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Request HN: Can Someone Make a Dumb Phone for USA?

30 points by sephoric ↗ HN
Last year I shut down all our internet services for everyone in my home (me, my wife and our kids), so that all we have now are a landline and radio, no internet or television or texting or TV or anything. Our lives have become significantly happier since then. We have so much more time to do anything we want, we feel so much less overwhelmed and distracted, and we're starting to live full, active and fulfilling lives.

But we would like to text and make phone calls while on the go, without the constant temptation to be connected to emails, Facebook, and browsers all the time. So I have been searching the web for a month looking for a "dumb phone", a phone that doesn't have anything but text and phone, not even a "home screen". Something like you would see in the 90s. But it just doesn't exist.

Maybe there's no market for it, but maybe there will be one if you make it and market it well. And that's what you guys are good at.

38 comments

[ 4.6 ms ] story [ 80.7 ms ] thread
hacktember
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/light-phone-2#/
sephoric
That looks over engineered and still not as simple as it could be. Think of those cell phones in the 90s that had a single line (or two) of spaces for text, and they had no features but calling and texting. That's perfect, it has literally already been invented, it just needs to be resold, and perhaps put in a pretty package again, but not like this. Not like this.
aaronmcs
> That's perfect

Is it? I'm a LP2 backer, and agree with you that I want a phone that does not have a browser, or an App Store, or anything like that; however, I do believe that the small set of tools LP2 is planning on coming with (simple directions, ride sharing, alarm, in particular) are pretty much no-downside.

What bothers you about features like these? Or is it the pricetag?

sephoric
It's self sufficiency I want for our family, and those features discourage that. My kids' schools don't teach them many things anymore, including reading an analog clock. I'd rather my children know how to buy a map at a gas station and read it to get where they want to go, or do most simple math in their head instead of using a calculator. Alarms are built into most clocks made today, even (perfectly good) ones you can buy for $3 at a thrift store, and most microwaves have timer features. Using an app for ride sharing discourages phone (or text) conversations that are naturally able to lead to many unexpected places.

At the end of the day, I look at it this way: I'm able to live a full and happy life without a smart phone, the only thing I'm missing is the ability to call someone. That's where a phone comes in handy.

potta_coffee
People will hate when you try to go against the flow, but it's a good path. We've recently cut pretty much all video games and television, and our family is better for it.

Protip: Some people will feel judged by you simply because you don't do certain things. If you want to avoid awkward conversations, you might not want to bring up that you don't have a TV. It's stupid but some people get seriously weird over it.

tannhaeuser
There used to be dumbphones for elder people with big buttons at retail stores not too long ago (at least at my place). Maybe these aren't advertised on the web.

Edit: don't know about US, though

sephoric
I have seen those at Best Buy, the most popular is called the Jitterbug, which does come with a browser.
3g-tom
how did you write this message if you do not have internet?
sephoric
I'm at my local public library which has wifi. It's also how I download new NPM modules, email my client, deliver my work to him, etc. But I do 90% of my work offline at home.
tuesday20
Are you a dev? If yes, how do you refer to documentation without internet??!!
antongribok
I too am curious about the workflow.

Also, kind of off topic, but I found it fitting that your (original poster) website is hosted on AWS.

sephoric
Aside from my other answer, the local library has internet access, so I'm able to use AWS as needed.
sephoric
You'd be surprised how much documentation you can download. And the ones that are hosted on sites, those sites are often just git repos that you can clone. A few of them (like webpack.org) are trickier because you have to build the static site while online, but then you can run it offline (via python -m SimpleHTTPServer). There's tons of little tricks like this you can use to get documentation for pretty much anything you need. Not to mention Zeal (open source Dash clone) for tons of other things, Win32 API has a CHM file, and actual books at the library work great like for Python or C++, which often have the whole standard library in them, or at least most of it. And it's always a pleasant surprise when an NPM module bundled its thorough README.md file right into the package file (and often even more docs than that), and sometimes even the original source code, so that all I have to do is run `code node_modules/webpack-dev-server` and press Cmd-Shift-V (to preview .md file as Markdown in VS Code) and then it's as if I'm right there on their GitHub page. Also Safari has an amazingly useful feature of saving a page exactly as-is into a single file that can be opened in Safari, instead of saving all the external files into a sibling folder like Chrome does.
howard941
The Alcatel flip phone at Consumer Cellular looks like it's strictly text and phone except for the bit about downloading wallpaper suggests it has some kind of web client inside. https://www.consumercellular.com/Products/813/Details
sephoric
I have that exact phone and it has a browser built in. It's lower quality than usual but it's good enough to waste a few hours with.
howard941
Ahhh bummer. One of the old Motorola Star-Tacs would have been perfect if it were available and compatible.
IronWolve
Search ebay for mini cellphone, they have dumb phones thats basically credit card or lighter sized with a keypad.
sephoric
It looks like you mean the M5 phone, which from what I researched, used 2G towers and thus no longer works since those have all been decommissioned. It also seems to be cheaply made and commonly have a ton of problems.
sloaken
Walk into best buy. I bought one last summer. Texting is slow.
sephoric
Which model did you buy? Does it have an internet browser or apps?
sloaken
I do not remember which it was. I do remember asking the salesperson, 'just need a simple phone for calls and messaging, no need for data'. Like 'MAGIC' I was handed what fit my need.

No internet, some apps but I never used them.

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mtnGoat
My aunt and uncle got one recently for when they are traveling, i think they picked it up at 7-11. its a prepaid, but if you dont use it much, i figure thats the best way to go anyhow.
joegahona
There is no market for this, which is why you can't find it. The vast majority of people who want a phone/text device but don't want browsers, emails, MySpace, or app stores simply ignore those features.
sephoric
Or they try to not use those features but get sucked back into it, like I did the many times I tried exactly that. I wonder how many people there are who wanted to live a life like this but because such a phone doesn't exist, they keep getting pulled back in and have to abandon having a phone altogether.
rossy
Are you sure this isn't a lifestyle you're forcing on your kids? I've known a few kids from low-tech families and in my experience, it's rarely something they'd choose for themselves, were they given the choice. Kids use the internet to chat with friends after school and to arrange events. They also tend to bond over videos and TV shows they've all watched, and in general, they don't like to be different from their peers or to miss out on opportunities to socialise or to bond socially over shared experiences.

In my experience, kids from low-tech families also tend to binge on their banned technology when they get the opportunity, like watching TV at a friend's house or spending lunchtime in the school's library/computer lab, maybe because of a lack of learned self-control.

tomcam
We raised our children low tech and never had a problem. I think the key to it was that we didn’t make a big deal about it, especially if they went to friends’ houses. They are both quite adept with technology now although they are very private and dislike social media.
sephoric
It is a lifestyle I'm forcing on my kids, and that's intentional. Kids don't always know what's good for them, and confuse wants and needs. It's a parent's job to create a safe and healthy environment where their kids can grow and thrive. We used to live the kind of life where video games and TV were "bonding experiences" and it just created all sorts of problems inside them. With this lifestyle, I see those problems vanishing one by one. And they all see it too and are happier now.
potta_coffee
Every lifestyle choice is forced on kids. That's the whole point of parenting. It's why we make our kids eat vegetables, go to the doctor, get to bed at a decent time, etc. Also, TV shows and videos are a shallow interest to bond over. It doesn't need to be that way - my kids have some really great friends and TV and other media are not really a factor there. We've spent a lot of time and effort to cultivate such relationships though.
Liber-Abaci
Buy any android phone and uninstall the browser/everything else. Put custom software on it without GAPPS. Moto e⁴ plus has a 2 day battery life, probably longer if you're not using a browser. LG still makes flip feature phones but they have a primitive browser which you don't have to use by not signing up to any data plan.

No internet is too extreme though, library genesis and sci-hub I'd be lost without them as I can't afford $100+ texts or journal subscriptions. Youtube videos by mathematicians I also wish I had when I was in highschool.

dalerus
Are Nokia phones still sold in the US? We have plenty in Asia that are nothing but a phone and texting.