Discussion
I figure I'll ask: If I go through & actually build a dumbphone of my own design, how profitable would that be for me?
Using constrained controls & a carefully-designed UI it would let you call/text people on the go or enjoy/share the files you love. Amongst a handful of other features you might want on the go. No apps.
Money wouldn't be the only reason I'd be doing this (curiosity & getting away from modern software stacks are others), but is still *a* reason.
From this poll... I'd say that building a modern feature-phone would be a niche but enthusiastic market. One that has the potential to grow as society becomes more accommodating of it again.
And if I'm keen to personally use one... It is probably worth pursuing!
Maybe even if the joystick-typing concept I want to explore fails usability tests.
Then again... There's options which exist today...
@alcinnz FWIW, my hesitation is largely that there are existing feature-phone offerings that address much of what I'd want, and waiting for something else which ... might well not appear or meet needs ... doesn't seem particularly rewarding for me.
I've been looking into this space for much of the past year, intensely for a few months. My view is that working with existing hardware would probably be more rewarding, and would be the fastest way to deliver a useful feature set. There are already several vendors who do this, Sunbeam (https://sunbeamwireless.com/) and https://dumbwireless.com/products/dumphone-2>).
There are also other options --- I'm looking at Sonim's rugged devices (they carry a range), and would be strongly partial to an e-ink hard-keyboard (T-9) flip device (there are several options close to this, none quite works for me).
We've already talked about what you want to do, and I won't relitigate that. But from a potential purchaser, this is my thought process and preference.
The other option I'd strongly consider would be a WiFi-only SIP device. WiFi is sufficiently ubiquitous that being able to move from coverage-zone to coverage zone would work pretty well. Much of the tracking of mobile comms is avoided (if necessary I could use a mobile hotspot). VOIP generally affords vastly superior call management / call filtering capabilities. From what I've seen of the space, this particular niche is poorly filled, whilst at the same time general frustration with direct-dial phone networks and mobile/smartphone tracking and distractions are an increasingly major turn-off.
@dredmorbius This is totally fair!
My approach might not be the most efficient, but it allows me to build a device for escaping from modern computing in a way which lets me do the same. Potentially with more craft.
And yes, I'll need to examine how it compares to the burgening market as I decide whether to continue.
Skepticism is warrented, but upon my close examination...
@alcinnz Again, I cannot promise you anything, but if you build a blind-accessible thing which is also good-looking for everyone and good from the point of characteristics, I will do my best to promote your device. I will connect you with blind influencers and tell you what exhibitions to visit. But yes, you need to travel or, if it's impossible, talk online and do presentations. A lot. Where are you located, if I may ask?
@menelion I'm in Nelson, New Zealand.
And yeah, I can't promise anything either. But I have surprised myself with how feasible it looks to build! Though so far its all been in theory.
I'm noting your offer down! I do have experience with public speaking.
@alcinnz Oh, Aotearoa! Your land brought us one of the most amazing blind influencers of modern times, Jonathan Mosen. But now he moved to the United States (he got a superb job there). Anyway, most exhibitions of the blind are in the States and in Europe.
@alcinnz I'd get it for me and maybe for family, but **only** if it is accessible. I'm blind, so for me it's priority #1.
@menelion Yes, it will be! My engineering standards are that anything I'm offering for others to use must be accessible!
I've found Arduino-Flite which I can use to build a screenreader, & I think everyone would enjoy tactile controls.
@alcinnz Yes. If it has a QWERTY keyboard like old Blackberries, Nokia 9300 or alike, it would be gold!
@menelion I'm wanting to try a few options here to see what I enjoy, but I will say that I want ergonomic typing!
I've bought parts to try something more experimental, I don't know whether it'll pan out. But I'm keen to see!
Either way I could offer QWERTY at least an option...
@alcinnz No ... but only because I've already embarked upon my *own* DIY phone project.
@alcinnz The killer feature for me would be knowing when someone's trying to remotely reprogram the hardware, and being able to log all communications to / from the SIM (like a packet tracer).
I wouldn't expect this functionality to be exposed in the UI, but I would appreciate it being exposed in some way, such that if I were to reprogram the phone, I could enable or implement it. You'll surely end up making something similar as a debug tool during development: I only ask that you leave it in.
@wizzwizz4 The MKR-GSM library I'm looking to use does in fact include optional logging.
I might want to find a way to redirect that logging to a file so I can use USB to expose all files, but still! Its already in there before I even started serious work!
Also while I'll leave an opening for software updates, I won't (fully?) automate it & I hope to not need it!
I prefer when software doesn't change with the whims of fashion.
@alcinnz I trust you not to do bad stuff, so I wouldn't hugely mind if you did have an automated updates system in place. (Automated updates are a major anti-feature, but given the overall quality of network-facing software these days, I can see the argument for its necessity – even if I think those problems are exacerbated by the ready availability of automated updates.)
By "remotely reprogram", I meant things like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SIM_Application_Toolkit.
(Btw, I also found https://github.com/W00t3k/Awesome-Cellular-Hacking.)
@wizzwizz4 Fair! I at least can assure you that there'd be a hard separation between the networking vs UI microcontrollers.
This is the case for any prototyping hardware I'm finding, & I'd want to keep it that way for performance & security reasons.
I don't have visibility into what's happening inside the cellular modem; but it won't be accessing the UI controls, turning on the mic, or accessing your SD card.
You'll have visibility into the UART communications between them.
@wizzwizz4 The code I just studied just prompted me to think... Maybe it'll be easier to follow their lead & leave a special boot mode for logging?
Rather than logging to a file.
@alcinnz I want a fixed-function communicator, and I get anxious around things whose behaviour is prone to changing abruptly, without warning. In today's world, it's very difficult to get networked high-tech that you can trust to behave like a tool, rather than a general-purpose computer, so being able to detect when it's doing weird stuff (e.g. modding it to audibly ping when a packet type I don't know the meaning of gets transferred, or when it connects to an unknown cell site) would help.
Since I'm answering some questions: Primary input controls would be 2 buttons & a joystick, primary output controls would be a small eink screen & a screenreader.
My design assumes I can innovate upon mobile typing, I'll have to see.
Primary features:
* Calling/texting with an addressbook
* Fileviewer, populated as if this was a USB memory stick
- Audio
- Images/Photos
- Plaintext (editable)
- ebooks
- Custom-formatted maps
- etc
* Auto-lock with password
* Clock
* NFC filesharing
2/3!
Secondary features I'm considering:
* Better-than-nothing camera
* Flashlight
* Calendar with notifications
* Calculator
* Audio-recording
* Potentially other filesharing protocols
* Switch between phonecalls & merge them
* Follow QR Code links
And I might hide more stuff in a Settings menu.
Any WiFi/BlueTooth features would be delayed until a 2nd model, so I can focus on those features.
It may be possible to talk me into more features (such as a radio), but UI real-estate is tight!
3/3!
@alcinnz I'd consider it but probably more on a "support a cool project and i wonder how their code works in practice" basis... the only think I use SMS for is 2FA, all my other communication is apps, but I love eink devices and sometimes something just for me that nobody is texting me on is a treat. Unfortunately I'd have to get it shipped to someone I could later pick it up from because I'm still no good at dealing with local package couriers.
@alcinnz I'm not sure how far outside the target this puts me, but "calls and sms, no apps" for me definitely defines a device on which I will not be talking to another person, at all.
@d_rift I think the degree to which this is the norm depends on where you live...
@alcinnz There's still a niche. I got a Boox Palma 2 because I wanted an eink "exocortex" that wasn't a chat app laden interior box. (It has... issues. So that didn't entirely work. And sometimes I need it because my brain and screens has issues. So now it has chat apps. Double fail.)
@alcinnz I expect the biggest compromise will be form factor, BTW. Modern phones have extremely compact circuit boards (chip scale packages, 01005 passives, etc) to be able to devote so much internal space to battery cells.
Idea for a crossover product, a "flat-back" phone that can piggyback on your regular phone. It might even plug into the charge port and piggyback on the main phone's battery. Need a burner or extra privacy? Just flip your phone over and use this as a side-channel.
@nono You'd be able to load files onto it like a USB-stick. If they're audio files, images/photos, text files, PDFs, ebooks, custom-formatted maps, or the like you'll be able to navigate your folders & view them. This wouldn't take away from how well it serves as a phone.
And I'm wanting to include NFC hardware so you can open a file (amongst other screens) & bump your phone with another compatible one to share files.
In part this is a political choice to shape how digital IDs are issued!
@alcinnz commodore is doing it really well, I think. Yes, I think there is more than enough space for such an intelligent and interesting response to the problems "smart" tech, social media, ai, and pocket-sized dopamine machines have produced. please do! my ask is that it is both accessible for as many as possible, and foss and cheap as a part of that.
@Crow Definitely!
I've got a suitable speech synthesizer bookmarked & I'm planning for a high-contrast screen. So it should be very accessible out of the box.
And making it cheap & battery-efficient will be part of the fun!
I'll probably publish the code to Codeberg, like my other projects.
I feel like I'm missing something when people talk about these
I was one of those people who used the internet on my Nokia before smartphones were a thing
I think it's great to be able to check if a store is open or if it's going to rain, when I'm out and about
I've never used social media on a phone, so that's not something I need to escape from
My point is I would like your phone if it had internet connectivity. But I think maybe your point is to not have that???
@NilaJones Yes, I am all but avoiding internet connectivity. It is part of the definition to me.
Though given cellular connectivity comes with internet & the text-renderer I want to use (naturally, given that its an ereader rendering epubs) includes an HTML/CSS renderer. I might make extremely limited exceptions, mainly for QR codes.
That said I don't believe its possible for the hardware I'm eyeing to deliver a "good" web browser, up to modern expectations.
If you feel like explaining, I'd be interested to know why you want to avoid internet connectivity. But I understand this is a digression and might not be what you want to talk about here 😊
@NilaJones Mostly its because I view internet connectivity as being a massive can of worms which complicates the UI, & distracts from the primary features I'm wanting to deliver.
Its easier & more flexible for me to reject that can of worms! It lets me embrace different constraints.
And yes there is the aspect that I imagine the target audience for such device would want to get away from the distraction they associate with the web.
@alcinnz The difficulty I have with any nonstandard phone is figuring out what carriers it will work with. Every vendor gives radio bands and most and "try it and see! maybe ask reddit?" regarding whether it will actually activate on any given proprietary network
@alcinnz or be able to handle "advanced" features, like being in a group text or sending a photo, on a particular carrier
@alcinnz What I really want is a headless device that has a SIM slot and a cell radio and plugs into my laptop to use
@chris__martin Fair! I'm kind of in the same boat asking whether the prototyping hardware that I'm considering will work...
I've got an idea how sending a photo could work, & I am keen on exploring the possibility of supporting RCS.
I am considering group calls, but I'm not clear how to incorporate group texting into the UI.
The answer is: I don't know.
I think you would need a set of functionalities that is very carefully built.
For instance, I would love to have a cheap "dumb" phone that does all of the following:
- Calls
- SMS, MMS, RCS
- FM radio
- MP3 or OGG player
- 5G access point
And that's about it.
Bonus point if you can somehow stuff a halfway decent digital camera in here. And an email client that does not suck too much.
@ParadeGrotesque Hmmmm, radio... I didn't consider that feature...
The tricky thing is that when folks imagine a minimal phone, while there is massive overlap... If I included everything someone desires it wouldn't be so minimal anymore.
Then again I'm thinking of including WiFi/BlueTooth such as a 5G access in a slightly more premium model!
Include a normal headphone jack and get rid of Bluetooth.
I don't need Bluetooth and anyone who knows about it will tell you it's a security nightmare.
You can get a decent wired headphone for a lot less than a Bluetooth one and they are probably better for the environment.
If you take a look around, I am pretty sure you can get a basic FM circuitry for very little, and your phone already has an antenna for 3G/4G/5G anyway.
@ParadeGrotesque Yes I'll include a headphone jack, & if I include WiFi/Bluetooth it'd be a separate model I'd build later.
Radio's not a personal desire of mine, but I can look into it. I suppose there's a way I can incorporate it into a lockscreen given the controls I have in mind...
@alcinnz I have opinions.
For one thing, there's already the dumbphone 2 from dumb.co, https://dumb.co and it's only $20. Can you make a cheaper feature phone than that? Or one that is more versatile in terms of carrier, I suppose?
For another, I think probably the term "dumb" is not ideal here. We already have a name for this type of device, "feature phone", and it's not a term rooted in any kind of ableism.
@alcinnz paging @duncan_bayne for the diy-phone-crowd (two people is a crowd, right?)
@alcinnz depends on the price, I have a lightphone II and it's obviously popular enough they are making money, but at the price of the III I certainly won't be buying one* and I don't know what I'll do if something happens to the II (the charging port is getting a little iffy after 3+ years and it had an owner prior to me). the big thing I love about it though is having it be able to play music/audio books so I don't need to carry a second device. Other than the calculator when I'm grocery shopping that's probably my most used thing (outside of calls/texts).
*do I regret not buying it on preorder for a lot less? not right now, but ask me again in two years...
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