My guest today is Joe Hollier. Joe (along with Kaiwei Tang) is the co-founder of a Brooklyn-based start-up called Light Phone. Light Phone is an exciting company that recently raised $1.6 million on Indiegogo.
The Light phone is a very small, simple phone that you can use as a secondary phone during those times when you don't want to be distracted by your smartphone. It basically just makes and receives calls using the regular number your use for your smartphone.
Light Phone is trying to solve an important problem.
It's become increasingly clear in recent years that many smartphone apps are designed to be as addictive as possible. The addictive nature of these apps makes it hard for many people to put their smartphones down.
Smartphones also mean that we're on call 24/7. Sometimes it's nice to get away from email and social media and live in the real world without interruption.
Light Phone is like an extension of your smartphone. It makes and receives phone calls (and soon will be able to send and receive texts). That's it. When you leave your smartphone behind, any important calls you get on your regular number are routed to your Light Phone.
That way you can escape the distractions of the smartphone but still have the peace of mind that you can be reached if necessary, or can make a call in case of emergency.
I know some people will think this is crazy--why would we want to go backwards?
I would have said the same thing a couple years ago. What changed for me was when my smartphone was stolen in October 2016. As an experiment, I decided to try living for a week or two with an old flip phone.
I quickly discovered that not having a smartphone on me had a noticeably positive impact on my relationships, my productivity, my sleep quality, and my anxiety level. I then decided to make my switch to a flip phone permanent.
Finally, the podcast now has a website! Check us out at http://www.roygermano.com for more about my guests and recommended reading to learn more about the topics we discuss on the show.