Most of us carry around a device that does more than could have been imagined at the start of this century — and that claims more of our energy and attention than almost any of us like or would want to admit. That was already the case when Kaiwei Tang co-founded Light Phone, a company that makes minimalist mobile phones.
Tang remembers that when the company shipped its first Light Phone in 2017, reactions tended to fall into one of two camps. Some early supporters believed that the phone, which allowed for calls and not much else, would change their lives, giving them more focus, more time to be creative and more space to do the things they wanted to do, while others dismissed it as a “piece of junk,” Tang said. They said they could just keep their smartphones and not use them for things they wanted to avoid.
Today, Tang says those conversations have changed. As more people question how social media use affects their attention and mental health, they’re increasingly looking for alternatives in “dumbphones.”
The Light Phone was one of those earliest minimalist alternatives. Last March, the company launched its third model. Its upcoming, nostalgia-inducing Light Flip Phone is set to start shipping in April 2027.
The origin story
Tang turned toward this simple approach when he became disillusioned after nearly a decade spent designing phones for Motorola, Nokia and BlackBerry, companies he felt had come to prioritize constant upgrades over people’s needs. Tang left the industry, believing he’d “never touch phones again.”
That changed after he met artist and designer Joe Hollier at the Google-backed design incubator 30 Weeks in 2014. Together, they asked what a company designed to preserve human attention instead of extract it might look like.
Before settling on the Light Phone, the pair recruited about 20 friends and family members to temporarily give up their smartphones and use old flip phones instead. Participants reported feeling more present, paying closer attention in museums, talking to strangers more often and realizing they needed far fewer phone numbers in their contacts than expected.
The experiment informed the company’s philosophy: no social media, no advertising, no data collection and apps limited to purposeful tools.
“Tools should be like a hammer,” Tang said. “You use it and put it back. I know I have a hammer; I don’t think about my hammer 24/7.”
In 2015, the founders raised more than $500,000 on Kickstarter, but still needed manufacturing partners. Tang spent months pitching suppliers in Taiwan and China. Eventually, an executive at Foxconn embraced the mission, leading to an investment of several million dollars for research and development.
Tang recalled the executive saying, “My kids don’t talk to me. We are having dinner and everyone’s on the phone. My family needs something like this.”
Building the phone
Customer feedback has shaped each version of the phone. The Light Phone II added texting, contacts, alarms, directions and music, while the Light Phone III expanded those features, still without adding social media or advertising.
In May, the company, which is based in the Brooklyn Navy Yard, launched a developer program allowing users to build their own tools on a software platform it calls LightOS. Its aim is to allow customers more flexibility without opening the platform to mainstream smartphone apps.
A growing audience
Tang understands smartphones can be valuable, particularly for people with mobility limitations. But he also notices how difficult conversations become when everyone is looking at a screen. “It’s just not human,” he said.
“We all feel horrible and we keep doing it. People realize that we don’t have to,” Tang said of endless scrolling. “It’s like giving yourself permission that you don’t need to know all this information all the time. We don’t need that 24/7.”
Still, Tang was surprised that many customers are young adults who grew up with smartphones, not older users nostalgic for life before them. There are two people in particular he hasn’t been able to sell on the idea: “It’s so frustrating to try to convince my parents to get off their smartphone,” he said.
Tang’s advice to designers
Design for yourself. “You’re not that special. Whatever you think makes sense, millions of people are going to feel the same way.”
Believe in what you’re building. “Meaning that you think this thing has to exist to change people’s lives, to make things better. You have to believe in that. [Because] 99% of the time, you’re not going to be doing the things that you’re most capable of doing or you wanted to do.”
Meet people outside your bubble. “I met Joe [Hollier], I’m lucky that we are still friends, we’re still building this company together. You gotta go out there and meet people. Finding the co-founders or starting a business is really similar to dating.”
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