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I'd love to quit my smartphone and have looked at options like Lite Phone to replace it. The only issue is my smartphone is now my GPS, my payment method, my ho

I'd love to quit my smartphone and have looked at options like Lite Phone to replace it. The only issue is my smartphone is now my GPS, my payment method, my home lighting controller, my car/house key, and my health tracker. Plus, was a convenient way to keep tabs on work messages. Half a decade ago I eliminated all my social media. Then about a year ago I started by removing work email and messaging from my phone.The next step will be having a designated spot for it to stay while I'm home. I don't know if I will ever revert back to having a thick wallet and a pocket full of keys, but maybe someday I can evolve to look at the smartphone as a utilitarian device without the addictive qualities. Now to get back to scrolling on Hacker News.

yaomtc 3y ago
Pocket full of keys? Sounds like a recipe for pain. Carabiner!
BeetleB 3y ago
> The only issue is my smartphone is now my GPS, my payment method, my home lighting controller, my car/house key, and my health tracker. If you use GPS only for navigation in a car, get a Garmin or something similar. Payment: Is it that hard to use a CC like most people do...? I only recently used my phone for payments (lost card and was waiting for replacement), and did not find it any more convenient than using a card. Lighting: Do you need to do this only at home or away from home? If the former, buy a Google Home (albeit that has its own issues...) Car/house key: Sorry, no experience with this. I'd be terrified of using my phone that way. Health tracker: No experience with this, so I don't know how you use it and what the alternatives are. > Half a decade ago I eliminated all my social media. Then about a year ago I started by removing work email and messaging from my phone.The next step will be having a designated spot for it to stay while I'm home. Good steps. I never allowed work stuff on my phone. And if I take it out at home, I'll leave it wherever I took it out. I have a PC so I don't need the phone (and yes, it's great that the PC is not mobile). I use my VoIP line as my main phone, so I have those all around the house. People know I may not answer my cell phone at home due to me not hearing it ring. > thick wallet How thick is thick? 1-2 credit cards, 1-2 debit cards. Not that thick.
- vel0city 3y ago
  Not OP, but in a similar place for the phone somewhat dominating on the go stuff. Its just incredibly freeing leaving the house with only my phone. These days it can handle payment most places. It is my library card. My bus pass. My car key. My camera. My paperback novel. My guide. My gym pass. It lets me know when my bus or train is running late. It lets me know when that store is going to close, or if its even open on a Sunday. All the while providing music while on the go and entertainment when sitting around. When I've got my phone, I don't need my keys. I don't need my wallet. I don't need a book. I can have a whole night out with the only thing on me is my phone, other than a few bucks stashed in my shoe for emergency bus fare.
  - BeetleB 3y ago
    And what do you do if you run out of batteries? Or lose the phone? Or it gets wet and won't turn on? You can't even drive your car? My phones have failed me on multiple occasions over the years.
    - vel0city 3y ago
      It doesn't really run out of batteries. I'm not talking about going to the moon, I'm talking about going across town. It charges pretty quick, and it can charge in the car, so I'm rarely out and about with it less than 50% charged. Which is good enough for at least 8 hours of active usage with its current battery health and age, a good bit more if I bother stretching it. What happens if I lose my wallet? What happens if I lose my car keys? Its not like these other things are immune to "what if it gets lost?" Sure, there's a bit of risk tying it all to one thing, but in the end I'm not talking about being more than a few hours walk to home or a friend's house. And like I said, I usually carry enough cash in my shoe to cover a half day fare. At least for my car, I do have a backup code I can type in and access it. My phone is waterproof. Its durable enough, its fallen out of my pocket while riding my bike before and been fine. I did have a problem of breaking phones in the past, but since waterproof phones and far more durable screens have been a thing I haven't really lost any to damage since. The last time I broke a phone was 2012. It seems like if I managed to break my phone I'm likely to be picked up by an ambulance anyways.
MarkSweep 3y ago
You can get a lot of those things n an Apple Watch. I like to go out with just my Apple Watch sometimes. It covers your GPS, payment, and health tracking use cases. I’m not sure if the lighting controller and house key would be covered.
TeMPOraL 3y ago
> maybe someday I can evolve to look at the smartphone as a utilitarian device without the addictive qualities. Good luck. You won't though, "because sekhurity" - the trend points at everything using your phone as a second factor, and not even via the authenticator app, but vendor-specific push notifications, on a remotely attested phone. Banks and media companies are pushing hard for it.
- jkepler 3y ago
  And this in spite of the National Institute of Standards and Technology in the US strongly recommending against using SMS as a 2nd factor authentication since 2016!
  - rrr_oh_man 3y ago
    Nobody said anything about SMS
  - TeMPOraL 3y ago
    Why yes. Because SMS isn't good enough, the sekhurity industry decided everyone needs to use apps instead, since they can communicate over SSL and are harder to spoof, and then threw in remote attestastion for extra sekhurity.
jfim 3y ago
> The next step will be having a designated spot for it to stay while I'm home. I put my phone charger in a drawer by drilling a hole in the back in order to run a power cord. I found that just having the phone on silent and out of sight helps a lot. It also helps with clutter, instead of having a ton of random devices and cables, all of that mess is in a drawer that doesn't bother me.
littlecranky67 3y ago
As others have pointed out alternatives, you can also just ask yourself whether the convenience of those things you listed in total are worth more than the drawbacks. If you constantly lose time by mindless scrolling, if you are unable to focus anymore, if you start suffering from FOMO all the time, if you social interactions and friendships suffer etc. the question is whether the comfort of those conveniences are worth the drawbacks. And some very obvious point about that: All of the things you mentioned, you didn't have 10 years ago. Was your life that bad (becaues of the lack of those things) at that time?
AltruisticGapHN 3y ago
> The next step will be having a designated spot for it to stay while I'm home. Sounds like a good compromise, like a basket where you put all your keys you need when leaving home. I think the core issue with attention is ultimately the same as with infinite scroll, and the reward mechanism. For me the unease can be felt as soon as I unlock phone, it’s like a bunch of candies and there is this implicit feeling that you need to do something, to interact with something. Then there is this angst like when you get physical mail and you anticipate who it might be from back when we wrote more letters. Only now with smartphones it gets repeated endlessly throughout the day. Can we really force ourselves to slow down ? To live a simpler life ? I think it’s not possible until profound changes in our society such as basic income. The smartphone in a sense is symptomatic of the rat race. It’s the only way we found to make things better when better is « doing more things in less time ».

yaomtc 3y ago

Pocket full of keys? Sounds like a recipe for pain. Carabiner!

BeetleB 3y ago

> The only issue is my smartphone is now my GPS, my payment method, my home lighting controller, my car/house key, and my health tracker. If you use GPS only for navigation in a car, get a Garmin or something similar. Payment: Is it that hard to use a CC like most people do...? I only recently used my phone for payments (lost card and was waiting for replacement), and did not find it any more convenient than using a card. Lighting: Do you need to do this only at home or away from home? If the former, buy a Google Home (albeit that has its own issues...) Car/house key: Sorry, no experience with this. I'd be terrified of using my phone that way. Health tracker: No experience with this, so I don't know how you use it and what the alternatives are. > Half a decade ago I eliminated all my social media. Then about a year ago I started by removing work email and messaging from my phone.The next step will be having a designated spot for it to stay while I'm home. Good steps. I never allowed work stuff on my phone. And if I take it out at home, I'll leave it wherever I took it out. I have a PC so I don't need the phone (and yes, it's great that the PC is not mobile). I use my VoIP line as my main phone, so I have those all around the house. People know I may not answer my cell phone at home due to me not hearing it ring. > thick wallet How thick is thick? 1-2 credit cards, 1-2 debit cards. Not that thick.

vel0city 3y ago
Not OP, but in a similar place for the phone somewhat dominating on the go stuff. Its just incredibly freeing leaving the house with only my phone. These days it can handle payment most places. It is my library card. My bus pass. My car key. My camera. My paperback novel. My guide. My gym pass. It lets me know when my bus or train is running late. It lets me know when that store is going to close, or if its even open on a Sunday. All the while providing music while on the go and entertainment when sitting around. When I've got my phone, I don't need my keys. I don't need my wallet. I don't need a book. I can have a whole night out with the only thing on me is my phone, other than a few bucks stashed in my shoe for emergency bus fare.
- BeetleB 3y ago
  And what do you do if you run out of batteries? Or lose the phone? Or it gets wet and won't turn on? You can't even drive your car? My phones have failed me on multiple occasions over the years.
  - vel0city 3y ago
    It doesn't really run out of batteries. I'm not talking about going to the moon, I'm talking about going across town. It charges pretty quick, and it can charge in the car, so I'm rarely out and about with it less than 50% charged. Which is good enough for at least 8 hours of active usage with its current battery health and age, a good bit more if I bother stretching it. What happens if I lose my wallet? What happens if I lose my car keys? Its not like these other things are immune to "what if it gets lost?" Sure, there's a bit of risk tying it all to one thing, but in the end I'm not talking about being more than a few hours walk to home or a friend's house. And like I said, I usually carry enough cash in my shoe to cover a half day fare. At least for my car, I do have a backup code I can type in and access it. My phone is waterproof. Its durable enough, its fallen out of my pocket while riding my bike before and been fine. I did have a problem of breaking phones in the past, but since waterproof phones and far more durable screens have been a thing I haven't really lost any to damage since. The last time I broke a phone was 2012. It seems like if I managed to break my phone I'm likely to be picked up by an ambulance anyways.

MarkSweep 3y ago

You can get a lot of those things n an Apple Watch. I like to go out with just my Apple Watch sometimes. It covers your GPS, payment, and health tracking use cases. I’m not sure if the lighting controller and house key would be covered.

TeMPOraL 3y ago

> maybe someday I can evolve to look at the smartphone as a utilitarian device without the addictive qualities. Good luck. You won't though, "because sekhurity" - the trend points at everything using your phone as a second factor, and not even via the authenticator app, but vendor-specific push notifications, on a remotely attested phone. Banks and media companies are pushing hard for it.

jkepler 3y ago
And this in spite of the National Institute of Standards and Technology in the US strongly recommending against using SMS as a 2nd factor authentication since 2016!
- rrr_oh_man 3y ago
  Nobody said anything about SMS
- TeMPOraL 3y ago
  Why yes. Because SMS isn't good enough, the sekhurity industry decided everyone needs to use apps instead, since they can communicate over SSL and are harder to spoof, and then threw in remote attestastion for extra sekhurity.

jfim 3y ago

> The next step will be having a designated spot for it to stay while I'm home. I put my phone charger in a drawer by drilling a hole in the back in order to run a power cord. I found that just having the phone on silent and out of sight helps a lot. It also helps with clutter, instead of having a ton of random devices and cables, all of that mess is in a drawer that doesn't bother me.

littlecranky67 3y ago

As others have pointed out alternatives, you can also just ask yourself whether the convenience of those things you listed in total are worth more than the drawbacks. If you constantly lose time by mindless scrolling, if you are unable to focus anymore, if you start suffering from FOMO all the time, if you social interactions and friendships suffer etc. the question is whether the comfort of those conveniences are worth the drawbacks. And some very obvious point about that: All of the things you mentioned, you didn't have 10 years ago. Was your life that bad (becaues of the lack of those things) at that time?

AltruisticGapHN 3y ago

> The next step will be having a designated spot for it to stay while I'm home. Sounds like a good compromise, like a basket where you put all your keys you need when leaving home. I think the core issue with attention is ultimately the same as with infinite scroll, and the reward mechanism. For me the unease can be felt as soon as I unlock phone, it’s like a bunch of candies and there is this implicit feeling that you need to do something, to interact with something. Then there is this angst like when you get physical mail and you anticipate who it might be from back when we wrote more letters. Only now with smartphones it gets repeated endlessly throughout the day. Can we really force ourselves to slow down ? To live a simpler life ? I think it’s not possible until profound changes in our society such as basic income. The smartphone in a sense is symptomatic of the rat race. It’s the only way we found to make things better when better is « doing more things in less time ».