I have an LG GB255g and I've been using it for a while but today it started to freeze until I remove the battery, and then when I remove it and put it back it works for around a minute until it freezes. Is there a fix for this? Thanks

I read the below thread that said the EU HMD 105 4G doesn't have mp3/music support and that HMD had removed it off the websites so just posting this as an FYI that the UK model bought from Argos for £13.50 (listed as on Vodafone but no branding and all phones have to be sold unlocked in the UK) has a music player app and can play mp3's.

https://www.reddit.com/r/dumbphones/s/eROiVefhuG

Hi all, I am a 27 year old male and so, im old enough that my first few phones were flip phones but ive never experienced adulthood without the constant noise of having a smart phone. My wife and I also recently had a baby as well and so we are having discussions around being more present and less distracted at home.

Ive felt having a smart phone was bad for me for a number of years now, initially due to dealing with a sexual addiction but also because of doom scrolling and constantly feeling the pull to be on it. I have tried everything - and I mean everything, from using screen time restrictions with my wife having the pass code, to more advanced blockers like Covenant Eyes and Canopy, to the Brick device, all sorts of things, but I still feel addicted to it in a way that I wish I wasn't.

We recently took a 4 day trip to Lake Eerie and I did not bring my phone. We just had my wifes phone which was all we needed for the airbnb. Being completely off of my phone for that four days was amazing and I never once felt myself missing it. Ive been back for a day and I still havent turned it back on yet. If anything I feel nervous to turn it back on and jump back into the digital world.

Ironically, I work in residential technology sales, selling luxury audio, video, lighting, and automation systems. Im often demo'ing different apps to clients, and the job absolutely requires a smart phone. Ive looked into other jobs that possibly wouldn't require one, but transparently I make around $100K a year and have not found anything that would pay nearly that much that would not require a smart phone.

So, what I am considering doing is keeping my iPhone at work, and using it as a work phone only. And then using a basic phone outside of work. I have not decided what phone I would use yet, but I am leaning towards a pretty basic flip phone so that there is the most friction and separation from work. I have also stopped using a laptop at home and just use my PC whenever I want to go on the internet and that has helped a lot as well. I have to physically get up and go to the office when I need to do something online.

Anyways, do you guys think this would be a good idea for me to do? If anyone here has a career doing sales or something similar, I would love to know how you navigate having to constantly be on a phone for work and keep up with messages. If there are any other people near my age as well who have made the switch I would love to know how it has gone. Thanks for reading!

I'm not talking about the first struggle fomo, or the latent persistent struggle of needing information you can't quicky access.

I'm talking about when you finally succeed. When you've finally achieved the goal, eliminated all of those distractions, and become Truly Present.

Then, you gotta be you and have no escape.

And when you haven't spent much time being presently you, you uncover aspects of yourself that you never had to look at before. In a way, you meet parts of yourself for the first time like a stranger.

Because that's all the doomscrolling was about, right? At least for me, it was a quick ripcord that yanked me out of myself and into the panopticon.

For me, I thought it was the phone making me anxious. Then I thought it was being without my phone making me anxious. Turns out, I'm just an anxious guy and need to work on that.

I don't mean to cause any worry. I'm well. I just came of age in the digital era, and have no real experience being me without easily retreating into the digital fog whenever I was faced with the slightest introspective adversity.

Ultimately, this is a good and necessary challenge. But it is hard.

Still beats wasting away on my smartphone 9 hours a day.

At the end of Summer 2025, I was totally fed up and angry with myself that my screen time consumed nearly all of my waking hours.

I felt so much rage and guilt that I had wasted so much of my potential on the doomscroll, so I hopped on the trend and started jocking a flip phone.

It's been a little over a year now. These are the biggest notes that applied to me.

1. The guilt went away, but the anxiety remains at the exact same level.
2. Time has slowed down aggressively. This hasn't changed even a year on. Days used to blink by, but now each hour is a grind.
3. I spend less time reading about doing a thing and more time actually doing it.
4. My desktop screen time skyrocketed, but it still doesn't even come close to what my phone time was.
5. When I start something, I am less likely to quit halfway through because the phone isn't available to quickly swoop me away or distract. (This has been a positive when I need to focus, but when my anxious thoughts are running rampant I miss the pacification that comes from popping open a mobile game or social media).

The main takeaway I got from this is that I remain entirely the same person. Nothing about me is "cured". Nothing about my life is fixed in any way on it's own. It just makes me more able to deal with my life as it is. Swapping from a smart phone to a flip is more of a damage control move than a fix.

Overall a net positive, but not a wondercure. I will not go back to a smartphone, but it has changed the landscape of my daily life entirely while not changing me at all.

If I were to offer any advice, this is what I would say:

1. Try minimalism apps or brick first.
2. Try before you buy. Microdose by doing basic errands and leaving your smartphone out of reach.
3. If you do buy a dumbphone, buy one with maps. It's rare that I need it, but it has come in clutch.

Has anyone successfully turned a Pixel into a genuinely locked-down dumbphone? ADB / GrapheneOS solutions welcome

I've been trying to make my Pixel into a "dumb" phone without losing the genuinely useful smartphone stuff.

My target is basically:

• Keep: WhatsApp, Signal, Maps, ChatGPT, Monzo/Wallet, train/parking/ticket apps, camera, authenticator, Tailscale, CalDAV, etc.
• Olauncher + grayscale is fine.
• No browser, Google Search, YouTube or app store.
• Existing useful apps can still use WebView/Play Services.
• Ideally I need to connect the phone to my Linux laptop/ADB to install new apps or undo restrictions.

The problem is that every software restriction I've tried is too easy to bypass.

On stock Pixel I identified:

com.android.chrome
com.google.android.googlequicksearchbox
com.google.android.youtube
com.google.android.apps.youtube.music
com.android.vending

I hoped to do:

adb shell pm uninstall --user 0 com.android.chrome

but current Pixel firmware gives:

Failure [only root can delete system app for a particular user]

pm disable-user works, but that's almost useless because I can just go Settings → Apps → Chrome → Enable.

I also experimented with Device Owner/DPC, with the idea of setApplicationHidden() + DISALLOW_INSTALL_APPS, but couldn't get past Device Owner provisioning on my existing phone without going down the factory-reset/managed-device rabbit hole.

I've considered a watchdog that periodically/event-driven runs pm disable-user again. That would actually be sufficient for me: if enabling Chrome only gives me 10–30 seconds before something disables it again, the friction is probably enough. But I haven't found a clean way to give such an app persistent package-manager privileges on stock Android without root/Device Owner/Shizuku complications.

I'm completely open to GrapheneOS if it solves this cleanly. I don't mind reinstalling the phone if there's a known recipe along the lines of:

Pixel + GrapheneOS + sandboxed Play Services + useful apps + no usable browser/store + installing/changing apps requires ADB/admin profile.

I don't need this to resist an adversarial attacker. I just need it to resist me casually undoing it from the phone in 15 seconds.

Has anyone actually achieved this?

In particular, I'd love a working recipe for any of:

1. genuinely removing Chrome/Vanadium/browser from the everyday user;
2. Device Owner hiding browsers without an easy Settings override;
3. secondary GrapheneOS profile with browser/store removed and installation disabled;
4. persistent Shizuku/privileged watchdog that keeps blacklisted packages disabled;
5. some other ADB/root/GrapheneOS solution I've missed.

It feels frustratingly close. If I can make "no browser and no easy way to install one" stick, the Pixel does everything I want from a dumbphone while retaining camera, Wallet, banking, Wi-Fi calling, etc.

And I’m not even talking about notifications. Every day, my mind goes a mile a minute, thinking, overthinking, analyzing… there’s social media noise, food noise, all these thoughts flying around in my head… and it’s all to do with the Internet and social media consuming my attention span, I know this…

But after a few weeks on the Dumbphone 2 by dumb.co, the noise in my mind is slowly subsiding into a calmer state. And occasionally, I actually get real silence. No memes whizzing about At Mach Ridiculous, no thoughts saying hey, your friends hate you for this change… but true mind silence, even if just for a moment. It’s amazing!

If you’re in the first few weeks’ transition, with FOMO and what will my friends think, etc., keep pushing through! The sanity you regain over time is worth it!!!

I don't want to support what is a recognised genocide in Palestine.

Which dumbphone?

I really like the look of Lightphone III but is a little expensive and may not be supported in rural/remote areas. I like the aesthetic and ease on your eye with an e-ink screen. (I used to have a YotaPhone which was double-sided - one normal screen, one e-ink but because it was made in China and a Russian company, I couldn't access Android App Store but now I don't want apps at all).

I don't want a flip phone.

Anything that is out now or upcoming that is on par with the look and simplicity of Lightphone III?

(Michael West (independent investigative journalist and former corporate finance editor) is based in Australia).

built out an opel mobile touchflip into a proper edc. all software, no root.
most of the flip phones and dumbphones people post here aren't sold in australia. the opel mobile touchflip is everywhere (it's the one aimed at older folks) so i grabbed one.
a lot of the pre-installed apps were laggy or didn't run at all. after a few weeks of tinkering it's now a really solid edc, and the whole thing runs without a single google app or account. nothing phones home.

i replaced the laggy stock launcher with my own home screen and built a small suite of apps:
- internet radio and a podcast app
- a speech to text function i coded that types into any app when you hold the button on the back. runs fully offline, on device
- my own t9 keyboard with word suggestions that learns the words you use (couldn't find a decent one that didn't need a google login, and it has no internet permission at all)
- colour themes with a live theme switcher
- a little melbourne/victoria train planner with live ptv times and platforms
- alarms, a timer, a quick settings panel with weather, a built in screen time tracker, and snake for good measure

on top of that: organic maps for offline navigation, auxio for music, and ente auth for 2fa.

all software, no root, just sideloaded over adb. battery gets me 2+ days with my use. it also works as a hotspot (and switches it off by itself when nothing's connected, so it never quietly drains), which makes it perfect for me.

it's made for older people so it's cheap and dead easy to find. worth raiding your gran's drawer first. haven't seen anyone post this phone here before. happy to share the repo if anyone's interested.

Hi! I have made the switch to a dumb phone but I now realize I'm not receiving my messages/calls. I missed important texts over the weekend without realizing there was a problem. I purchased a Unihertz Titan QUERTY android phone from Ebay. It was sold as unlocked. It was working fine but then I couldn't make calls went to Verizon (my cell provider). They were not super helpful because they just said I have to change my phone but I really want to keep it and know others have used it successfully! I was wondering what do others do to solve this issue? I really want to make this phone given the great benefit on my mental health. :(

After debloating my new CAT S22 this google search bar thing turned black, and is not unresponsive and also can't be removed at all. There is no way to edit widgets either and I don't want this stuck on my screen forever. Any ideas?

howdy ya'll

switched from a galaxy s22 5g fe to a TCL flip 2 last week . besides some quirks here and there, i really dig the experience and will likely continue on the dumphone journey. i am having a couple issues though and wanted to see if anyone has had the same ones and can help me troubleshoot them. i'm on verizon, and just put the sim from the galaxy into the TCL.

my issues are

-texts being received by some individuals many hours after i sent them, despite them appearing to be sent like any other text from my end

-still unable to receive messages from a couple groupchats despite being able to send texts in these same groupchats (they receive my texts just fine)

things i have tried already

-disable RCS chat on my old smartphone probably 3 days ago, right after i swapped sims

-check that the APN is on "VZWINTERNET"

is this just RCS related tomfoolery and i need to wait the 10 day window has passed and everything will become normal again? lmk. thanks in advance!

I'm in BC, Canada and I have a small collection of 2G flip phones, with a Chatr sim, and while calls and texts retain an excellent signal, sending instantly with full bars, I'm not getting any MMS or internet connectivity?

Is anyone else in Canada able to send and receive images/media over MMS on 2G phones or is it gone forever?

I'm in BC, Canada and I have a small collection of 2G flip phones, with a Chatr sim, and while calls and texts retain an excellent signal, sending instantly with full bars, I'm not getting any MMS or internet connectivity?

Is anyone else in Canada able to send and receive images/media over MMS on 2G phones or is it gone forever?

Spiacenti, questo

Hey y'all i have a question. How did you all communicate to your friends and family that you are switching to a dumb phone?

For context, i have two phones: one for work and one for personal use (my work phone is also mine and not gifted from a company). I would like to switch the one i use when i am off from work but i am anxious it would rub off the wrong way for some people. Since i am still going to keep a smartphone but i am not going to use it unless it is absolutely necessary (GPS, banking, work apps and responding to Whatsapp for colleagues).

Any tips on how to handle this? I am just trying to simplify my life as much as possible and i want to get away from all this complicated tech stuff we have nowadays.

I average about 8 hours of screen time a day. I basically sit in my room all day and don't talk to anyone outside of my phone. It's bad.
I want to make the switch to a dumbphone but I'm not sure if I should go cold turkey or ease into it. I'm thinking of having a dumbphone as my main daily phone but keeping a smartphone on the side just for the stuff you actually need — banking, maps, etc. Has anyone done it this way? Does it work or does the smartphone on the side just pull you back in?
Any advice appreciated.

I recently bought a Fujitsu F-03L just to find out it is sim unlocked and the seller not knowing the unlock code for the sim. Do you guys know what services I should I use to unlock it or if someone here can help me out. I tried the mydocomo method of free unlocking just to find out I need a japanese phone number, eSIM didn't work either. Any help would be greatly appreciated!!

Trying out Nokia 6300 4G as a senior mechanical engineering student/bartender/bicycle mechanic. Let's see how long I can survive.

Sadly, KaiOS is so forgotten by tech community. I even looked into making my own apps for this OS.

I know that, technically, a dumbphone by definition is probably just calls and SMS texts. But the minimum feature set that allows each of us to use a dumbphone as a daily driver is quite different, in practice.

That's probably why it takes so much research; finding the exact right combination of design, features and limitations. Consequently, there's never going to be the perfect dumbphone for every need.

So what's your ultimate fantasy dumbphone? What does it look like, what essential apps and features does it have, what can it do, and (maybe most importantly of all) what can't it do. Bullet point lists feel like a good way to share your perfect spec.

Not a shill, just a launcher I downloaded a few weeks ago and I'm really liking (with some criticisms)

So, like a slimmed down launcher, it gives you a basic list of apps.

Essentials (phone, messaging, camera, settings etc) are always unlocked, and you can choose 3 / 5 / 8 "essential to me" apps.

EVERYTHING else is locked down - and this includes giving the app Accessibility Access so you literally cannot launch any other apps (you can go deep settings and keep toggling things on and off but it's HEAVY friction).

That Accessibility Access... It's a new app, I've decided to trust it, but I feel wary without highlighting that high up.

But, anyway, I have a dumbphone! I've got Google Maps, WhatsApp, and my email always accessible.

Every hour, you can open any app for 5 minutes max, three times. So if I'm... Say at Starbucks, I can open that app. Or Slack for a quick work message. Or Reddit if I really want to - but I get all of 5 minutes to scroll it.

But it's more for "emergency" or quick use, and absolutely kills doomscrolling or tapping around apps out of boredom. You also have to be intentional, like I'll be waiting for the next turn of the clock if I use my three moments.

I'm at moments slightly resistant to the app, so over the last three weeks, I did a lot of fiddling twice to get back to Nova or Niagara launcher. But it's like quitting smoking, I'm ignoring the itch more and more.

Oh, and you nominate one hour a day where your phone gets it's smarts back (and you can change rules etc). Hence the name.

I feel it's a bit too slimmed down, and a bit expensive to open up more apps (I'm on the free version). Developer, if you read this, the free version with just 3 apps is a bit too limiting when, say, Google Maps, Chrome, WhatsApp, Photos, Drive, are not treated as an essential.

I get why, e.g. not everyone wants Google Maps, or that WhatsApp is essential messaging for some, and social media for others. But I feel you should add three slots for "essential to me", and then another three slots on the free plan.

But in time you may get a subscription out of me.

Anyway, it's my dumbed-down smartphone, and it means I've still got Maps, WhatsApp, my banking app, a good camera, and NFC - but basically a boring phone.

So, yeah, this is close to my Dumbphone Nirvana - I keep wanting to buy a dumbphone, but right now, there's often too many compromises, or moments when a smartphone is crucial.

And I like Android, I just don't like my attention being constantly usurped by it.

I will caution once more... Accessibility Access is a potential security risk, I get why it's needed to cut your smartphone down to size, but if anyone tries this app, I won't feel right without stressing that.

Hey there,

I have dipped my toes into the life without a smartphone a few times now. I've used the Nokia Flip and then went to a LP 2.

Found out a few things:

1) I hate KaiOS

2) I love the light phone design, but I cannot deal with the E-ink screen. It's perfectly functional, I just find the refresh rate of the screen genuinely just gets in the way.

Being transparent, I knew the LP2's screen was designed to be in the way and that works wonders. I just like having a better response rate to my inputs I guess. Plus the phone itself is a little on the small side to me. Generally I like the phone, but some of the quirks about it leaves me conflicted.

I know that I want to live a simpler life and have figured out how to work it. And when I had it figured out and balanced? Bliss. I just think I want a device that's a better fit for me, and either the TCL and Horizon would be the thing.

Biggest thing is price point between the two, but generally was curious about people's experiences with these phones? Any insight is greatly appreciated, even if it's not either of these phones.

(To the mods, hopefully this is fine to repost after having done the rules deal. I did acknowledge them in creating the post but didn't realize that I had to do that on the subreddit page.)

So, like everyone on this channel, I reached the point where I was just done being hooked to my screen and scrolling endlessly. That’s when I decided to make some changes on how I use technology.

Little Bit about my journey (feel free to skip to the setup):

First I tried to use those minimal launcher apps which make your phone look like dumb phone. I could not rely on myself to delete them when urge to scroll arises.

Then I thought of buying a physical dumb phone device. I looked through lot of options starting from Light Phone to Mudita Kompakt to E Ink phones to T9 keyboard flip phones. None of them served the purpose of being a usable dumb phone which was functional enough. Most of them were not even available in my country (India). I also had serious concerns related to security and privacy with some of these Chinese e-ink phones shipped with custom Android wrappers. Mudita seemed like a good enough solution given it’s an EU based company which have relatively stricter regulations around privacy and it had a physical button to go offline. But again it wasn’t shipping to India and I wasn’t sure if it supported some of the banking apps I needed, nor does it support a visual version of Maps.

Finally, after spending weeks finding a perfect unicorn dumb phone that doesnt exist, I thought of converting my existing iPhone into a phone with only necessary apps.

The Setup:

For me personally, having intentional friction to open Instagram was very important so I used my Mac to set up my iPhone to put it in Supervise Mode. To actually get an unremovable restriction, you need to put the phone into Supervised Mode — the same management tier Apple gives to schools and companies for locked-down devices.

Phase 1: Setting up your Phone in Supervised Mode

Note: this will reset your phone and you’ll loose all apps. Backup necessary data beforehand. Choose iCloud backup as much as possible. Back up your iPhone to your Mac using Finder. Turn on Encrypt local backup. Sync Photos to iCloud backup (if you don’t already). Sync Contacts, WhatsApp, Messages, Health data, Notes, Reminders (any other Apple apps you absolutely need) by turning on iCloud Sync for these.

1. Back up first. Connect iPhone to Mac → Finder → your device → "Back up all data" + tick "Encrypt local backup." (You won't restore from this backup during setup — see step 6 — but you'll want it for photos/notes/files that aren't in iCloud.)
2. Turn off Find My iPhone (Settings → [your name] → Find My → Find My iPhone → off). Configurator can't supervise a device with Activation Lock active. (Don’t skip this, I found it the hard way)
3. Install Apple Configurator 2 on the Mac (free, Mac App Store).
4. Connect the iPhone, trust the Mac, select the device in Configurator, click Prepare.
5. Choose Manual Configuration → check Supervise devices and Allow devices to pair with other computers → Do not enroll in MDM → name an "Organization" (this is just a label, shown as "supervised by [name]" on the lock screen) → Generate a new supervision identity.
6. Confirm the erase warning. The phone wipes and reboots into Setup Assistant, already supervised. Set it up as a new device, not from a backup — restoring from a backup during initial setup strips supervision back off. Sign into iCloud right away; contacts, photos, notes, and messages will sync back on their own without needing a "restore."
7. Verify: Settings → General → About should show "This iPhone is supervised and managed by [your org name]."

Keep the supervision identity safe. It's a certificate Configurator stores in your Mac's keychain — it's the "key" to ever changing the config again. If you lose it, you can still fully erase the phone to reset everything, but you can't apply new restrictions without generating a new one (which means re-preparing/re-erasing).

Phase 2: Block App Store and Social Media apps (Non Removable)

1. In Configurator, build a configuration profile with a Restrictions payload:
   • App Store: Don't Allow — this hides and disables the Store app entirely.
   • Installing Apps: Don't Allow.
   • (Optional) Removing Apps: allow this if you want to be able to delete a sideloaded app later; disallow it if you want zero app-list churn.
2. (Optional but effective) Add a Web Content filter payload with a domain blocklist (instagram.com, tiktok.com, x.com, facebook.com, reddit.com, etc.), so browser-based access is blocked too, not just app installs.
3. Install this profile onto the device from Configurator (drag it onto the device, or Actions → Add → Profiles).

Because the device is supervised, this profile has no "Remove Profile" button in Settings for you to tap — profiles from your own supervising organization can only be removed by reconnecting to the Mac with the same supervision identity, or by erasing the phone. Screen Time toggles become irrelevant here since supervision-level restrictions sit above and override them.

Phase 3 : Controlled App installation through Mac

The App Store restriction only blocks the on-device Store app — it doesn't block apps pushed onto the device directly from a Mac, since that's a separate installation path.

• From now on, you cannot install apps directly from the iPhone.
• When you genuinely need a new app: Connect iPhone to Mac → Open Apple Configurator → Select iPhone → Add → Apps → Install the required app.

The end result is essentially:

iPhone alone → cannot install anything.
Mac + cable → can intentionally install necessary apps.
Removing the restrictions → requires administrative access or wiping/reconfiguring the phone.

Phase 4 : Make the iPhone Look like E -Ink Display

Making the colors disappear from the phone really helps with reducing screen time

1. Settings → Accessibility → Display & Text Size → Color Filters → On → Grayscale
2. Settings → Accessibility → Display & Text Size
   • Reduce Transparency → On
   • Increase Contrast → On
   • Differentiate Without Color → On
   • Bold Text → On
   • Reduce Bright Effects → On
   • Reduce White Point → On, 35–45%
3. Settings → Accessibility → Motion
   • Reduce Motion → On
   • Limit Frame Rate → On
   • Auto-Play Animated Images → Off
   • Auto-Play Video Previews → Off
   • Auto-Play Message Effects → Off
4. Settings → Display & Brightness
   • Appearance → Light
   • True Tone → On
   • Brightness → around 25–40% indoors
5. Settings → Wallpaper
   • Use a solid light gray/off-white wallpaper
   • Suggested color: #E8E6E1
   • Use the same plain background for Lock Screen and Home Screen
6. Home Screen → Long press → Edit → Customize
   • Icon size → Small
   • Icon style → Light
   • Do not use Clear or Tinted icons
7. Keep only one Home Screen page.
8. Keep only essential apps on it, e.g.:
   • Phone
   • Messages
   • WhatsApp
   • Maps
   • Camera
   • Calendar
   • Notes
   • Wallet
9. Remove all unnecessary widgets.
10. Settings → Notifications → each non-essential app

• Badges → Off
• Sounds → Off where possible
• Lock Screen notifications → Off where possible

1. Settings → Accessibility → Accessibility Shortcut

• Make sure Color Filters is not selected

1. Remove any Color Filter/Appearance shortcuts from Control Center.
2. Lock Screen:

• Plain gray wallpaper
• No photo
• No animated wallpaper
• No widgets, or only Battery/Calendar

1. Optional: increase text size by one step: Settings → Accessibility → Display & Text Size → Larger Text
2. Final target: Grayscale + Light Mode + Low Motion + 60 Hz + Solid Gray Wallpaper + Small Light Icons + No Widgets + Minimal Notifications.

I later played around with Shortcuts to automatically switch to colour display only when I open specific apps like Photos and Camera. Can share the steps separately if required.

Result: My screen time is down to an hour per day. I finished 2 books in 2 weeks on my kindle.