DUM
I made this phone for myself a long time ago, because I could not stop looking at the other kind. It's a real smartphone — calls, texts, maps, music, a camera, whatever you decide it should have — and nothing else can ever be installed on it. For your pocket, or your kid's.
Reserve a founding phone
The first batch is 25. Reserving takes an email address. No payment today.
You choose the apps.Calls and texts, obviously. Beyond that, you pick: maps for the bus route, music for the ride, a camera, email, an ebook reader, your bank, the weather. Whatever the phone should be able to do. There is no wrong list, though I have opinions and will share them.
I build it and ship it.I set up a brand-new phone by hand so it runs your list and nothing else. No app store, no way to install anything from the phone itself, ever, and it holds through a factory reset. Founding phones take about a week.
Changes go through me.There is no settings menu to find, no PIN to guess, no toggle to wait out. If you want an app added or removed later, you email me and I change it remotely, usually the same day. Nobody can change it from the phone itself. Not your kid. Not you.
Whatever you chose. A typical list: calls, texting, contacts, a camera, maps, music, podcasts, email, an alarm for the morning. A real screen, a real battery, an Android operating system, covered by the manufacturer's warranty. It looks like a normal phone because it is one. It has simply been told, permanently, what it is for.
No app store. No social media. No feeds, no short videos, no streaks, no autoplay, no games unless you genuinely want games, in which case you'll have exactly the ones you named and no others. No browser — you can have one, but the browser is how everything sneaks back in, and I'll tell you so at setup.
And there is nothing on the phone to delete, disable, or outwait. No setting to find, no passcode to guess. It survives a factory reset. This is not a phone you argue with.
$199for the phone — a brand-new Android device, configured to your exact app list
$10a month for the service
The monthly covers three things: keeping your phone locked down, which costs me something every month for every phone out there; app changes whenever you ask, usually same day; and support from an actual person. When you email support, it's me.
Your carrier, your SIM. The phone is unlocked and works with your existing carrier like any other unlocked phone — move a SIM over or add a line to the family plan. Cellular service is not included, and I have no ambitions to sell it to you.
Reserve a founding phone
Email only. No payment today.
Your kid walks home from school, or takes the bus, or has practice at a field you have never once found on the first try. They need to reach you, you need to reach them, they need the route and something to listen to on the way. That is the entire job.
Maybe you've tried the other way. Screen Time, Family Link, app timers, the router that shuts off at nine. Then you've stood in the kitchen at 9:40 explaining, again, why the answer is still no, to a child who has studied the system the way you study nothing, because they have more time and a stronger incentive. Parental-control apps are a nightly argument. This is not an argument. The phone can't do the thing. There is nothing to argue with.
If you're thinking about Christmas: so am I. A first phone is a good gift, and a first phone that doesn't need supervising afterward is a better one. The proper rollout is aimed at December. The founding batch ships well before it.
This was my case. I built the first one of these years ago, not as a product — as a correction. I had noticed what my phone use actually was: checking it in line, checking it at red lights, checking it mid-conversation with people I love, picking it up to look at the weather and setting it down twenty-five minutes later having watched a man in another hemisphere restore a rusted hinge. None of it chosen.
I tried the standard remedies. Screen-time limits, app timers, grayscale mode, deleting the apps, reinstalling the apps, deleting the apps, the phone in another room, the phone in a drawer. These are all negotiations with yourself, and you have information about how those negotiations go. So I stopped negotiating. I kept the useful organs — the maps, the music, the camera, the people I text — and removed the rest, in a way I could not undo at 11:40 on a bad night. There is no toggle, no override, no "just fifteen minutes." The phone can't do the thing. So you do something else.
The honest result is that I have nothing interesting to report about my phone anymore, which is everything I wanted from it. It sits in a pocket. It gives directions. It takes pictures of things I am actually looking at.
The first batch is 25 phones. That is a real number, not a marketing number: my costs step up past 25, I set each phone up by hand, and I am one person. It's an arithmetic fact, not a countdown timer.
Founding customers get:
Reserving takes an email address. No payment now, no card on file. When your phone is ready to build, I'll write to you personally, we'll work out your app list, and you can decide then.
Reserve a founding phone
25 phones. Email only. No payment today. Add a note if you like — what you'd want on it, or who it's for.
Because you can turn those off. So can anyone who knows the PIN, guesses the PIN, or waits until you're tired. Screen Time is a negotiation — with a fourteen-year-old, or with yourself — and both negotiations end the same way. This one doesn't happen. The controls aren't on the phone at all. There is nothing on the device to find, disable, or outwait.
Doubtful. You can technically hack anything, but this is a good deal stronger than anything in the parental-controls aisle. There is no passcode on the phone to find, and the lock survives a factory reset. The usual ending: the kid resets the phone, waits through the progress bar, and it comes back exactly as configured — same phone, same apps, minus an afternoon.
Tell me. I add it remotely, usually the same day. It works in reverse too: if an app you chose turns out to be a problem, I remove it and it stays removed.
Yes. I'll also tell you what I tell everyone: the browser is how everything sneaks back in. Every feed you're quitting has a website. It's your phone, and I'll install it if you tell me to. I would not.
Yes. It's an unlocked phone: put in a SIM or add a line with the carrier you already have — the big ones, the prepaid ones, whichever. Cellular service is not included, so your plan and your number stay your business.
Then you own a normal phone. Cancel and I release it — that means a factory reset, and what comes back is an ordinary unlocked Android phone with the app store and everything else. I set every phone up with backup switched on for exactly this reason, so your contacts, photos and messages come back with it. Same if DUM ever winds down: every phone gets released before the lights go out. The lock is a service, not a hostage.
The hardware carries the manufacturer's standard warranty, because it's a brand-new phone. The setup, the configuration, and keeping it that way is covered by me.
"Dumb phone," with the b dropped.
Thirty days. If it isn't working — for you, or for the kid — send the phone back and I'll refund the $199. You cover return shipping; the monthly fee isn't refunded, since the service happened. I'd rather have the phone back than your grudging two hundred dollars. After thirty days there's a different exit: cancel the monthly service and I release the phone, and it's an ordinary unlocked Android, yours to keep.