6 ms·

Switching to a "dumb" phone made me feel pretty dang smart

23 points by vitabenes 3y ago

pocketarc 3y ago
On the one hand, I get that they’re trying to go as minimalistic as possible, and so this phone makes a lot of concessions. On the other hand… the experience of using this phone seems worse than a Nokia 3310 two decades ago, especially when it comes to texting. Typing on that little hardware keyboard was unbeatable, and far better than relying on voice recognition. If I were switching to a dumbphone I’d want it to at least be as good as that (bonus points if the battery life was just as good; even less distraction). Are there no old-school dumb phones anymore? Have they all moved on?
- lancesells 3y ago
  Checking eBay there are plenty of old-school dumb phones to be had. I don't know if they work on modern networks but you could get an old school phone every year for the rest of your life on eBay.
- hedora 3y ago
  I've looked a bit, and realized what I really want is a distraction-free phone that's otherwise fully functional. None of these things are a problem: - podcast + music streaming - local search + navigation - high end camera (I don't care if my daily driver phone costs $100 or $1000+ as long as it lasts > 4 years) - sms + signal - phone calls - mobile payments (including shitty parking apps, plane tickets, etc) - internet of sh*t controller apps (car, appliances, etc). - weather - calendar - email - document scanning and file management The main problems are: - web browser - news apps So, basically, what I want is a mobile phone ecosystem where the apps don't assume a web browser is installed (local search, mobile payments, my car, weather, tickets, etc, etc, apps all assume a web browser), and where I can uninstall the web browser and the news app. On the other hand, I'd like to live in a world where you don't need to install a bunch of malicious code on your machine in order to do basic day-to-day things, which would push me towards that web-browser-only phone OS that Mozilla tried to build. I don't have a great solution. The only thing I can think of is that, in the same way that businesses are legally required to accept cash, they should also be legally required to provide a sane, supported API so third party apps and operating systems can use their services (yes; I know that this is impractical too).
kstenerud 3y ago
I equate going "dumb phone" with those guys who dreamed about setting up a homestead in rural Alaska: A nice thought exercise, but well beyond the realm of the practical or even likely (or even possible in some tragic cases). The world has moved on, and your traditional cellular phone and SMS system is only slightly more useful than the telegraph (especially outside of the USA).
- okdood64 3y ago
  100% With some proper notifications set up and self control, you can live your "dumb phone" dreams while still not living a comically unpractical life.
- tweedledot 3y ago
  > The world has moved on Movement is not self-justifying. Have you weighed the pros and cons of what movement there has been in the last 5 years due to smart phones? >traditional cellular phone and SMS system is only slightly more useful than the telegraph (especially outside of the USA). I can phone or message almost anyone in the world at any moment. Have we forgotten what a magical power that is? Countering your last statement, I count myself lucky to live outside the US , where a smartphone-free life is still very practical for more than just a few die-hard holdouts (a bit like car ownership).
  - kstenerud 3y ago
    > Movement is not self-justifying. Nothing is self-justifying. Things move. You either move with them and adapt, or they leave you behind.
    - tweedledot 3y ago
      Or I can decide that “forward” is bad and go somewhere else. Let’s not forget that those pushing apps and smart devices care only for sales and profits.
      - kstenerud 3y ago
yetanotherpully 3y ago
I did the same thing* almost a year ago and honestly I feel much healthier and more productive. I honestly wish I did it earlier. I still do all the things I did before, news, youtube and all, but only on my desktop PC which limits me to shorter more purposeful sessions online. * I did not get an LP2, but a Jelly2. The screen is impracticably small for doom scrolling, but I still need a phone for Messenger (family), Spotify (running/working) and other stupid crap (that pay parking stall that wont accept fucking coins)
throwaway81523 3y ago
I've been trying to find a dumb phone for a technologically challenged family member, and it seems like they don't exist any more. Remember that 2g and 3g phones are now bricked by carriers shutting down those networks, so don't suggest one of those. Ultra expensive baubles like the Light phone are basically jewelry rather than tools. There are a few basic phones like the Nokia 225 that support 4g, but they have extra crap like rudimentary facebook, they have limited frequency bands (the 225 only supports T-mobile around here), and their battery runtime is much worse than advertised. I'd be happy with the equivalent of an old school Motorola flip or brick phone (i.e. 1+ pound weight is fine, I don't need tiny, I need simple). But it doesn't exist. I decided that the best bet is to get a cheap Android phone and reprogram it to be a dumb phone, constantly running the phone app in kiosk mode with everything else disabled. I'm not an Android programmer but maybe this is something I'd like to try implementing.
- RCitronsBroker 3y ago
  afaik, there are specialized low-tech (ish) launchers for android available, maybe that will suffice
  - sureglymop 3y ago
    I would recommend "Unlauncher" from F-Droid.
    - throwaway81523 3y ago
      Thanks! I'll look for it. Edit: found it, but unfortunately it still looks too complicated. I want something where it is impossible to get the dialing keypad off the screen, the equivalent of a dumb phone with physical buttons.
- hydrok9 3y ago
  you can also simply buy a second-hand flip phone off of any online marketplace. there are lots of resellers in this space.
ecmascript 3y ago
I think the light phone is a great idea but with some caveats that makes me not want to make me jump. If they made it an open platform so I could code my own apps into it, that'd be great and email would probably be nice. I only check my email when I have to anyway so that doesnt give me stress. It's async! A bigger battery would be nice. If they are rocking an e-ink display it would be nice with a phone that lasts a week or more.
- hedora 3y ago
  I used a degoogled pixel 6 pro for a while, and it got multi-day battery life until I installed the google play services. After that, it dropped to the advertised ~ 1 day life. Between not having tracking crap and notification polling waking the modem up and the e-ink display, I'd expect them to already be at half a week. Anyway, I'd love to see someone build a high-spec dumb phone that's minimally distracting and that that respects privacy.
nunez 3y ago
Fucking precisely. I don't think I could do a phone that's this dumb (I really like using my Apple Watch, and I'm in pre-sales and salespeople LOVE calling and texting) but I went back to my iPhone 13 mini after using an iPhone 15 Pro for a few weeks. It's just too big, and I already hate using my phone. I would love a "first principles" phone that has a very limited but very well designed feature set.
mock-possum 3y ago
I’m not a fan of the tone of this piece, and it’s pretty dull listening to the author get excited about shilling for this new phone and then find out it’s kind of useless over and over, only to rate it using some silly made up scale. Like it got old after the second round. This passage at the beginning basically establishes the pattern: > it was time to finally float into the heavens of dumb phone peace … Fast forward three weeks and I’m lost as fuck driving in my own neighborhood … being way less stressed overall because you must surrender to the simple truth that you’re just a guy trying to make his way home: 10/10 And it basically just goes on like that. I don’t know who this was written for, but it’s not me.

23 points by vitabenes 3y ago

On the one hand, I get that they’re trying to go as minimalistic as possible, and so this phone makes a lot of concessions. On the other hand… the experience of using this phone seems worse than a Nokia 3310 two decades ago, especially when it comes to texting. Typing on that little hardware keyboard was unbeatable, and far better than relying on voice recognition. If I were switching to a dumbphone I’d want it to at least be as good as that (bonus points if the battery life was just as good; even less distraction). Are there no old-school dumb phones anymore? Have they all moved on?

lancesells 3y ago
Checking eBay there are plenty of old-school dumb phones to be had. I don't know if they work on modern networks but you could get an old school phone every year for the rest of your life on eBay.
hedora 3y ago
I've looked a bit, and realized what I really want is a distraction-free phone that's otherwise fully functional. None of these things are a problem: - podcast + music streaming - local search + navigation - high end camera (I don't care if my daily driver phone costs $100 or $1000+ as long as it lasts > 4 years) - sms + signal - phone calls - mobile payments (including shitty parking apps, plane tickets, etc) - internet of sh*t controller apps (car, appliances, etc). - weather - calendar - email - document scanning and file management The main problems are: - web browser - news apps So, basically, what I want is a mobile phone ecosystem where the apps don't assume a web browser is installed (local search, mobile payments, my car, weather, tickets, etc, etc, apps all assume a web browser), and where I can uninstall the web browser and the news app. On the other hand, I'd like to live in a world where you don't need to install a bunch of malicious code on your machine in order to do basic day-to-day things, which would push me towards that web-browser-only phone OS that Mozilla tried to build. I don't have a great solution. The only thing I can think of is that, in the same way that businesses are legally required to accept cash, they should also be legally required to provide a sane, supported API so third party apps and operating systems can use their services (yes; I know that this is impractical too).

kstenerud 3y ago

I equate going "dumb phone" with those guys who dreamed about setting up a homestead in rural Alaska: A nice thought exercise, but well beyond the realm of the practical or even likely (or even possible in some tragic cases). The world has moved on, and your traditional cellular phone and SMS system is only slightly more useful than the telegraph (especially outside of the USA).

okdood64 3y ago
100% With some proper notifications set up and self control, you can live your "dumb phone" dreams while still not living a comically unpractical life.
tweedledot 3y ago
> The world has moved on Movement is not self-justifying. Have you weighed the pros and cons of what movement there has been in the last 5 years due to smart phones? >traditional cellular phone and SMS system is only slightly more useful than the telegraph (especially outside of the USA). I can phone or message almost anyone in the world at any moment. Have we forgotten what a magical power that is? Countering your last statement, I count myself lucky to live outside the US , where a smartphone-free life is still very practical for more than just a few die-hard holdouts (a bit like car ownership).
- kstenerud 3y ago
  > Movement is not self-justifying. Nothing is self-justifying. Things move. You either move with them and adapt, or they leave you behind.
  - tweedledot 3y ago
    Or I can decide that “forward” is bad and go somewhere else. Let’s not forget that those pushing apps and smart devices care only for sales and profits.
    - kstenerud 3y ago

yetanotherpully 3y ago

I did the same thing* almost a year ago and honestly I feel much healthier and more productive. I honestly wish I did it earlier. I still do all the things I did before, news, youtube and all, but only on my desktop PC which limits me to shorter more purposeful sessions online. * I did not get an LP2, but a Jelly2. The screen is impracticably small for doom scrolling, but I still need a phone for Messenger (family), Spotify (running/working) and other stupid crap (that pay parking stall that wont accept fucking coins)

throwaway81523 3y ago

I've been trying to find a dumb phone for a technologically challenged family member, and it seems like they don't exist any more. Remember that 2g and 3g phones are now bricked by carriers shutting down those networks, so don't suggest one of those. Ultra expensive baubles like the Light phone are basically jewelry rather than tools. There are a few basic phones like the Nokia 225 that support 4g, but they have extra crap like rudimentary facebook, they have limited frequency bands (the 225 only supports T-mobile around here), and their battery runtime is much worse than advertised. I'd be happy with the equivalent of an old school Motorola flip or brick phone (i.e. 1+ pound weight is fine, I don't need tiny, I need simple). But it doesn't exist. I decided that the best bet is to get a cheap Android phone and reprogram it to be a dumb phone, constantly running the phone app in kiosk mode with everything else disabled. I'm not an Android programmer but maybe this is something I'd like to try implementing.

RCitronsBroker 3y ago
afaik, there are specialized low-tech (ish) launchers for android available, maybe that will suffice
- sureglymop 3y ago
  I would recommend "Unlauncher" from F-Droid.
  - throwaway81523 3y ago
    Thanks! I'll look for it. Edit: found it, but unfortunately it still looks too complicated. I want something where it is impossible to get the dialing keypad off the screen, the equivalent of a dumb phone with physical buttons.
hydrok9 3y ago
you can also simply buy a second-hand flip phone off of any online marketplace. there are lots of resellers in this space.

ecmascript 3y ago

I think the light phone is a great idea but with some caveats that makes me not want to make me jump. If they made it an open platform so I could code my own apps into it, that'd be great and email would probably be nice. I only check my email when I have to anyway so that doesnt give me stress. It's async! A bigger battery would be nice. If they are rocking an e-ink display it would be nice with a phone that lasts a week or more.

hedora 3y ago
I used a degoogled pixel 6 pro for a while, and it got multi-day battery life until I installed the google play services. After that, it dropped to the advertised ~ 1 day life. Between not having tracking crap and notification polling waking the modem up and the e-ink display, I'd expect them to already be at half a week. Anyway, I'd love to see someone build a high-spec dumb phone that's minimally distracting and that that respects privacy.

nunez 3y ago

Fucking precisely. I don't think I could do a phone that's this dumb (I really like using my Apple Watch, and I'm in pre-sales and salespeople LOVE calling and texting) but I went back to my iPhone 13 mini after using an iPhone 15 Pro for a few weeks. It's just too big, and I already hate using my phone. I would love a "first principles" phone that has a very limited but very well designed feature set.

mock-possum 3y ago

I’m not a fan of the tone of this piece, and it’s pretty dull listening to the author get excited about shilling for this new phone and then find out it’s kind of useless over and over, only to rate it using some silly made up scale. Like it got old after the second round. This passage at the beginning basically establishes the pattern: > it was time to finally float into the heavens of dumb phone peace … Fast forward three weeks and I’m lost as fuck driving in my own neighborhood … being way less stressed overall because you must surrender to the simple truth that you’re just a guy trying to make his way home: 10/10 And it basically just goes on like that. I don’t know who this was written for, but it’s not me.