Earlier, I made this concept mainstream Nothing Phone called Gastrodon. I took a lot of attention towards making it a very feasible concept and hence dealt with a lot of constraints. It helped me gain a lot of appreciation for the design of my references - the Phone 1 and Phone 2 and the Nothing Design language in general, and this was a result of that:
It was so much fun and learning working on this, but I thought these are just concepts so there is nothing wrong going an unconventional route. Afterall, it might generate some great ideas that were never explored.
1.5 years ago I was struggling with my screen time, and my father suggested me to adopt a dumbphone for a semester in my college. It was a really fun experience -
- I was using the simplest and lightest phone among my peers, it made me feel so lighthearted.
- I wouldn’t need to care about charging anything, it would last for weeks!
- I was just a unique person among others, and they understood and empathized very well. Because you know this is a very common problem, and I was the one who chose for a change. So they respected it.
But it had it’s own limitations of course. So I thought I’d do a dumbphone that limits usage, but doesn’t restrict you from doing anything that a smartphone does. The result?
It’s the Chill Guy’s Phone by CMF!
Let’s discuss:
- A square form-factor, that makes me feel the same simplicity and lightness that the Nokia provided.
- Limits mindless content consumption - you’ll barely enjoy those vertical videos on a square. You will be able to watch them still, but you just won’t spend hours, cuz they’ll be way too small.
- The UI will only show on the fundamental phone things - Calls, Texts, Files, Calendar and Browsing - ones that allow you to communicate with people, and do your essential stuff.
- You get that small, less rounded button that you click to enable “smartphone mode” that lasts only for 15 minutes per session.
- Social media apps can only be scrolled with the scroll wheel. So, you wont scroll as easily anymore.
- The Chill Guy serves two purposes - a battery extension covering the limitations (although we now have the Si-C technology), and an icon to represent the user being a chill guy - uses their phone mindfully and enjoys their life. Who knows if people love this way of living, bringing it back and form a whole cult of chill guys? 🤷 (we do have an r/dumbphones with 113K members!)
- Very pocketable and simple - the device will have less subconscious significance, making it seem like an “aid to communicate” rather than an “important device that does all things for me”
Why a failed project?
- Accommodating a keyboard
- Many apps don’t adapt well to the ratio
- Too risky for such a radical change in the hardware, and it’s difficult to even imagine this happening - definitely something wrong with it.
- The benefits it provides can be mostly achieved by software solutions, much less risk.
Still I believe a switch to a much simpler form-factor would help with being mindful, so I started searching for a more feasible solution:
Screenshots of the unconventional ratios:
Oh by the way, these things hit the android market, and might go well with each other!:
- easier navigation
- keyboard sorted
- don’t need to change the ratio anymore, probably
So I’ll definitely be thinking along these lines. Let’s see how it goes…
A call to the Community
If this excites you, you might be into re-thinking ground-up to find solutions to these unaddressed problems. And we both might be like-minded. Please take some time to provide your inputs - what you think about this whole thing. If you got some good idea about what we can do with it…
