On Friday, I started a 30 day experiment where I “upgraded” my smart phone to a mostly dumb flip phone. This is day 4 of that, I’m loving it way more than I thought I would.
Believe it or not, before phones had GPS, I actually had a decent sense of direction 😆 (now, I can’t get out of a paper bag without GPS)
It’s got a map app and GPS which seem to work. I did replace the stock Google Maps with Organic Maps, though. Haven’t tested it beyond plotting a course to the grocery store, but that worked well enough. For the purposes of my experiment, I don’t consider that cheating since I did have maps/navigation/GPS on my flip phones in the past (though they relied on cell towers for positioning).
I figure if I commit to the dumb phone life, I’ll grab a dedicated GPS unit for my car like I used to have (assuming those still exist).
Might even consider getting a cheap Android phone and using it as an in-car navigation/music system. Then get a plan like https://tello.com that lets you pay $5/mo for just 1G of data. Idk how much it costs now adays, but I remember needing to pay for map updates on those dedicated GPS systems, so the cost may be comparable to keep a fully updated map, plus you get traffic and music with a phone.
I do have a house full of old Android phones, lol. Rather than piling up in a drawer, a while back I re-purposed them into IP phones and keep one in each room. I suppose I could part with one haha.
There are some offline map programs that work well, but I’m not sure if the routing works offline or not. I did learn recently that many contemporary “dumb” phones can do wifi hotspot, so that’s always an option if I do need to give it internet for navigation.
I saw one of your earlier posts or comments about that…glad it’s working out for you! I have been tempted to do something similar. I’m practicing leaving my phone at home or in the other room at times I know I don’t need it or really want it. Started running without headphones, too, in a effort to disconnect a little more.
Thanks! So far, so good, anyway. I’m only on day 4, but liking it so far.
I still use the smartphone (on wifi) in the mornings when I let the dogs out. Mostly just to catch my daily Pokemon and play my daily word game while I drink my coffee. Then it gets put away.
Had a bit of trouble getting my work MFA moved off of it, so I still keep it semi-nearby in case some random thing decides to try push notification instead of prompting for a code, but other than that, it’s been smooth sailing.
I don’t know that I could run without music, lol, and I no longer have any discrete MP3 player that still works.
On Friday, I started a 30 day experiment where I “upgraded” my smart phone to a mostly dumb flip phone. This is day 4 of that, I’m loving it way more than I thought I would.
This is an intriguing idea, but how do you navigate to new places? Surely not MapQuest?
Believe it or not, before phones had GPS, I actually had a decent sense of direction 😆 (now, I can’t get out of a paper bag without GPS)
It’s got a map app and GPS which seem to work. I did replace the stock Google Maps with Organic Maps, though. Haven’t tested it beyond plotting a course to the grocery store, but that worked well enough. For the purposes of my experiment, I don’t consider that cheating since I did have maps/navigation/GPS on my flip phones in the past (though they relied on cell towers for positioning).
I figure if I commit to the dumb phone life, I’ll grab a dedicated GPS unit for my car like I used to have (assuming those still exist).
Might even consider getting a cheap Android phone and using it as an in-car navigation/music system. Then get a plan like https://tello.com that lets you pay $5/mo for just 1G of data. Idk how much it costs now adays, but I remember needing to pay for map updates on those dedicated GPS systems, so the cost may be comparable to keep a fully updated map, plus you get traffic and music with a phone.
I do have a house full of old Android phones, lol. Rather than piling up in a drawer, a while back I re-purposed them into IP phones and keep one in each room. I suppose I could part with one haha.
There are some offline map programs that work well, but I’m not sure if the routing works offline or not. I did learn recently that many contemporary “dumb” phones can do wifi hotspot, so that’s always an option if I do need to give it internet for navigation.
I saw one of your earlier posts or comments about that…glad it’s working out for you! I have been tempted to do something similar. I’m practicing leaving my phone at home or in the other room at times I know I don’t need it or really want it. Started running without headphones, too, in a effort to disconnect a little more.
Thanks! So far, so good, anyway. I’m only on day 4, but liking it so far.
I still use the smartphone (on wifi) in the mornings when I let the dogs out. Mostly just to catch my daily Pokemon and play my daily word game while I drink my coffee. Then it gets put away.
Had a bit of trouble getting my work MFA moved off of it, so I still keep it semi-nearby in case some random thing decides to try push notification instead of prompting for a code, but other than that, it’s been smooth sailing.
I don’t know that I could run without music, lol, and I no longer have any discrete MP3 player that still works.