iHead to Light Phone: A Step-by-Step Guide to Minimalist Mobile Living
Future-proof guidance for transitioning to Light Phone II with Smarty in the UK
Warning: If you can't live without social media and world news on a mobile device, do not attempt any of the below. If you require entertainment to be enmeshed with communications to your family, friends and colleagues on the same device, do not attempt any of the below. If you require 'infinity' 24/7, do not attempt any of the below. If you are stuck in your iHead, please contact the manufacturer. This guide is suitable for iHead-free heads only.
Switch from smartphone to Light Phone in the UK
1. Introduction: Into The Light
It's advisable to start using Light Phone as a secondary phone with only a few contacts on board. This phone is not aligned with the excitement you feel when a new device arrives on the market that makes you trade in your old device for a new one. The Light Phone forces you to change the digital norms of your life, not just your old phone. It is impossible to instantly replace a smartphone with a Light Phone.
I've just done it, but only after a year of winding down my smartphone needs.
I began by making an inventory of:
a) What apps and features can I easily live without?
b) Which apps can be used on my laptop/desktop computer?
My goal was to make social media, internet browsing, banking and pretty much everything else only available on the laptop/desktop computer. Apart from having conversations and text messaging, which I wanted to have on the Light Phone.
All my conversations are now uninterrupted by the external world, and also uninterrupted by my own inattention by swanning off down an app rabbit hole when I am talking to someone on the phone. Or trying to do something constructive.
All distractions gone
The goal was taking the world out of my pocket and replacing it with the wonderful emptiness that’s made me wonder, imagine and write songs since I was a child. And for fellow musicians, yes, you can record voice memos on a Light Phone.
I had tried to move to a standard non-smartphone (or brick-phone) several years ago. I deleted everything on my iPhone and plunged right in. It was a disaster. Whilst we think we have been saving contacts, passwords and other vital keys to our digital life with iCloud backup on our device, they are often scattered under different locations.
During my move to Light Phone, I kept my iPhone in a cupboard for 6 months before doing a factory reset. Every few weeks, something I assumed would be in my iCloud or in the Contacts app on my Mac that I wanted to add to my Light Phone, just wasn’t there. But it had saved to the iPhone. This has something to do with the iCloud email address you are using. Lesson learnt:
Don’t throw out the old when you bring in the new
I graduated use of my Light Phone into my life over 4 months (with 4 contacts), using a new SIM I could cancel at any time, before finally taking the SIM from my iPhone and putting it in my Light Phone. Light Phone is now all I use as a mobile device.
You'd be surprised how many things we use on a smartphone that we forget about. I wrote them all down last year, so I could start researching how to mitigate for what Light Phone would not provide. I really recommend this so that when you get your Light Phone, you have the option of making it your last phone.
2. Setup: Configure
I recommend getting a new SIM card and phone number from Smarty UK. Smarty is a brilliant company (they use the 3 Mobile network) and only £5 a month for unlimited calls and texts with 5GB data. Cancel or upgrade any time.
3. Commitment: Gradual
Don't make a strong commitment to Light Phone as soon as you get it. I've treated it like a plant from seed. It's seriously blooming and blossoming as a vital part of my communicational life now, but I took a long time to get to this point with countless analogue experiments until my digital life was functioning again, with less distraction.
4. Contacts: Select
Only adding a few trusted contacts to start off with is paramount - do not miss this step, once you go fully to the Light, you can not experience this minimalist start-off gift again. You may end up adding ALL your contacts to the Light Phone further down the line, but you will never get the chance to feel the 'fresh start' if you begin with all your contacts. And the phone will just be too busy for you to really absorb the difference of the way a Light Phone works. Keep it minimal to begin with and you'll really notice the benefits of the difference.
If you sync with iCloud, it will add ALL your contacts. If you're adding less than 10 contacts to Light Phone, I recommend adding them manually, either on the Light Dashboard or on the phone itself. Any more than that, use Gmail's 'export to .vcf' feature which provides you with the correct file to upload to Light Phone’s Dashboard.
When you do finally want to have all your contacts on board, it’s easy to do with your iCloud’s app-specific password feature which you’ll find in the security section of your iCloud when you login on a browser.
5. Messaging: Adapt
If you like long and texting and you text frequently, it's a big learning curve with Light Phone. For me it's now feeling more natural. I mostly use the 'Voice to text' feature which sometimes needs a few corrections, but works well for me. Although I am not a big texter. If you’re a WhatsApp warrior, you have some serious digital detoxing to do before moving to Light Phone.
One of my favourite features (and most other non-smartphones), is not being able to see if the person you are messaging, is typing. This feature, common in Whatsapp and iMessage, is known to cause an enormous amount of anxiety. Watching the little dots pulsing while you wait to see what the person on the other end will say, and feeling your dopamine levels drop when they stop ‘chatting’ back with you.
That’s all gone on Light Phone. The ability to connect is fully functional. But the pressure to connect is not present in the device’s features or design.
It’s taken a few months, but I’ve now noticed that text messaging on Light, suddenly doesn’t feel like a stimulant anymore. It’s a subtle change, but it’s wonderful.
Light Phone is all about giving you back time without your hands cupped in prayer around a phone all the time. And it’s very nice to spend an entire day with a small device that keeps you connected to your loved ones, without 3rd party advertisers drilling their way into your eyeballs from the screen in your hand.
6. Calls: Forward
If you’ve not taken the deep plunge and are using Light Phone as a seconday/weekend phone, but start to feel you're ready for hearing more voices coming through your Light Phone, you can access the call forwarding on your smartphone and calls will start to point to your Light Phone.
This is the intermediary step before making Light Phone your primary phone. If it feels comfortable hearing 'everyone in your life' on your Light Phone, then maybe you can explore going permanent-Light like me. But it works well as a private phone for weekends, evenings and holidays just as well.
7. Unlearn What You Have Learned
There's a lot more I could add, but the main thing to remember is that this phone is the Mr Miyagi of phones. Without painting the fence and sanding the floor, i.e. being really patient, slowing down and accepting the device is not there as a window into the world, you'll never find the whole picture of how Light Phone can change your life. It's actually a window into your best self, and it's utterly magical. As Yoda said:
“You must unlearn what you have learned”
8. WhatsApp
My own experience of Whatsapp has been challenging for many years so I do not use it anyway. My company use it for work, along with other social media platforms, but I cannot use it myself with friends. But this does put me in a minority group.
If you use Whatsapp and need to use it, you’re always going to need a smartphone. Whatsapp does not work on a laptop or desktop unless it is linked to a smartphone with a number connected to the Whatsapp account. Same as Signal (which I did not mind so much). But they both need a smartphone.
If you want to explore using a Light Phone and stop using a smartphone, but want to keep Whatsapp, here are the options:
a) Keep your standard phone number SIM in your Smartphone and link it to your laptop/desktop Whatsapp. Then put the smartphone in a cupboard to enable Whatsapp on your laptop/desktop computer. Tell everyone that number is only for Whatsapp. Then use a new SIM in your Lightphone and give everyone your new phone number. and tell them that’s the ‘mobile’ number.
b) Use your Light Phone as a ‘light’ option for evenings and weekends with a new SIM. Keep your old smartphone and number intact but use less often. HAve the same contacts on both.
There is no convenient way to workaround Whatsapp if you need to use it, but don’t want a smartphone anymore. Whatsapp is designed to be in your pocket, and it is also designed to be addictive. On a positive note, it’s also incredibly effective in mobilising important social movements that can effect change, so we mustn’t grumble too much.
But it’s about being intentional. If we can be mindful of our intentions when we use a certain app on our smartphone, then we may be able to use a smartphone without stress, anxiety, meltdowns or any of the challenges that are being reported these days.
Light Phone facilitates your intentions. Smartphones facilitate the intentions of the companies behind the apps, or/and the 3rd party advertisers. Which is why Light Phone is a fantastic option for kids who need to stay connected to their parents, but also need distance from pervasive technology for healthy brain development.
The Light Phone has nothing on it that will dramatically reset our neural pathways.
If you feel you’re in a bind and you want to stop using Whatsapp or any other devices but not sure how to, moving the app to your laptop or desktop reduces the addictive use of the apps by a country mile. Cultivating minimal use of mobile technology is a great path into less stress from technology communications. Leaving devices at home or work makes being on the move a whole new creative territory with space to imagine.
8. The Gift of Limitations with Light
If you believe that faster is better and everything you do in your life is optimised for transcending the limitations of the human body and mind, then the Light Phone might not be the phone for you. But if you believe limitations make you more creative, then the Light Phone is the only phone for you. And the ringtones are beautiful.
Read how Light Phone Changed My Life
“Musician and Filmmaker Tim Arnold has researched screen addiction and social media’s effects on mental health since 2017, culminating in the critically acclaimed album, film and theatre show, Super Connected” - Nihal Arthanayake, BBC 5 LIVE
