// hello

I'm E2.

Dad of two. Former engineer. Flip-phone evangelist. And the human who points at things while AI robots build them.

The short version

In December 2024 I noticed my one-year-old reaching for my phone — presumably because he saw me on it constantly. That was the wake-up call. I upgraded from an iPhone 13 Mini to a 1990s-style flip phone and never looked back.

The only thing I missed was being able to text for work without fighting T9. So I built dumbsms: the dumb phone keeps the SIM and the signal, and my Mac becomes the keyboard. Texts, pictures, and group threads — typed like a human.

About the "built" part

I used to be an engineer, and I'm still tech-savvy enough to know what I'm looking at. But this project is nearly 100% AI-developed. I bring the taste, the constraints, and a real flip phone to test on; the AI writes the code. I review, run it on hardware, and push back when something's off.

It's a funny symmetry: I went to a dumb phone to spend less time staring at screens, and used smart tools to automate away the boring parts of building the bridge back to typing. The phone stays dumb. The tooling got smart.

The principles

  • The phone is the source of truth — the computer is just a nicer window.
  • No cloud, no account, no telemetry. Local-only.
  • Nothing puts a distracting feed back in my pocket.
  • It's a hobby, not a startup. No roadmap.

How I got here

  1. Dec 2024 Traded an iPhone 13 Mini for a 1990s-style flip phone. Never looked back.
  2. The problem Loved everything about the flip — except answering work texts on a T9 keypad.
  3. The build Started dumbsms: type on the computer, send from the flip. Mostly written by AI.
  4. Now Two kids, zero smartphones, and texts I can actually type without T9 frustration.

Curious about going dumb?

I'm not affiliated, just a fan: Noble Mobile makes the jump to a dumb phone even better with a giant data rebate. If this site talked you into it, start there.

Visit Noble Mobile ↗