Dumb Co dared me to replace my iPhone with a hackable phone

When Lydia Peabody saw her friend pulling out a flip phone at a party last year, she burst out laughing.

“I was like, ‘Girl, what are you doing with that thing? This has got to be a joke!'” Peabody told TechCrunch. But it wasn’t just support, her friend was participating in Month Offline, a community challenge in which a small group of people replace their smartphones with foldable phones.

Peabody couldn’t give up her smartphone, but her friend inspired her. A year later, her life looks different. She left her career as a licensed therapist to become corporate marketing director for Dumb Co, the cell phone company that grew out of Month Offline. She’s happier.

“I did Month Offline, and I thought, ‘Why am I suddenly not feeling anxious? Do I feel good?'” she said. “I didn’t even know this was what I needed, and spending all that time on my screen after work was making me so disgusted.”

Dumb Co sells foldable phones that sync with your smartphone, rather than replace it, a happy medium between the iPhone’s limitless connectivity and the unrealistic limitations of early 2000s relics. Funded by friends and family, the company is run by a small team in their 20s and early 30s. Like their peers, they are dissatisfied with the fast pace of frictionless life. They grew up with iPads and Instagram but now they crave something simpler.

In the humble shell of a $20 TCL foldable phone, Dumb Co loads its own software so users can access apps like WhatsApp, Spotify, Apple Music and Uber. You can also access iMessage through a third-party app (don’t tell Apple). By bringing familiar conveniences like streaming music, maps, and blue bubble text into a flip phone, Dumb Co. is creating something for people who want to spend less time in front of a screen and be more present but struggle to completely disconnect from a world designed for smartphones.

“We’re trying to make something where you can leave your smartphone at home and literally live your life and interact with other people,” Afreka Ebanks, director of communications at Dumb Co, told TechCrunch. “And when you want to be on your smartphone and get home, you can use it, because call forwarding and text message forwarding can be turned off.”

I spent more than a month testing the device — which Dumb Co calls the Dumb Phone — buoyed by the knowledge that in case of an emergency, I always keep my iPhone on hand. I didn’t use the stupid phone much at first, but as I was holding it up to show my friends, I noticed that they weren’t confused by my flip phone, they were jealous of it.

“I get into a lot of interesting conversations with people as I’m walking and someone saw me at a traffic light and asked, ‘What’s that thing you have?’” said Ebanks, who dazzled with her flip phone. “I think it’s a great conversation starter, and I think it’s incredible to watch people — myself included — working through the awkwardness of socializing with others, because I’m no longer distracted by looking at my phone.”

Stupid, clunky phone sometimes. It’s slower than I’m used to, and I end up spending more time typing T9 texts than if I were just using my iPhone (what I really want is a stupid Sidekick with a QWERTY keyboard). However, there’s something undeniably refreshing about knowing that if you want to open social media, take a photo you’ll never look at again, or check your email, you won’t be able to.

When I spoke to Peabody at the end of my iPhone/foldable month, she asked me if I had ever left home with just my flip phone. I admitted that I didn’t do it. I explained that sometimes I need to check public transportation schedules, or catch up on Slack if I go to an appointment during the day.

“The fact is that when you say the word ‘need,’ it almost gives the same meaning as ‘I need food or shelter,’” Peabody told me. “Yes, sure, it’s actually helpful to know when the buses are coming, but if you don’t have that information, you turn to your neighbor and say, ‘Do you know when the next bus is coming?’

Peabody dared me to leave my iPhone at home. On the day we spoke, I had already planned to report on an event at a bookstore on the other side of town. I tried to explain that I had never been to this library before and I wasn’t sure which subway station to get off at. She asked me to write down the directions before I left. I was concerned that I wouldn’t be able to record interviews at the event. She told me that stupid phone can record audio.

“I really want you to do this, because I know this is the best thing to do in terms of experience,” Peabody said. “When I switched to a dumb phone last summer, I didn’t use my smartphone for seven weeks, and I went on a cross-country road trip to New Mexico. I didn’t think I could do it, but I’m telling you, you can.”

I’ve run out of excuses. Peabody drove thousands of miles without a smartphone. How do I tell her that I need my iPhone so I can triple check that Tasker Morris is the correct train station?

Smartphones and social media are not a one-sided evil. There’s real value in connecting with friends online, sending pictures of your dog to grandma, and using Apple Pay when you forget your wallet. While researchers don’t classify smartphone dependence the way they classify drug addiction, there are certainly similarities. Not everyone has an adversarial relationship with their phone, but for people like me, spending more time in front of a screen often makes me feel more anxious, unfocused, and less sedentary. Peabody even compared her relationship with her phone to being attached to a Juul in college.

“It was really hard, but I completely broke that addiction, and now when I see an e-cigarette or something like that, I actually hate it — I’m like, ‘Oh no, I don’t want that,'” she said. “When I turned off my smartphone for seven weeks, I was thinking about using it again, and I felt the same aversion. In fact, I didn’t look at it or touch it.”

I was nervous about leaving my iPhone at home, but I trusted my knowledge of the transit system and was able to get across town without my iPhone (I’ll admit I texted someone just to be… More certain The library is outside Tasker-Morris station.) When I needed to send a text message that was too long to type on the T9, I sent a voice message. I felt more connected to the world around me, and nothing could go wrong.

I don’t see myself switching exclusively to the Dumb Phone, but I do find it valuable as a tool to help me pay more attention to how and when I use my smartphone. The Dumb Phone comes with a black velor pouch, which you’re supposed to put your smartphone in when you leave it at home. I can’t stop using my iPhone, but I threw the velor case in my bag on a beach trip, just in case. I’ve used it for a few things, like ordering food and checking train times. But while I was enjoying a day at the beach, I didn’t pull out my phone. I had a book, a sandwich, a couple of bottles of water, and some sunscreen – what else could I need?