I’m not looking for tech specs, or the obvious LP3 has a camera, etc. etc.
From people who have transitioned from addiction on smart phones, AND used BOTH the LP2 and LP3, if you had to do it again, would you stick with the LP2 or LP3?
Do both work on Mint mobile as well in the US?
Thanks!
I know people are going to lose their minds over this but I would love a simple brick breaker game using the brightness wheel.
The light phone has been life changing for me, my screen time is basically down to minutes a day but I simply cannot get over having to stare at the wall while taking a shit.
Thank you for your time
Looks like some of you already found it! It's being used in the SDK now and should be the default keyboard in LightOS in a not-so-distant release.
Code is up here:
https://github.com/lightphone/light-keyboard
I've been using a Mudita Kompact for about 2 years. The screen is cracked and the daily checking to see if I have a voicemail has gotten to be too much so last fall I ordered a LightPhone 2. I finally received it yesterday. I made a short call to my son to let him know I got the phone, and it overheated. Like my hand, cheek, and ear were hot for a long time after we hung up.
I sent an email to Light's customer service asking if I can send it in for repair or replacement and I have gotten no fewer that 6 emails from them reminding me of how important it is to remove group chat from my iphone and how they hope that helps. No. It does not help.
I do not have an iphone.
I have never group chatted.
I just want a return label and a replacement phone that works.
The 6th email from them now states they are open Mon-Fri, but closed on Thursday for the holidays which means they will no doubt send me several more emails over their 3 day weekend, detailing how to move the chats and texts but they will continue to ignore my short and to the point email asking for a return label due to them sending me a defective phone.
I'm getting another Mudita.
Can we please have the e option to import kindle books to our lp3
Hi everyone!
I hope this is OK to share! I'm a freelance writer and I work with a website called Thingtesting. This week I wrote about the practicalities of switching to a dumbphone, good friction vs bad friction, and how the makers of dumbphones think about these challenges for consumers.
I was inspired by my own journey a while ago considering a dumbphone, but then realising things like, I didn't have an mp3 collection I could listen to any more because I was so used to Spotify, or that my friends would probably not remember to SMS me, meaning I'd miss out on valuable meet up logistics/gossip.
I spoke to people at Dumb Co and Light Phone for this, as well as a parent who has been back and forth on dumbphones herself.
I thought some people here might be interested. :) You can read the story here: https://thingtesting.com/stories/dumbphones-vs-smartphones
Yesterday I got a bit frustrated with the passes tool by the amazing Vandam, so I decided to build my own version from scratch. Full credit to the original, it's what made me realize this was possible on the LP3 at all. No code is shared between the two, this is a complete rewrite.
I call it Paka (Latvian for "package"). It ended up ~70% smaller in file size than the original, and scanning is noticeably faster and more accurate.
What it does:
I tried to stay true to the Light design principles: minimal UI, no clutter, nothing fighting for your attention.
Working on for the next release: adding PDFs as passes (sort of), think tickets or documents you just need to show somewhere.
I built it with the help of AI coding tools, but every design decision and a lot of testing on the actual device is mine. Install is via ADB sideloading. It's open source and free: https://github.com/janovsk1s/paka
Let me know what you think, whether there are changes you'd want, and if it's any use at all. Issues and PRs welcome.
What is everyone most excited to build or excited to have built?
Here are my thoughts on the Light Phone 3 after about three months of using it. I'll go through the main tools and features, rate each one, and explain why. These are just my subjective opinions based on my own experience.
I absolutely love how this phone looks and feels. The industrial design is fantastic—it's sleek, compact, and just looks cool. Definitely one of my favorite aspects of the phone.
I'm on T-Mobile, and thankfully I haven't experienced any of the texting issues that a lot of people here have reported. As far as I know, I haven't missed any calls or texts.
I have noticed, however, that the cellular reception seems weaker than it was on my iPhone. I now have a few dead spots around my house where calls occasionally drop. It's not a huge issue, but it's noticeable. I also found that places like airport parking garages leave me with very poor signal, whereas my iPhone had no problem in those same locations.
Everything has worked flawlessly for me. No complaints.
This one has been a major disappointment.
I rent cars frequently for work and usually connect my phone directly to the vehicle via USB-C so it charges while I listen to music or podcasts. The Light Phone 3 simply doesn't work this way.
Every car I've tried displays some variation of:
>
I'd really love to see this fixed because wired Android Auto/USB audio compatibility would make a huge difference for me.
Texting is by far the most frustrating part of using this phone.
Compared to an iPhone, it's clunky and unpleasant. I constantly mistype words, and the lack of autocorrect makes that even more frustrating. The misspelled-word underline is helpful, but tapping the underlined word to correct it only works about half the time for me.
Overall, the keyboard just doesn't feel well optimized. The ergonomics feel off, and typing never becomes comfortable.
In my opinion, making texting smooth and enjoyable should be the Light Phone team's #1 priority. Since texting is one of the primary things people do on this phone, it should feel as polished as possible.
Works well, but I'd like more scheduling options.
For example, it should allow recurring alarms on specific days (Monday–Friday, weekends, etc.) instead of only "one-time" or "every day."
Almost perfect.
The app works really well. My only suggestion would be adding some kind of discovery feature to help find new podcasts. It's definitely not essential, but it would be a nice addition.
The Notes app itself is solid, but typing holds it back.
I'd love some basic formatting features like:
Nothing fancy—just a few quality-of-life improvements.
Overall, it's a good calendar app.
Google Calendar syncing works great, which is a huge plus.
My biggest wish would be the ability to invite or tag people when creating an event. Right now I still have to open my laptop if I want to share an event with someone.
The few times I've needed navigation, it hasn't worked very well.
It feels like the phone struggles to get a reliable GPS lock. I don't know exactly what's happening behind the scenes, but my wife's iPhone seems to find directions instantly from almost anywhere.
Maybe it's better in cities, but I've mainly needed it while traveling in unfamiliar areas, and unfortunately it's been a letdown every time.
It's... fine.
I'd compare the image quality to something like an iPhone 6. Photography isn't important to me, so this isn't a dealbreaker, but considering this is a $700 phone released in 2026, I expected a little more.
One feature I'd absolutely love is a black-and-white photo mode. It feels like it would fit the Light Phone philosophy perfectly.
I haven't really used the Music app yet.
I haven't gotten around to downloading MP3s, and honestly it feels like a throwback to the LimeWire/uTorrent days. I'm not sure I'll end up using it much.
Having Spotify—or even a simple streaming music option—would dramatically increase the value of this phone for me. I know that's probably not the direction Light wants to go, but it's the one feature I'd genuinely miss.
-------------------------------------------
Those are all the features I've used so far.
Overall, I'm genuinely happy I bought the Light Phone because it accomplished exactly what I wanted: I stopped mindlessly scrolling on my phone. In that sense, it has been a success.
That said, I really wish the overall user experience were more refined—especially when it comes to typing. There aren't that many things you can do on this phone, so the core experiences should feel excellent. Right now, texting is frustrating enough that I sometimes avoid using the phone simply because it's unpleasant.
Ironically, I guess that also helps reduce phone use... just not quite in the way I imagined.
I would love it if they made a special edition in black over brass
With the coming SDK, we might be thinking about what we really do need on our dumbphone for it to replace our smartphone out and about, or at home even.
Where do we draw the line between what a dumbphone should be able to do and what not? Do I really need Teams, and if so, should it have the full functionality? The latter probably not, but the former?
So I was thinking with the example of emails, how a dumb mailclient should look like:
You open the tool, and there is the almost only text:
No important emails.
How refreshing, if I think about how many emails do spam me every. Day. But now I am assured, I got zero mails to really give a fuck about. But what if I do care? Then I can decide and click on the second sentence underneath:
Add keywords.
With keywords I only get what I really expect and want to read wherever I am. And when I do not expect nothing and want to give absolutely zero fucks again, I can click on the third sentence, the last UI element:
Remove all 3 keywords.
How refreshing, to commit to giving zero fucks. That's it!
Recorded on the superior (AND CHEAPER) TCL Flip Phone
Thought I'd write a short appreciation post for the LPII after owning it for 3 years.
I've had my Light Phone II for nearly 3 years now, with these last 6 months being on it full-time. Now without a smartphone of any kind, it definitely has been more freeing not having to rely on the addiction machine.
There has been ups and downs and workarounds, but overall the experience has been smooth. The e-ink display is perfect, the size is great for me, and since I don't use my phone for much anyways, it has all the features I need.
After watching Perfect Days last year, it inspired me to be more intentional about my tech use and to live a more present, simple life.
I do plan on buying a Light Phone III later this year once I'm in a better spot financially, but for now, the LPII is perfect for me.
I'd love to hear your stories if you're still rocking the LP2 or use a LP3 and what made you switch?
Thank you, Light Team! Cheers!
Finally pulled the trigger and ordered a light gray North American LPII. Can’t wait for shipping in a few weeks! Thanks for sharing your experiences in this thread. It’s helped me make this decision. I’ve been de-centering my smart phone for over a year by getting single use tech and I finally took the plunge.
Looking for some info here. I've been using LP3 for a couple of months and have no issues with the cell service. SMS/Calls come through normal.
T-Mobile decided to raise my plan price for the second time this year and I'm done with it. I'm considering Mint for a new carrier, and I intend to keep my number.
Any insights are appreciated!
one of my favorite apps is Radio Garden where you type the city or area and you listen to all local radio stations. You can add them in your favorites for quick access.
I thought this would be a cool idea for a light phone tool since cannot have spotify yet, radio should be relatively easier to do.
(Long time lurker, made a new account today just to post this)
I've been using the LPIII as my daily since mid-February, and I loooove it. There are just a few persistent nags I have. I actually sent the below directly to Light and they kindly responded, but wanted to share my thoughts with the community to see if anyone else had these issues/wishes:
1. I want to be able to mark texts as "unread."
The whole reason I switched to LPIII was to loosen my iPhone's grip on my daily life—but ultimately, I'm finding the simple lack of an unread option routinely pulls me out of the moment more than my stripped-down iPhone did. I have fairly severe ADHD, and once the unread asterisk disappears from a thread, the message is effectively gone from my memory. So when a text comes in while I'm driving or otherwise can't reply, I feel like I have to respond right then or risk dropping the ball on someone entirely. This alone has created real texting anxiety I never had before, which seems antithetical to the whole Light thing. More seriously, I catch myself replying while driving or interrupting a real person in real time to fire off a text response I can't confidently save for later. On my iPhone I'd just mark the thread unread and come back when I had a moment. An unread toggle would directly serve LPIII's goal of staying present, and I'd imagine it'd be a relatively small addition??
2. I want to be able to paste a phone number directly into the number pad when creating a contact from scratch.
Frequently my wife or business partner will text me someone else's # that I don't yet have saved. But when you create a new contact from scratch, you just get a dial pad as the starting point, and you can't paste into it. So I'm having to write down the number my wife just shared with me, then go into my contacts and enter the number into the number pad all just to get a new contact card going. this feels a little too back to basics, and for what reason? I would love to either be able to paste into the number pad, or for the "Create New Contact" workflow (i.e. hitting the "+" button in Contacts tool) to simply always begin with a full, blank contact card rather than just the dial pad.
3. Please add a % button to the Calculator. I know I should be able to do percentage calculations in my head with ease, but alas I cannot. A percent key occurs to me as a very quick addition, and one that wouldn't go against the Light ethos or anything. Right??
4. (Bonus I forgot to send to Light) Please add an SMS character limit counter when composing a text.
If we're stuck with SMS for now, can we at least get a character count on the compose screen so I know where to stop? I have routinely accidentally sent a text that is just a littttttle too long, and find out later (or never find out!) that it did not successfully make it to the recipient. Ironically, these are typically the more important-ish texts one might send... Isn't the SMS character limit like 170 or something? Just a little "24/170" sort of thing in the upper right corner would allow me to sleep better at night.
All the above aside, I am very happy with the LPIII and this company as a whole. Just hoping for a few of these hopefully-easy sanity fixes.