Light Phone II: A New Phone With Old Tech

Technology is constantly evolving. There are new inventions flooding the market every second; one of which is a phone unable to connect to the internet. That’s right, the Light Phone has no internet, no apps and no “smart” capabilities. This may not be a new concept, but it’s definitely an anomaly among all the other high-tech phones being released.

Joe Hollier and Kaiwei Tang invented the Light Phone in hopes of creating a less distracted world. Their vision is to get back to using phones as tools instead of mindless entertainment, preoccupying society from everything else happening around them. Their first version of the phone could only call and text with 2G. After receiving feedback, they realized their tool wasn’t very reliable.

Now, they’ve released the Light Phone II. This version is able to call, text, give directions, play music and work as an alarm clock with 4G LTE connection. In a blog post the company explains, “The Light Phone II will never have social media, email, news or advertising. Our tools are intentional, there is a clear objective in opening the tool, it’s not an infinite feed.” This way people aren’t tempted to use their phones longer than they have to.

The phone is marketed to people of all ages who feel the need to detach themselves from the web. A commercial for the phone explains the importance of our time and attention. It implies smartphones steal those from us, while the light phone allows us to use our time and attention for more important things like hobbies, kids and life in general.

With other companies racing to jam everything possible into their tiny mobile devices, it’s refreshing to see a business refining phones back to their original purpose. Constantly carrying around all of the information smartphones have can be heavy and mentally exhausting, but is the Light Phone necessary for us to take a load off?