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Comment by hn_throwaway_99 | Hacker News Reader

I don't think this is silly in the slightest. There are lots of folks like me who deliberately want to break our phone addictions, which is why things like www.thelightphone.com exist.

My problem with the Light Phone (owner of version II) is that it's too limited. I don't want to be distracted by notifications or social media or doom scrolling on the browser, but I do need things that are essentially task-oriented tools: Uber/Lyft, Weather apps, Maps, Authenticator Code apps (and, now, using my phone as a passkey), etc.

I'm not an iOS user, but this makes be almost wish I were, because it's exactly what I'd want. It's too small to make me want to scroll YouTube randomly, but has all the tools that I don't want to forego. I think this is a fantastic product if it works as advertised.

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> but I do need things that are essentially task-oriented tools: Uber/Lyft, Weather apps, Maps, Authenticator Code apps

> because it's exactly what I'd want.

I’m not sure it is.

Most of the things you list aren’t that functional on Watch, in my experience. It’s ok-ish to pull up on Watch after you’ve set it up on your phone, but without a phone, Watch is much more limited, IME.

You can definitely use Watch for a number of things without an iPhone — Weather is one you list that is mostly functional, Timer, and Calculator.

But beyond these basic by-design limited functionality apps, Watch doesn’t do a great job as the main driver of most apps — just more as a companion to the iPhone apps.

But that is a function of apple doing their best to make the watch an extension of the phone rather than its own device.

There is nothing inherent in the hardware limiting you from doing these things, but my understanding is that Apple makes it hard to do.

For better or worse, that is the inherent assumption - that a smartwatch is a companion device to a smartphone. The idea of ditching the phone entirely is, arguably, an unintended consequence of releasing smartwatch variants with built-in LTE connectivity. Giving the app developers the benefit of doubt, it's understandable they don't want to make a standalone app for a fraction off the smartwatch models, where they can do with one simpler extension app for all smartwatches.

Yes, the watch GUI for apps is pretty limited. If you are okay using Siri you’ll find a lot of functionality is actually available.

Great point, and when AI integration makes Siri useful, this might be a game changer for watches.

I’ve seen that a lot of Siri features defer from Watch to the iPhone. Even things like changing the lights.

>Most of the things you list aren’t that functional on Watch, in my experience. It’s ok-ish to pull up on Watch after you’ve set it up on your phone, but without a phone, Watch is much more limited

It's okay to not pretend that Apple trademarked the word "watch".

Calling it "Watch" looks/sounds incredibly awkward.

I've had the issue in the past where Apple's auto-correction would capitalize "Watch" every time I typed it.

It doesn't seem to do it on my iPhone now unless it's directly preceded by "Apple." But I wonder if they're hitting that because I notice a lot of different people are capitalizing the word.

>It’s ok-ish to pull up on Watch after you’ve set it up on your phone, but without a phone, Watch is much more limited, IME.

Don't you normally still have a phone nearby and synced to the watch? I don't think I know anyone that uses a smart watch in lieu of a phone, just as an accessory that keeps them from having to pull out their phone.

This entire point of this product is to use the apple watch inside this case instead of a phone. If you're using this product, no, you won't have a phone nearby and synced to it.

They recently announced a v3 of the light phone that might actually be useful - I also have a light phone II sitting in a drawer somewhere.

It ditches e-ink in favor of an OLED + matte glass that looks amazing. Having 60hz refresh rate means we can get nice responsive apps while keeping the minimalist UI. Hopefully they will make it easier to develop and run custom apps on this one.

I feel like once you set third-party apps like Uber, bike rental or banking apps as requirements, the only possible solution is sadly a mostly standard cut-down Android phone. The third parties won't support any bespoke OS, so you're stuck with iOS or Android, and moreover they won't support exotic configurations like a tiny display.

Thankfully on Android it's easy enough to remove/disable any distractions, and there are phones like the ones from Unihertz that are just different enough to be worth trying.

There are other options in the Android space. Very very few, sadly, but they exist: check out the Qin phones like the F21 Pro: it's Android on a 2007's Nokia form factor!

But you can already do this with a smart watch without this case, right?

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