stillgreenmoss

almost two months ago i posted about moving my phone number to a dumbphone. this is an update, and i will lead with the conclusion: it's been great (for me).

i want to be clear that i still have a smartphone

i still have a smartphone, it just doesn't have a SIM card in it. it can only connect to wifi, and GPS (all smartphones can, GPS is a universally available free public utility). i still have a smartphone because maps and encrypted messaging is table stakes in 2025, and because you really just have to click on links in order to do tons of basic things.

how do i use my dumbphone?

my dumbphone is basically a 2FA code device now. 99% of what happens on that phone is receiving 2FA codes. however, i also use it to make and receive regular (non-encrypted) phone calls. these phone calls are pretty much only to medical providers or utility companies.

the number on the SIM card that's in the phone is my real phone number that i give out to people — i'm not using any sort of voip or call forwarding service like google voice. the decision not to use any voip provider is mostly because this seems to cause problems for receiving 2FA codes sometimes, which i mentioned in a previous blog post.

i've saved some important contacts in the phone like close friends and family, but nothing more than that. it is not a secure device, so i treat it as though all the information on it could become public at any moment.

the dumbphone i got is an AGM M9. it is perfect, no complaints. i barely think about it. if you have specific questions about it feel free to email and ask and i can answer in an addendum at the bottom of this blog post. but do watch this review of it first because your question may be covered there.

how do i use my smartphone?

i still use it a lot! however because it only works on wifi, when i leave the house i look at it a lot less than before.

my phone is a carrier-unlocked pixel 8. it's still running CalyxOS. i install apps either from the f-droid app store or the aurora app store. i do not have a google account and i do not log into any google account to use the smartphone. aurora is the main thing that makes this no-google-account life possible.

here's some of the key elements of how i use my smartphone:

1) signal messenger

i use signal messenger for almost all communication with everyone i know. i installed signal from the aurora store despite the fact that calyx does make it available in the calyx repositories that they add to the f-droid store, because i found that that version of signal behaved very strangely (i couldn't switch apps or turn off the phone screen while in a signal call, or else it would hang up. also the app consumed a huge amount of battery). i would have preferred to keep using the calyx repository source for signal, but i rely on it heavily and really need it to work perfectly. so i uninstalled it with f-droid and reinstalled from aurora, and that version works perfectly.

2) delta chat

i have delta chat installed as a signal backup, because i think that having a backup strategy for if signal goes down is important.

3) maps

I use osmand for maps. it includes turn-by-turn navigation functionality that works completely offline and is really fantastic, all things considered. you do have to set up voice intructions with a text-to-speech engine yourself though, but it's not too hard. the recommended TTS on f-droid is rhvoice, and osmand has instructions.

one notable thing about osmand is you frequently can't just type in the address you want to go to. it just isn't very good at searching for addresses. almost always, i need to drop a pin and save a “favorite” ahead of time by comparing to some other map on my laptop. this is fine for me but could be a dealbreaker for someone whose life is different than mine.

many people prefer organic maps to osmand, and they use the same source data, so you should try that too if you're still deciding. i tried organic maps and despite definitely being more user-friendly, it just felt unfamiliar to me so i switched back to osmand.

my whole maps setup works perfectly completely offline, and in fact i exclusively use it offline because my phone only works on wifi. i rely on it heavily because i live in asheville, nc, us, which has paltry public transit offerings and a very car-centric life.

when i got my pixel 8, i got it with the biggest hard drive so that i could download lots of stuff, including maps. so i have full maps of the US, canada, and mexico that i keep on my phone at all times.

4) email

i use thunderbird-for-android for email and have like 10 email addresses in there 😅, no complaints.

5) gaia gps

i pay yearly for a gaia gps subscription, which allows me to go on dayhikes in the deep woods without planning ahead. i live on the boundary of pisgah national forest, and i like hiking, so i use this constantly and it's very much worth it for me. i've tried using open source alternatives for hiking and they didn't work quite as well, and the stakes are pretty high for this specific app working well, so i've stuck with gaia.

6) Tasks

i use the confusingly-named tasks app to manage todo lists and reminders. it syncs with a nextcloud instance that i and a few others use.

7) 1password

i'm too scared to self-host all my passwords so i still pay 1password for this.

8) calendar

i use whatever is the default calendar app in calyxos to do all my calendar stuff. i use fastmail for my personal email and i use their calendar infrastructure for my calendars. the calendar app on my phone syncs with the fastmail calendar server, the source of truth is fastmail.

9) browser

i did not install an extra web browser on this phone and i try to keep the default chromium-whatever one disabled, but it's tough. i regularly find myself in situations where i'm away from my laptop and i absolutely have to click a link in order to get a time sensitive thing done. at a high level, “i have to click a link to get a time sensitive thing done” is like The Reason I Still Have A Smartphone, and i think it really sucks and our world should not be set up this way.

10) lyft

i have the lyft app installed and maintain the health of my lyft account, because otherwise visiting friends in the northeast (DC – New York) would be way harder than it already is, and it's already hard! outside of visiting the northeast, i probably use the lyft app once every two years locally, when something weird is going on with my car.

11) public transit in general

because of where i live, i've not used my phone in its current configuration to do public transit. though i did travel to the northeast recently, that was before i moved my phone number to the dumbphone and made my smartphone wifi-constrained. for that, i temporarily downloaded citymapper because that's what i'm familiar with, and it worked fine.

12) wikipedia

i've installed the wikipedia app so that i can still doomscroll something when the browser is disabled. now i just “doomscroll” wikipedia, and it's so much better.

13) kiwix

kiwix is a critical part of how i use my smartphone. it is an app for hoarding data offline. i have the entirety of english wikipedia without images on my phone, and i use it all the time while just out and about. i also have a bunch of sysadmin and emergency medicine reference and prepper-type data. to get this stuff you just install the app and then download different packages of useful data through the app.

when hurricane helene hit us last year there was no internet or phone connectivity for two weeks, and i was not at all ready. next time i will be ready 😤

14) a physical notebook

i also started carrying a physical notebook. this has been great, it's really nice to make a list or whatever in a physical book rather than in a phone sometimes. it's just there for jotting things down to remember, and i don't journal in it or anything like that.

other questions

someone on the fediverse asked a couple specific questions, and i want to answer those directly!

How you picked your dumb phone – i wanted a phone that both had 4G and didn't have KaiOS (almost all dumbphones run KaiOS now it seems). kaiOS is basically just a smartphone with limited features (it still has a browser and stuff), and it's apparently full of ads! yuck! the AGM M9 is one of the few non-kaiOS 4G dumbphones available in the US. another popular one are the phones from sunbeam wireless, but i've never used that.

i needed 4G because 3G is being phased out across the US.

Messaging without cell data. (Does signal fall back to SMS?) – signal does not fall back to SMS. so the answer is “i don't message without cell data”. i only message on wifi. however if there's something time sensitive going on and i don't have wifi, i can always call someone on the dumbphone, which i do do sometimes. but i never have long or private conversations on there because it is not secure.

Your experience with turn by turn navigation, esp. on public transit – turn by turn navigation with osmand (after setting up rhvoice as described above) is great while walking and driving. i can't speak to public transit though because i don't use public transit where i live (it's small town america, it's only busses and they don't go most places), and i haven't visited the northeast since having a wifi-only phone.

A music pipeline, if you have one. It seems so hard to replicate streaming platform features – i don't listen to music on my phone unfortunately! if i were trying to do music stuff i would probably just put the music i wanted on my phone and find a good app for that in f-droid. however i'm quickly running out of room on the phone's hard drive. in my car i just listen to lots of CDs (that i buy used or burn myself from downloaded music) and the radio.

Any NFC uses to prepare for – i don't use my phone NFC for anything. i use tap to pay with my physical debit card, and i've used that on public transit too (in philadelphia).

thanks for your questions fedizen!

has moving my phone number to a dumbphone made me feel less online?

my main motivation in setting up my phone(s) this way was to “feel less online”. so far, i don't think it's done that. i still feel totally overwhelmed and upset with the world and the constant stream of nightmare information that we get slammed with every day.

however i do feel like i've been more “present” when i'm out in the world, away from home. despite not feeling overall better in my life from this phone change, actually being more present when out in the world is definitely a good thing.

if i want to “feel less online”, i think i will need to add new behaviors (like reading books and playing instruments) rather than just subtracting old behaviors (scrolling social media and news websites).

having the ability to leave home with only one device (most likely the dumbphone, for calling 911 if i have a medical emergency) is still very interesting, despite the fact that i haven't done it much. i've done it some, but not much.

i mentioned in my original dumbphone blog post that i have an unlimited wifi hotspot from calyx that i can use to fall back on if i need to use my smartphone out in the world. i've barely used it, which is a pleasant surprise! i'm glad to learn that i really just don't need to be connected to the internet all the time. the wifi hotspot is super useful for other reasons, and i didn't get it for the purposes of this dumbphone transition. also, i absolutely love the calyx institute so much and their software makes my entire non-google mobile computing life possible, so it's a no-brainer to support them by paying for the hotspot, even if i only use it every now and again.

do i recommend other people try this?

yes. if you think it could work for you, absolutely. however it's definitely not an option for everyone, because you have to be willing and able to contort your life a bit in order to do some basic things because many organizations assume you have an always-online device in your pocket. someone may not be willing (that's fine!) or able (job requirements, no home wifi, no laptop, etc) to do those contortions.

thanks for reading, and as always just email me if you have a question you want me to answer in an addendum here

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