in, it is both true, but also misleading -- especially so in the case of cellphones. By their very design these days, smart phones are created with a singular goal of keeping the attention of the user. Incessant A/B testing, analytics and dark patterns use make them more addictive than an average willpower can handle. It can be done, but that individual is officially fighting off efforts of companies with budgets sometimes rivaling those of nation states. I can agree that the problem is people, but I think we disagree on the exact nature of the problem.
- petodo 4y ago
  > the same argument is put forth for excessive food, drink, drugs intake and self-control is, by itself, not a real answer, but a diversion of sorts typically given by the item's manufacturer/seller. But it is a real answer. Solution to being fat is not some miracle pill or miracle diet, but lower the food/calories consumption and more exercise/movement (which is both again self control), simple as that. Seems like people nowadays are so childish they can't even admit how stupid and lazy they are and they prefer to blame someone else for their own misfortune caused by themselves. No one forced you to become fat by excessive eating. You can always become slim, if you start eating reasonable amounts of food and start exercising, but of course you can ignore this and try each year new miracle diet, same as people moving away from smartphones to dumbphones to fix their self control issues. > smart phones are created with a singular goal of keeping the attention of the user. Incessant A/B testing, analytics and dark patterns use make them more addictive than an average willpower can handle. I think you are confusing smartphones with apps/sites. Smartphones themselves and their manufacturers (maybe besides Apple since they produce complete package) are certainly not using any of those methods to make them more addictive. People are addicted to social media apps, not the phones, phones are just tools. It's like blaming silverware producers for being fat, because you eat sugary/unhealthy food. If you wanna blame someone blame companies developing/producing apps/services, your blame on smartphone companies is misdirected. I don't think Xiaomi or Samsung (these two have pretty much all Android market in Europe) produce many addicting apps, while I am certain Facebook, Bytedance, Twitter and other companies produce addictive services/apps.

looseyesterday 4y ago

I think the answer to this is more technology not less. I personally use black and white display on my iPhone combined with freedom site blocker and all notifications switched off. This way I am in control of what I want to do.

cik 4y ago

It's fascinating to me how this is a topic of conversation in parts of the world, and a fait accompli in others. In Israel, may Hareidim use "kosher phones", which the world would recognise as dumb phones. Some allow for texting, some don't... that's it. Honestly, I love the idea. I've reduced my smart phone usage at this point to convenience of paying for public transit, small credit card purchases, 2FA, and chat - but only to get in on the real world. It's made me happy.

nikau 4y ago

Is it that hard to just long press on a notification from whatever stupid social media app is distracting you and turning it off?

Buffout 4y ago

[dead]

prometheus76 4y ago

I love Kyocera's dumb phones. The only thing I miss is having a decent camera in my pocket. Every other aspect of smartphones are a disease. I don't miss it at all.

t0bia_s 4y ago

Hopefully one day we will have cellphone with eink display and simple apps for sync email, calendar, notes, contacts... That is all I actually need with me. In size of dumbphone with battery for week.

incomingpain 4y ago
To answer your question from the flagged Czech thread. >Why? Is it too political? When I look at the "active" threads on HN. The majority are political. For example, NY Jails want to ban mail. It's entirely political for a tiny portion of the world, but clearly allowed. Your problem is that you came up against communism.
- t0bia_s 4y ago
  "Your problem is that you came up against communism." I don't understand what is wrong with that? Also... I don't understand, why there is flagging without any explanation? How can I learn from it?