// 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.
Get started- ✓ Send & receive SMS from your keyboard
- ✓ Picture messages (MMS) that auto-resize
- ✓ True group threads
- ✓ Works over USB
- ✓ 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.
The one thing I missed was typing
I could live without the apps, the feed, and the camera. What I couldn't live with was T9 for work texts. So I built dumbsms.
Why I traded my iPhone for a flip phone
A one-year-old reaching for my phone was all the warning I needed. In December 2024 I downgraded an iPhone 13 Mini to a 1990s-style flip. Here's why.
// 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. Slow link, though: roughly 10× slower than the Sonim moving data, especially over Bluetooth (~1.2 K/s vs ~15 K/s). First syncs and photo pulls take longer.
Buy the TCL FLIP Go ↗ Setup guideSonim 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. Also the faster pick for dumbsms — about 10× the TCL over Bluetooth (~15 K/s vs ~1.2 K/s).
Buy the Sonim XP3plus ↗ Setup guide// 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.