"Dumb Phones as Status Symbols" is on the @newyorktimes predictions for 2026. Asking "Who can afford to be less reachable?"

These things are less than 15 years old, it's funny how fast "convenience" becomes a trap. Tech that makes work faster can only ever be convenient in a world where few people own such a device.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/31/style/trends-predictions-2026.html

#dumbphones #lightphone #newyorktimes

Getting ready for a great start to the new year - finally broke free of the Apple iOS walled garden, no longer have an iPhone and 100% degoogled.

If only I could get rid of MS. Well, that is only for work.

So, feeling a lot more free and a heck of a lot lighter.

Thank you #Mojeek #tuta #lightphone #Mudita #linux #libreOffice #vivaldi

PS: (edit) no more social media other then the Fediverse - but that is more community than social media.

Okay. I have a month to pick out a new phone before I can no longer cancel my pre-ordered Light Phone 3. I really like my Light Phone 2, but living without a camera has been a little too limiting, and the folks in my life would really appreciate me at least getting that capability back. I am still bitter about losing the headphone jack, though.

But I'm starting to wonder if the issue isn't that smart phones do too much, and more just that smart phones are not something I can control. Plus, they all look boring.

There aren't a lot of open source phones out there that are super compelling, but if anyone has any thoughts or recommendations, or just weird niche mobile devices, I'd love to see them.

Kicking things off, I came very close to going even more minimal than the Light Phone when I found Sky's Edge Rotary Phone. I wanted this thing so bad, but folks in my life vetoed going that low-function pretty hard.

https://hackaday.com/2022/09/10/the-open-source-rotary-cell-phone-two-years-later/

#Mobile #opensource #smartphone #lightphone #minimalphone #linuxphone #linux #weirdphones

I've been using the revamped Nokia 3210 4g feature phone for the last couple of weeks and while I love not having the urge to go online all the time... this is yet another bad "not smartphone": The .vcf import is extremely limited, the UI is just all over the place (I cannot unlock it without going into the "quick launch" menu, forcing me to press the dismiss button after unlocking, always...), the texting screen (while conversational, big plus) has very limited space for the actual text in between the large UI elements, etc, etc.

I've now tried the Punkt MP01, the Light Phone 2 and the Nokia 3210 and all of them are just... bad, very unpolished.

I'm designing an alternative in my head as I try all of these. I think it's important for the device to not feel like a modern phone or even modern piece of tech. It should be a single purpose tool, shaped like a distinct artefact. My current design has no screen, it's just a metal slab with buttons and faint LEDs in a couple of places. You call or use it as a flash light when out and about, potentially a few more features such as listening to music/podcasts. For texting/contacts/file management, there is a desktop companion application that auto-connects to the phone whenever on the same wifi. This way, the non-time-critical things are not even present on the device, and gets the best possible UI. Texting is really a tough one to leave out, but I like how it makes it possible to remove the screen and go even more minimal. Thoughts?

#dumbphone #nokia #punkt #lightphone #featurephone

Yesterday, my #lightphone III randomly switched to EDGE and stayed there. It never flipped back to 4G and I didn't notice anything was wrong until this morning.

#LP3

So I use #Strava all the time.

I do not have a smartwatch and recently I have gone back to a basic feature phone (#Lightphone III), so no Strava app.

How am I handling this? Well…

1. I note the time when I leave
2. I note the time when I arrive
3. I head to onthegomap.com and manually map my route from memory

Now I have start time and after and easy calculation in my head, duration. And the resultant map gives me both distance and elevation. Then I create a manual entry.

#LP3