Smartphones are so hyper optimized for their role. The fact that they're mostly the same is why there are so many apps that all worl reliably. If they had too

Smartphones are so hyper optimized for their role. The fact that they're mostly the same is why there are so many apps that all worl reliably. If they had too much variety we'd have to go back to actually owning physical items again and maybe even paying with real cash and cards! What seems more practical is cheap low power devices that connect to phones, which can be left in a backpack. Like, an EInk Pokedex that just does texts, calls, notes, and smart light control. These devices would already be cheap and easy to make. The proof is that all they would be is cheap emulator handhelds, with different software, more interesting cases, and an ESP32 instead of whatever CPU. The cost should be like $30 for TFT ones. GPS, a camera, a touchscreen, etc, are all not needed. You don't need a high resolution screen or real video playback. There's the phone for that. All you need is Bluetooth and Wifi, and probably NFC or perhaps even LoRa for some of the cooler possibilities.