Today, I’m embarking on a 30 day experiment to see if I can live (and do my job) in the modern world without a smartphone.
Why?
I’ve been a tech enthusiast all my life: always had to have the latest, greatest, newest, and shiniest gadget I could afford. Here lately, it feels like the tech is taking over and just making me miserable. “Always connected”, notification fatigue, endless doom scrolling, "download our app for [super basic thing that shouldn’t require an app], etc. I love my smartphone, but I feel like it’s a “ball and chain” that’s causing me unneeded stress.
I’ve been wanting to try this for some time, but the “killer app”, so to speak, on my smartphone is hospot mode. I use that heavily for both work and personal use, and I only recently realized that modern “dumb” phones could do that now. Suddenly this experiment became possible, so I bought a cheap dumb phone and decided to give it a try.
So, can I go 30 days without a smartphone, and will I see any quality of life improvements (or perhaps the opposite)? Only one way to find out.
Conditions of the experiment:
I bought a modern-era “dumb” flip phone and moved my SIM to it yesterday evening. It’s not a true “dumb” phone, though. It runs a stripped down version of Android, so I’m able to install a few “must have” apps that I need such as my MFA and credit union app. I made a concession with the banking app since the closest branch office is 45 minutes away (I don’t consider the MFA app to be a concession since some of the dumber dumb phones had support for at least TOTP generators).
That’s it for the apps. No email, IM/chat apps, web browser, etc (though I can run all of those it seems). The only “apps” will be the ones that would be standard for a dumb phone of the mid 2000s (calendar, camera, alarm, music player, etc). I’ve already connected it over USB and loaded up era-appropriate music from my local collection 😆
Rules:
- I’ll allow myself to carry my smartphone (w/o SIM card) in my bag, powered off, in case I do need it for something urgent, but I won’t carry it on my person or use it beyond immediate need. Will connect to my “dumb” phone via its hotspot for internet.
- If I do need to break out the old smart rectangle, I should look to see if there is a way to accomplish what I need without it.
- This experiment cannot interfere with my job duties.
- I’ve setup an SMS bridge on my server to forward certain critical alerts. I used to do this back when all phones were dumb phones, so I don’t feel it’s breaking the spirit of the experiment. These will only be “the datacenter is on fire” level alerts, so I don’t anticipate many (or any).
So, here goes. I’m not sure what to expect or how this will turn out and even less sure I’ll make it the full 30 days. Wish me luck.
So? How did it go?
Aside from forgetting to post a follow-up, lol, it went very well.
I found that I could get by with a dumb phone but also that a true dumb phone would be a little too restrictive for my lifestyle. The device I used wasn’t a true feature phone (I just disabled everything that made it “smart” with the exception of my bank app), so after the 30 days were up, I un-dumbed it back into the basic smartphone it is.
I’m really liking that as a middle ground. I still benefit from the small screen and atypical form factor by not wanting to use it to scroll endlessly but I can have the convenience connectivity apps that I want (email, Matrix, bank app, maps, weather app/widget, calendar/tasks, etc).
I used KeyMapper app to make the physical keypad much more useful (music controls, quick-access to certain apps on long press, etc) which is awesome. It’s also solar powered along with a few of my other everyday carry devices.
In two days, I will have been daily-driving it for two months and will probably continue using it for the foreseeable future. Not sure what I am going to do on my next upgrade cycle, but I’ll cross that bridge when I get there.
What make and model of cheap “dumb” phone did you choose? And how’s it running so far?
I might one day try something similar, but my experience with cheap hasn’t been good, and if it can barely turn on like a certain cheap tablet I once had, the experiment would end quickly.
Cat S22 Flip for like $65. Seems made for TMobile (which is who I have) but may work with other carriers since it’s sold unlocked. Was originally looking at the Nokia 2780 (which seems well-reviewed) but went with this one instead since it was a bit cheaper and I wasn’t sure I needed it for more than a 30 day experiment.
This one is chonky, but it’s designed for like construction workers and such, so that’s technically a feature.
Have only been using it since yesterday, but so far so good (within expectations, anyway). It’s also several years old (ca. 2021) and unsupported by the manufactuter, but for the purposes of this experiment, it’s good enough. It’s definitely a weird form factor to see Android in, but it works. Just don’t expect to do anything major with it. (i.e. treat it like a dumb phone).
It’s supports both hotspot and voice over LTE (VoLTE) and wifi calling, so that covers my main use cases as a phone and mobile internet connection.
It’s also kind of cool how quickly I got back into T9 typing. Was a bit awkward at first since it’s been nearly 2 decades since I last had to type like that, but after texting with a friend for a while yesterday, it all came back.
Thanks!
Nah, the point would be to use it as a dumb phone, but as you point out it’s still Android, a “Smart” OS compacted into a “Dumb” shell, not a purpose built dumb phone OS. My concern would be the (lack of) optimization or bloat of said OS causing poor performance that results in a bad experience navigating even the dumb functions. The tablet I mentioned for example(RCA), you could make a sandwich between basic app launches…
Either way, enjoy the experience!
Yeah, that’s definitely a check in the “con” column for sure, lol.
There are a few custom ROMs available for it (some de-googled, some not) that I’m probably going to flash once my 30 day experiment is over. The only bloatware I couldn’t remove was the TMobile app, but I neutered it by removing all of its permissions lol.
Overall, it’s still mostly a dumb phone on steroids and pretty responsive (even internet browsing wasn’t too awful before I disabled the browser). I’m hoping it can be a step toward an actual dumb phone (which is also why I chose it over the Nokia).
Hey, good luck! I keep mine silenced and out of sight and just use the wifi hotspot for internet, VOIP etc. Didn’t know dumb phones could do that, else that’s what I’d have!
