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.

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

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

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.)

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. 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.

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.

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.

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).

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.

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.

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.

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.

Here's an example of living with the light phone: 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

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.

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.

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-se...

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

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Series_30%2B

This turns any phone into a dumb phone for free :)

https://specialprojects.studio/project/envelope/

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.

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

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

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.

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?

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".

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

I'm in a similar boat. GPS, Camera, but also Telegram and a basic browser for reference.

Dumbing down a smart phone doesn't fix the size and delicateness of the device either. I essentially want a tiny durable smartphone, ie size of an iPhone 3g.

My biggest thing is I hate how important this device is while also being unwieldy and easy to break. The only entertainment I use on my phone is twitter and even then I find it easy to stop scrolling.

I want the abilities of a smart phone, but something I can keep on me without worrying about it, like wearing a watch or how I can throw around my wallet.

Literally tried to upgrade my Pixel 2 XL to Lineage and it failed repeatedly. Reddit says, no joke, it's the cable that's the problem. Sigh. Same computer didn't have issues flashing old Galaxy and Nexus phones.

Bought a dumb phone but found it lacking for your exact reasons -- no GPS, crappy camera, and texting using the number pad was tedious as all hell.

Gave up, got a Pixel 7, might think about flashing it.

That OLauncher home screen just made me take a deep breath, very very nice! Truly 'calm tech' [0]

My anxiety with ditching Android to LineageOS is the loss of all the software-defined image quality in the Camera app.

What has been your experience using your phone camera with Lineage? As in is it good enough to also capture some family moments or do you use it just as functional camera to take pictures of something you need to remember?

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calm_technology

Being about to use various instant messaging platforms, especially WhatsApp, is also nice.

Have you looked into any of the Jolla devices? You can get a Sony Experia phone with Linux SailfishOS preinstalled on it for less than $500:

https://buy.jolla-devices.com/

Or even installing CalyxOS? You can get a Pixel 5a 5G phone (selling on ebay for under $200) and then install CalyxOS on it.

https://calyxos.org/

I'm going to grab one of the Jolla devices and give it a test drive next month. I think there's decent alternative out there where you can still maintain your privacy without having to step all the way down to a "dumb phone".

> It's simply easier to dumb down your existing smartphone, especially if you have an Android phone.

That claim is a bit nuanced, IMO. Before I finally chose to move to iPhones, I tried my best to remove distractions from my Android phone, and I failed. iOS is less customisable, but comes with a configuration/ecosystem baseline that's far easier to tolerate, and insofar as it is flexible, the changes are far less painful than bringing an Android to that level.

Again, that's just my experience. YMMV.

I'll have to check out OLauncher. I use and adore another open source text launcher: KISS

I'm sorry, but I don't understand your first sentence. You researched dumbphones and discovered they're not smartphones? I'm struggling to understand what you thought you were going to find.

Definitely a key insight: every attempt to be less addicted to your smartphone will fail if you do not fill up that void of newly available time with something more productive, healthy, etc.

The good news is that you don't need to set a very high bar for a better use of this free time. Read a book. Go on a small walk around the block. Take care of your garden, if you have one. Do simple chores. Do nothing at all. Almost anything is better than smartphone usage.

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.

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!

Slowing down internet to a crawl works for me too. Once I hit my data limit it runs at 128 kb/s which is perfect. I just wish it ran at that speed all the time.

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.

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.

How do you manage app updates?

I ask because I've been trying to make this system work for me, but find that the app update flow (partner unlocks phone -> update apps -> partner locks phone) always breaks and I end up with an unrestricted phone.

The fact that you can't allow updates while also not allowing installation of new apps is a huge blocker here for me.

I did the same thing this New Years. Blocked email, safari, all non-important applications. Kept things like: message, fb messenger, fitbit, camera, etc.

If I really need to know the answer to something, I will ask Siri. And most things I just add to my to-do list for looking up the information later.

It's been great!

I've done this in the past too and it works. Right now though I have it set so that I know the passcode to unlock it all, but that small amount of pain to go and unlock it is enough to make me pause and think about whether I actually do need to check the news, etc. Very rarely is the answer yes, but when I do need an actual smart phone (confirm a ticket on some random website for example) it's nice to have the ability to do so. Just have to have the discipline to lock it back down!

Not sure if it's a typo but how in the world would a person spend 2 hours "scrolling Lyft"?

How can you set screentime permissions for specific websites ?

>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.

iPad Mini fits (barely) in my pants pocket when I'm wearing my baggy cargo pants. Also would go around nicely in a bag. There's a variety of keyboard cases for it. Including hinged ones with trackpads which turn it into a tiny laptop. Can get it with a cellular connection. Small enough to take with you everywhere but big enough to make it awkward to pull out constantly.

Only drawback for your use case is the programming part. Though you could also get a small Samsung or Lenovo 8" Android tablet which would give you much more flexibility. There's also the 8" laptops from a few niche companies, though they will probably be thicker than tablet + keyboard case and wouldn't have the same battery life or cellular options.

Smallest, easily available device I can think of in this form factor is a 7" Amazon Fire with the Zagg hinged keyboard case. It's slow, has so-so battery life, and you'd still need to get a cellular connection elsewhere. But it's about the size of a VHS tape and it's pocketable. I had one for a while because I wanted a cheap tiny laptop. Fire tablets are easy to turn into mostly generic Android machines so it would be useful.

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.