Please don't post about US Politics. If you need to do this, try [email protected]
1) Be nice and; have fun
Doxxing, trolling, sealioning, racism, and toxicity are not welcomed in AskLemmy. Remember what your mother said: if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. In addition, the site-wide Lemmy.world terms of service also apply here. Please familiarize yourself with them
2) All posts must end with a '?'
This is sort of like Jeopardy. Please phrase all post titles in the form of a proper question ending with ?
3) No spam
Please do not flood the community with nonsense. Actual suspected spammers will be banned on site. No astroturfing.
4) NSFW is okay, within reason
Just remember to tag posts with either a content warning or a [NSFW] tag. Overtly sexual posts are not allowed, please direct them to either [email protected] or [email protected].
NSFW comments should be restricted to posts tagged [NSFW].
5) This is not a support community.
It is not a place for 'how do I?', type questions.
If you have any questions regarding the site itself or would like to report a community, please direct them to Lemmy.world Support or email [email protected]. For other questions check our partnered communities list, or use the search function.
Reminder: The terms of service apply here too.
Logo design credit goes to: tubbadu
You have to ask yourself: what can you actually get away with.
If you're techy, get a Linux phone. I assume there's a WhatsApp client, but if not you could bridge to Matrix.
Then you'll have the option to use a phone, without the addictive qualities of Android/iOS.
Your next best will be GrapheneOS. By default, no Google, so no notifications at all. But that can be turned on and enabled if needed.
You must not have been born in the 70s or 80s. It's really easy. Step 1, replace your smart phone with a flip phone. This concludes all your steps.
I'm born in that era, and where I live, I must authorize bank transactions via app, pay parking tickets through an app, use an app for public transport, and need to scan a QR code that's changing every 90 seconds to access my gym.
There is no workaround for the parking app, other than inconveniencing myself and staying at malls exclusively. The gym doesn't have an alternative either. I could surely switch, but that's the only option.
For banking, sure, I could do stuff over the counter like some octogenarian, wasting time getting there and waiting in line. That changes a 20 second procedure into a minimum 1h long one, provided whatever I'm trying to pay happens during service hours of my bank. No thanks.
Public transport would be the easiest, though that only applies for subways and trains where counters and vending machines exist. At bus stops we don't have those, and drivers aren't selling tickets anymore. You must board with a valid ticket, which usually only works through an app, unless you have a monthly ticket that can still be bought as a paper pass.
Not so easy for someone who was born and raised in a time and place where key services all rely on smartphones (especially the WhatsApp for family communications)
Tell the family to stop being cheap bastards and to pay their damn cell phone bills already, so that you don't have to keep using that Meta-owned crap.
I had the exact same Problem.
You need an Android Emulator for your PC, since Whatsapp for desktop always needs to be paired with a phone, then install Whatsapp Business. The Business Version lets you sign up with a landline number. Youll geht a call with the code read to you, and youre done.
If you already have a number, and are planing to keep it, you can just use that, and read the code from your phone.
If you decide to use a desktop app or the web version instead, you will have to open Whatsapp on your phone once every two weeks or it will unpair.
What are you looking to get out of your dumb phone experience?
It sounds like you want/need the smart phone part, but not the doom scroll and spyware part.
For that I offer the following advice;
Step 1 is to delete all unnecessary apps. Keep 1 or 2 time killers, preferably puzzle games or something not related to endless scrolling, that you can start/stop anytime.
If you have one, make an old phone your "entertainment" device. This is for things like Lemmy and whatever else you do fun/pass time. Leave it the bathroom or at your spot to relax. This way you can get your internet fix, but it doesn't follow you throughout the day.
Step 2 is to make sure you set your notifications right, only communication from actual people (text/call) and important stuff like work/bank emails should make noise. Everything else can shove off.
On the spyware front, Pixel+Graphine OS is a good option, it does works with MS authenticator.
I think with 2fa, qr codes, talking with family, and emergency services it's not reasonable to not have a phone. Instead of purchasing a device why not just turn it off and put it away when you're not using it?
Your maps and ipod have already showed you these are just tools. Continue down that route.
BTW, this post is so close to my own recent questions I thought I had posted it, lol. Share your modded ipod over at c/ipod , trying to start a little community
Addiction is a tough thing... Hard just to out it down.
And price.
When I go just walk my dog, I almost never take the smartphone with me. I always did that. Later I just bought a cheap dumb phone for 10 bucks, just in case. I always have that on me now.
So yeah, trying to not break something more expensive. Plus it's far more reliable than any smartphone. It just works, no stuttering, no crashes, buttons rather than touchscreen, the alarm app doesn't get ~~killed~~ optimized... Though it has the same problem as every single modern phone I get: the minimum headphone jack volume is way too loud. I wanted to use it for music, but that's a no-go. There's no equalizer to tune it down.
A cheap solution that might solve your volume problem is to add on an adapter that features a volume rocker dial. You can plug that into your phone and then plug your headphones into that adapter.
Something like the below screenshot. Hopefully it won’t muddy audio quality, so check this out and see if it’s something you can give a go.
Is there a way to use WhatsApp on a non-smart phone?
WhatsApp has a browser app you can use, turning it into something more like an instant messenger akin to Skype while you're on a computer. Not sure if you need a phone to manage the account or not, but you could keep a cheapo burner phone for situations like that and then just toss it in a drawer and ignore it until you need to make changes again.
There are kaios phones, which are basically very weak smartphones (like 512 mb of ram weak) that run kaios, which is android. They perform poorly enough that you wouldn't want to use for social media, and you can run whatsapp on them
Correction: KaiOS is a Linux distro that only runs web apps. It descends from the botched Firefox OS project and uses Firefox's browser engine.
You're probably right, I've only used old nokias with symbian, so I wouldn't know.
KaiOS is more like "Firefox OS" than Android, but otherwise, yes.
I did a 30 day dumbphone challenge a few months ago. Was originally going to use a Nokia with KaiOS but wanted to be able to re-purpose it afterward so I went with an Android-powered flip phone.
Android-powered flip phone
That doesn't quite sound as a dumbphone to me.
I disabled pretty much everything and dumbed it down for the 30 days to nothing more than what a modern "dumb" phone would do.
Everyone has an email address. Just saying.
You could always ask for their address and use mail.
Godspeed!
You didn't specify your reasoning for getting away from smartphones. Cost or to escape the trappings? Other? I was thinking you could hang on to your smartphone and just delete the nonessential stuff.
What is it about a smart phone that you don't want/like?
I feel like these devices are too annoying. For example, I dissabled notifications for almost all apps, but a couple of updates later, and the notifications are back (even though the setting is still dissabled), and I feel like when these apps are developed, they want to bundle critical notifications with non-critial ones (ie. Do you want a notification when someone breaks into your house AND when our sales team wants to upsell you something? Or neither?). Then there's the data privacy aspect.
A minimalistic custom rom might fix some of those issues for you.
Check out the Light Phone. It only has a handful of functions. Talk, text, directions, music, notes, and a camera.
thelightphone.com
A 2000s Garmin GPS with OSM is neat and durable like a Nokia. Still use it even though I do keep my smartphone:
Matrix has a WhatsApp bridge and an SMS bridge. Perhaps it's possible to combine these for a WhatsApp <> SMS bridge? I don't know if these bridges can work in this way. I'm just aware of their existence. Even if it does work, I imagine it'd be pretty suboptimal. But it's potentially an option.
Or use matrix on the computer
I use a fire tablet for maps. osmand allows you to download whole states at detail and it does not take huge amounts of space. its not great for privacy but I use google voice. That being said I have a smartphone I had to get for work. I picked up the free talk and text thing. I basically keep it shut down until I need it.
Still using a laptop? Isn’t there a WhatsApp download for a desktop app?
Edit - although you would still need some sort of smartish phone to set that up I am sure.
Haven’t checked the same might be true for the Authenticator app. If you are just dealing with one time number codes there are Firefox plug ins you can use.
Isn’t there a WhatsApp download for a desktop app?
all I know about it is the following:
While the messaging platform already offers cross-platform support, users were able to add a new contact only via the primary Android phone or iOS handset—by adding a phone number or scanning a QR code. ... In a press release, WhatsApp notes that users will soon be able to add and manage contacts through WhatsApp Web and also through Windows platforms or their preferred device, like Android tablets.
https://www.androidcentral.com/apps-software/whatsapp-likely-to-have-userames-soon
unclear if/how soon you'll be able to use it without a phone number at all.
I use WhatsApp on my computer, in a web browser, but you do have to activate it from your phone via a q code.
You didn't think meta would give away Whatsapp without harvesting your phone number did you? Remember you and your data are the product
