TL;DR
Thanks to careful sideloading, the wonderful community building for e-ink, and judicious use of ADB commands, the MK is the daily-driver dumbphone that has finally brought me back into a happy and productive relationship with technology, and my own time. I do recommend it to others, with the huge caveat that its a tinkerer’s phone and will not be everything you want right out of the box.
Long Version
Hello Dumb Phone people!
Like many of you curious about dumbphones, I had felt like I was spending way too much time doomscrolling on my phone, and didn’t like what it was doing to my free time, productivity at work, and relationships with fellow humans.
I took the plunge on the MK because (1) I love e-ink and knew that alone would stop scrolling for video content and (2) it appeared to have the flexibility to let me design the perfect experience for my needs. After some tinkering I love the MK as my daily driver; I am better, happier, more productive, and more present. Honestly it has been transformational. I still have the familiar pull of the smartphone – i pull it out and look at it when I wake up in the morning, when I’m bored at work, when the conversation stalls. But then I pretty much immediately put it away because there is nothing to get lost in, and I find the pull lessening over time.
Here is how I set up my MK, organized by what I needed, didn’t want, and was willing to give up, in case it helps others:
What I need to have:
- Reliable Calls
- Built in MK call function is fine, but for the opaque voicemail system (see below).
- Reliable Messaging
- InkMessage, with duraspeed disabled seems to be perfect for this device, much more pleasant and useful than the stock app. I did go through the whole RCS ordeal, but 30 days after deactivating via the google portal I started receiving MMS properly and its been smooth sailing ever since. (more details here: https://www.reddit.com/r/MuditaKompakt/comments/1q4x3po/group_chats_finally_working_on_my_mudita_after_30/)
- Whatsapp, sideloaded and using InkOS for notifications. Works great for calls, texts and even video calls. No issues. I have sideloaded Signal in the same way, but don’t use it enough to attest to its functionality.
- Alarms
- Stock app works fine.
- Music (Streaming and local files)
- Qobuz for streaming, wish they had a more e-ink optimized skin but its good enough and I can use all of its functionalities.
- Poweramp for local files, ditto re: e-ink optimized skins, but it organizes music files much nicer than the stock app.
- Podcasts
- CalmCast has been great
- Photos
- Stock app is at least functional enough to share information like ‘Is this the brand of cereal you want?’.
- Password Manager / Authenticator App
- Bitwarden/Bitwarden Authenticator both available through Obtainium
- Synced Calendar with family
- Etar calendar synced used DAVx5. No issues, especially after disabling duraspeed.
- Synced Notes/Lists with family
- Simplenote
- Maps and Navigation
- Organic Maps has been the best I’ve found so far, and its functional. Would prefer something better if anyone has a recommendation – I need both the ability to look up locations and get live turn-by-turn.
- Strong Hotspot (Often need for work)
- Built into Stock MK; works great.
What is really nice to have:
- InkOS
- I cannot say enough good things about this launcher. Makes notifications so much better, makes app management and hiding ‘bad pattern’ or infrequently used apps so much better, and just LOOKS GOOD making the MK experience cute and fun. 10/10 send this guy a coffee: GitHub - gezimos/inkOS: Text based & E-ink friendly Android Launcher
- Libby
- App is a smidge slow on the MK, but I can browse, reserve, and read books from my library all in e-ink! Replaces a lot of what would previously have been doomscrolling time and I love it.
- Ente Photos
- Free cloud photo service that syncs my on-device photos so I can access and share them from computer.
What I was willing to sacrifice:
- Banking Apps
- I bank from my laptop now. This includes Venmo. I have to write down the amount I owe and venmo people when I get home. Its fine.
- NFC Payment / Transit NFC
- I have to run with my wallet now. Luckily I already had a preference for a very small wallet. I highly recommend the Airo Stealth Leather. I have also heard GarminPay may be an answer for folks who need this.
- Ability to scan QR codes or look things up anytime
- If there’s a QR code at a restaurant, I have to be the annoying patron who tells the server I can’t use it. Life goes on.
- If I want to look something up, I put it in my notes app. 99% of the time, I do not look it up later and do not care.
- Battery life
- Stock MK can last like 4 days, mine does not. Probably because all of the sideloading and disabling duraspeed. I don’t have a problem with charging my phone at night, and even as is, it lasts about 2 days.
- Rideshare Apps
- I don’t use these very often, maybe a couple times a month. My solution so far has been to bring my old smartphone and connect it to my MK via hotspot if I need to do it. Its a little annoying. One could also go back to the old ways of literally calling a cab. Mostly its just made me use public transit more, which is also fine.
What I expressly did not want:
- Email
- I now check my personal email about once a day on my laptop. My work email I am looking at constantly on my work computer anyway.
- Browser
- My particular vice was reddit and wikipedia rabbit holes and no amount of smart timers or ‘take a deep breath’ was stopping me. So I choose to have no browser at all. I actually had the native webview disabled for a while, but it prevented some of my sideloaded apps from working, but there’s no entrypoint for the browser on the phone (InkOS again!) so I cannot and do not use it.
- Slack-like forums (e.g. Slack, Discord, Teams, etc)
- I love discord for its community organizing functions, but I was kind of treating it like scrollable social media content, so I do it on the computer now.
- Any scrollable content (reddit, youtube, tiktok, nyt. . .)
- I still look at these things on the computer, but its way less immersive and I can’t do it while out of the house which has been huge.
- Games
- I’m sure there are some cool games that would work on the MK, but I would not like to know about them, thanks
What Must Come Soon - These are annoyances that I can live with for now, but not forever.
- Better notification customization (See my complete complaint here: https://www.reddit.com/r/MuditaKompakt/comments/1qnn11e/customize_notification_options/). It is very frustrating to not be able to differentiate notifications between calls and everything else.
- Better voicemail notification and access (Well documented annoyance, apparently coming soon to MK)
Future Wishlist (hardware and software):
- Physical blackberry-like keyboard. Definitely a little jealous of the Clicks Communicator, although I don’t want to go back to a non-e-ink screen. Typing on the MK is perfectly fine once you get used to it (I probably still have a few more typos than on my previous phone, because the screen is smaller and the visual lag), but since communicating via text is the main thing I use this for, i would sacrifice half the screen and/or accept a slightly larger device for a tactile experience.
- Better task manager. Because i disabled duraspeed, I need to manually end apps when I’m not using them. Its technically possible from the menu, but a faster way to identify which apps were running would make this way nicer.
- Auto-focuser for photos. The camera itself is pretty reasonable and can take decent photos, but the e-ink display makes it really difficult to tell if a shot is focused. I have played around with some other camera apps, but haven’t really found one that does this well. If you found one, please tell me!
One last thought for general dumbphone discourse – I needed the MK to push me off the ledge and learn to swim, but now that I’ve made all these sacrifices and changed my relationship with the phone I actually think you don’t need a specialized device to do it. Outside of the e-ink screen and small form factor (both of which i do love), you could root and set up any android smartphone as I have set up my MK and get most of the benefits.
(Reproduced from my reddit post for further reach and hopefully Mudita Eyes on the must-haves and wishlist)
