Modern smartphones have basically become the equivalent of someone tapping you on the shoulder every 10 seconds. If you don’t meticulously manage app notifications, your phone quickly devolves into a hyperactive toddler of a distraction machine. Sometimes, you’d love to just chuck it into the deepest pocket of your backpack, but what if someone really needs to get a hold of you?
The Light Phone 2 is a barebones, “secondary” 4G phone with an e-ink display that piggybacks off of your existing mobile number to serve as a basic communication device. No social media, no email, no distractions. Just basic voice and text messages in a simple typographic-based operating system. The Brooklyn-based creators call the experience of leaving your smartphone behind and pocketing this device instead “going light.” Hence the phone’s name.
The Light Phone 2 is an updated, improved predecessor of the original Light Phone which had roughly 10,000 users. It’s currently in prototype stage, but as of today it is 328% funded on Indiegogo and slated for an April 2019 release.
You can fund the team’s efforts and get a Light Phone 2 of your own (next year) for $250. Visit their Indiegogo page for more details.
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I can’t believe this is funded, it is WAY TOO EXPENSIVE. Even the early supporters are paying too much.
Considering phones you can get for $250 these days? For sure. If you try hard enough you can basically turn off all your notifications and even install a custom Android build that can uninstall everything but the basics. But I’ve seen people pay way more for much more useless stuff.
For $250 you can get an Apple Watch to do the same thing.
Especially the new LTE model. It’s a bit more, but then you really don’t need your phone anywhere near you and can still remain connected to cell/data service.
I saw this earlier this week and watched the video. Couldn’t tell if it’ll accept a smartphone SIM or they intend on users having a separate cell phone account/bill.
It seemed to me that if your provider supports it, you can get an additional SIM with the same number/account, put it in the Light Phone, and if someone calls or texts it shows up on both devices. Of course you could also quickly swap your phone’s SIM between phones.
What good is an e-ink display on a phone that only shows you text messages and phone numbers? It’s not like there’s an ebook reader, social media, or news sites that you’re going to be reading. For a low function device like this, a 2-line display like a pager is overkill.
Plan to waite two years after announcement. I have a current light phone and it sucks. They probably announced this to get acquired.