// a dumb phone, a smart keyboard
Text from a Computer.
Carry a flip phone.
I traded my iPhone for a 1990s-style flip phone and never looked back — except for one thing: typing. dumbsms lets me send and receive texts, pictures, and group messages from my computer, while the phone in my pocket stays gloriously dumb.
Two kids. No smartphones. Going great.
// what is this
A dumb phone with a smart keyboard
dumbsms sends and receives texts from your computer — including pictures and real group threads — through a connected flip phone. The phone keeps the SIM and the cell connection. The computer just becomes a much nicer way to type.
No cloud. No account. No telemetry. The phone stays the source of truth; your messages never leave your machine and your phone. It's a personal hobby project, not a product.
How it works- ✓ Send & receive SMS from your keyboard
- ✓ Picture messages (MMS) that auto-resize
- ✓ True group threads
- ✓ Works over USB, Wi-Fi, or Bluetooth
- ✓ The flip phone stays gloriously dumb
From the blog
All postsThe Commodore Callback and the great flip-phone revival
Commodore is bringing back the flip phone — a de-Googled, social-media-blocking, SID-ringtone-singing Callback 8020 — and the excitement around it says something bigger about where we're all quietly headed: back to classic flip.
Why I built dumbsms in Rust and iced, not Swift
I'm on a Mac, so Swift was the obvious choice. I picked Rust and iced instead — because the people who carry a flip phone are just as likely to be on Windows or Linux, and I wanted one small, fast, native app instead of a browser in a trench coat.
Before dumbsms, I tried DIGITS
When I went flip-phone-first on T-Mobile, DIGITS looked like the perfect fit: read and send my texts from a real keyboard. It didn't quite get there for me — but trying it taught me exactly what I wanted, and that turned into dumbsms.
// the hardware
Want a dumb phone of your own?
These are the two flip phones I have actually used with dumbsms. Both are 4G LTE and keep the SIM and the cell connection on the phone — exactly what dumbsms expects.
TCL FLIP Go
4G LTE · the easy pick
A clean, lightweight clamshell with dual displays and a big tactile keypad. The simplest way to get going — widely available and cheap.
Buy the TCL FLIP Go ↗Sonim XP3plus
4G LTE · the rugged pick
An ultra-rugged, MIL-STD-810H, IP68 flip phone with a removable battery and physical push-to-talk keys. Built to survive being dropped, soaked, and dusted.
Buy the Sonim XP3plus ↗// ease into it
Not ready to go cold turkey?
If a flip phone feels like too big a leap, Noble Mobile lets you ease into dumb-phone life on the smartphone you already have. It's a $50/month unlimited plan on T-Mobile's network that pays you cash back for the data you don't use — up to $20 a month, growing at 5.5% a year. The less you scroll, the more you earn, so you can wean yourself off data on your own schedule before committing to a flip phone.