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I’ve been spending too much time on my phone and the various smart/dumb phones floating around got me thinking. I found the Light Phone intriguing, but it’s a lot of money for an experiment that I can emulate on my iPhone pretty easily while not losing out on the meaningful parts of having a smart phone like staying in touch with friends, Slacks, snapping quick pics of my kids, and the occasional necessary phone call. 

Solution - completely make my iPhone boring via a greyscale theme and hard time limits on apps that suck up time (Instagram and Reddit, lookin at you). See screenshot for results. I have a focus that automatically comes on that makes the phone pretty damn boring. Cool, two weeks in and I’ve cut screen time down by roughly 50%. Great, but can we do better?

The phone being boring is great, but the distraction can still be there. Simply turn off the focus and your phone is back in all of its addicting, colorful glory. Damn. Okay. Light Phone sounds more interesting now.

Could just wear my Apple Watch Ultra, but then I have to double wrist and it honestly feels more like being handcuffed than looking like a cool tech guy. Okay so how can we take advantage of the power of the Apple Watch? There are other Apple Watch Ultra cases on the internet for sale, but can I do better?

We just got our oldest son (not me, I swear) a 3D printer for his birthday. He loves to tinker, got him set up in CAD and he’s been having a blast designing and printing off stuff.

I think I can do the case at home, learn a bit about the nitty gritty of Fusion 360 and have some fun with the new 3D printer after the kiddos go to bed (assuming that they’re not running an 8-hour print of a Minecraft themed fidget toy).

Several revisions in CAD and a few prototypes later, this is what we’ve got - my own take on the ultralight smart dumb phone. It fits perfectly in the pocket or hand and can handle all of the basic Siri-activated google searches, iMessages, phone calls, emails, etc.

 It was a little scary to leave the house without a phone, but knowing that I have a communication device that’s not constantly harassing me with dings and rings is pretty damn nice. Sure, I could just wear the watch on wrist, but where’s the fun in that? Bring along your Airpods if you want the classic iPod experience or need to take a private call when out. So far, so good. 

Sure seems like a lot of screen time to you know...spend less time on the phone, but I love to mess around and make things and this has been a new skill to learn (3D design and rapid prototyping) that I’m having an absolute blast with. It's kind of a culmination of everything I've been working on for years - product design, product photography, social media, advertising, the whole deal. Let's see how far we can go and how fast we can do it.

If you can read this, your screen is too big. See you in the real world.