Been using my Kompakt for a month, and I have thoughts!

xlillianx · September 11, 2026, 8:31pm

What’s up, nerds! (affectionate)

Long time lurker, first time poster. Literally created this account today, but I’ve been on the forums almost every day since I got my Kompakt like a month ago. I’ve seen people complaining, I’ve seen people lauding, I’ve seen people just kinda be like “eh, whatever" and I’ve seen people make incredible apps for the device, and the people who use them, some of which I use myself every day. I just wanted to share my thoughts about this little thing and maybe people will resonate with them or maybe they’ll tell me to stop rambling but that in that case you can literally just click to a different topic and I can keep on typing!

A little about me and my steps to the Kompakt. You don’t have to agree with everything I say but I do hope it provides some insight:

First off, I fuckin hate big tech, y’all. Like detest on a political, philosophical, and spiritual level. The attention economy is quite literally capturing the thing that makes us us, our cognition, our desires, our communities, our capacity for compassion, and steals it away to sell to other companies or back to ourselves. Unfortunately, I would argue that we already live in a transhumanist present in American cities, wherein a person without a smart phone is disabled, at least in a sociopolitical definition of the term. A building that can only be opened by a NFC reader on the back of a phone or a QR code may as well have taken the ADA accessible entrance away for anyone who uses a wheelchair. This is nothing new, in America we live in capitalism, and I’m used to the system demanding that I give money to someone else in order to live or exist in three-dimensional space (my landlord, my utility company, gas and car companies, etc.). I fuckin’ hate that too. I only mention this because I wanted to give a clear picture as to what led me to seek out dumbphones.

Given that I personally do not have the knowledge or manufacturing capacity to build my own phone (nor do I know someone that does), I had to turn to purchasing such a device. Unable to convince all my friends to get a Baofeng UV-5r, I started with a Sonim XP3, and I used that for about a year. I told myself it was simply for a “social media detox.”

I had to change some things, but given my general proclivities, I already was living my life in a way that lessened my reliance on smart devices. I never put my debit card on a phone, I’ve been living in my city for ten years so I knew how to navigate driving and public transit, I don’t usually share memes nor am I involved in any “social” group chats. I’m notoriously bad at texting in the first place, so a number of my friends just knew to call me if they needed something.

And I liked it! It was awesome! I could load as much music as I wanted via the microsd, calls were loud and clear, it was built like a tank and I would demonstrate its robustness for friends by chucking it across the room often. I even used it as a hammer a couple times. I still have it, it still works, and it will be my backup in case anything happens to my current phone.

After a year, I thought I was ready for a smart phone again, just parsed down to my needs. I missed maps, and I needed access to social media again for some bands I was in (since booking shows only really happens on instagram anymore xP). I got a Motorola Razr+, and I liked that too. The folding form factor was familiar, and I used the screen on the front more often than not, which saved battery and kept me from scrolling. Unfortunately it just gave me a second screen to break. Finally it became unusable, the crease on the interior started cracking too until the whole screen was fucked, providing ghost touches, and leaving me unable to use it, which was awesome sine I was in an unfamiliar city and needed access to email for the train tickets home. I’m good with directions, from years of hitch-hiking and getting myself to just read maps instead of relying on step-by-step instructions to navigate. I was able to print out the tickets at a library, and navigate Chicago’s public transportation network by reading system maps to get me to where I needed to go for two days, and even link up with friends, all without a phone. When I got home, I popped my SIM back into the Sonim, and used that for another year, until a friend offered me her old iphone 11.

That iphone sucked, man. I only said yes because my old employer had forgotten to rescind the bus pass they gave me as part of my employment, and I was able to ride public transportation for free for like six months lol (don’t tell anybody!). but holy shit, the doomscroll came back in full force. eventually my old employer cut off the bus pass, and i no longer needed the iphone for its specific use case, but i still found myself scrolling for half an hour the first thing when I woke up. So, deciding enough is enough, I sought out something different.

I say all this because I want to demonstrate my relationship and approach to technology. I seek not to use it as an extension of my self, but as a tool to assist me in interacting with an increasingly technological world. I still work on the skills I need to exist without a phone, such as navigation, social connection, and information. I already have a general use computer at home, I don’t need my phone to be yet another one for me. I can use that computer to do my online banking, to use maps if I really need specific directions, to look up information. I don’t need to game on it, I have a little handheld emulator for that. I don’t use streaming apps, I download from bandcamp or I go see a show at the local dive bar and pick up a CD from the touring band to rip it to my computer. I just need a phone to do a couple of specific things for me:

Be de-fucking-googled!
Make and receive calls and texts
Play my local music files
Have maps to navigate with
A camera to take pictures
A way to look up information if I really need it, or if I’m curious
Signal access (this one isn’t necessary but it would be nice)

And in that, the Kompakt is perfect for my use case. And then some! I did my research for a month or two before deciding to pull the trigger, as I like to actually know what I’m getting into before making a purchase. After a few ebay bidding fails, I picked one up off the Outlet section on the website for way cheaper than any of the ebay listings. and you know what? $288 seems like a decent price to pay for this device! I do get people wanting a bit more from a device that costs $400, but I also don’t get people wanting a $1,000 smartphone experience from a sub $500 device. The friction and the limitations are the point. If you’re so confused about why the kompakt exists, maybe read a bit about desirable difficulty or cognitive offloading. These concepts inform my approach to this device, and in fact the technology I use in general. I want things to be more difficult for myself, because a) I’m learning how to overcome that obstacle until it simply ceases to be one and b) i don’t think that I want to allow a corporation to literally engineer the way that I move about the world or conceive of how to solve my problems. Convenience exists on a spectrum opposite of control. And holy shit do I want to be able to control the things I own right about now.

The ability to side-load apps via mudita center is awesome. The only things I’ve sideloaded are signal, Transito, Wikireader, QR (thanks jacob!!), CalmMusic (thanks David!!), and the Katapult launcher (thanks Gezimos!!). I love the ability to customize my home screen and screensaver in Katapult, and CalmMusic is exactly what I need from a music player. I chose the Kompakt for its ability to play damn near every music file I have, and the headphone jack was a must. Wikireader is a wikipedia client, and I just use that to look up any information or fact that I can think of on the fly. Transito is complicated to set up, but I love being able to look up bus times for every single bus stop in my city with info stored locally on the kompakt. The camera is exactly what I need it to be to take quick shots of something interesting. If i need fancy pictures I’ll use my DSLR. The offline maps is great, I’m getting used to figuring out addresses, but even Transito has a POI field when you use it in online mode so I can just get the address from whatever i look up and plug it into the local maps app! I’ve never used an e-reader before, just real books, so i can’t comment on its function in that regard without a similar e-paper experience to compare it to, but I am really enjoying the noticeable lack of eye-strain. Chess is awesome, and the offline+ switch is so fucking cool. I also love the lack of front-facing camera, makes me so much less paranoid.

now, some not so great stuff. I’m losing my hearing from decades of punk shows (wear earplugs, kids!!) and so I do wish the ear speaker was just a bit louder. That said, I can use my headphones for calls in public, since I’ll usually be listening to music when I’m out anyway, or speakerphone when I’m at home, so I’m not too plussed.

SMS is a different story. I’ve only been able to receive texts from like two people with iphones since I migrated my SIM card over, and group chats are only working sporadically. I did remove my number from imessage via apple’s self-help page, as well as remove myself from google’s rcs shat service, but I’m still having issues with this. Unsure of what the fix is, but i’ve told everyone to call me if they need me. That said, I am unironically loving not getting texts from my work group chat. if it’s important, they’ll call lol. I am dealing with this issue as best I can, but in the interest of not staring at my phone so much, it’s not high on my priority list, though I can see how it can be for others.

I do have a few questions about things coming on the horizon, such as Mudita’s responses to California and colorado’s laws about Age-Verification at the OS level (haha yeah), and Google’s walling off of independent APK developers next year, but I can ask those topics in their own dedicated threads, to keep any responses to those questions focused.

I really like this device for what I’m using it for. And even with that, I am not building an identity off of this. While not indicative of everyone using a Kompakt, I do see some camps being built in the forums of the Kompakt vs the Light Phone that is reminiscent of the Apple vs PC Brand As Identity nonsense. At the end of the day, Mudita is not a technology company. It is a lifestyle company, and what they are selling are products within the niche of commodity meditation and mindfulness. And while they have some tech products, I do not expect them to behave like a technology company. This perspective informs my opinions on how I engage with the device, the forums, and the community at large. Truly Mudita finds themselves in the unenviable position of selling you a product that wants you to interact with it as little as possible, and any expectations I have of this thing are built off of that understanding. I think the Kompakt is a good enough idea that I spent some real money on one, but only as little as I could for what it is. The intersection of Expensive Lifestyle Brand and Technology and Purposefully Inconvenient Device is of course going to ruffle some feathers. I also absolutely understand the frustration of the initial rollout, and users being treated like unpaid beta-testers. But with that, personally, I think this rules for the price I got it for, at the point in time I got it, in large part because of the people who care about it enough to develop for it, and I’m gonna keep using it until it breaks. I’m excited to interact with the other people who use this device like I do, and see how far we can take this thing.

Thanks for coming to my TED talk lmao

ploum · September 11, 2026, 9:00pm

Very nice read, thanks for that!

You may appreciate my blog post:

I feel particularly targeted by your experience of doomscrolling as soon as you had an iphone. I fee similarly. Like AA people, we need to accept that we will stay addicts till the end of our life. There’s no cure other than just not doing it.

Also, what’s even more frightening is that I believe that nearly everybody is an addict to smartphones now. There are just those who understand that, seeing as a problem, and the vast majority which simply don’t understand it is a problem. (and, honestly, I cannot blame them: when you have a very hard life, I understand the need to just connect to something that makes all your problem disappear. Maybe digital detox is a “rich-guy problem”.

Thanks for sharing this!

YYZ · September 12, 2026, 2:01pm

I see you’re a real rebel and I love it

In a crazy, control-obsessed world like this, it’s almost obligatory to go against the mainstream, for example by using a de-googled device like the Kompakt.

urszula · September 14, 2026, 7:25pm

@xlillianx Thanks for the TED Talk. I stayed until the end and didn’t click over to another topic.

In all seriousness, thank you for taking the time to explain not only how you use your Mudita Kompakt, but also the philosophy that led you to it. Your distinction between technology as an extension of ourselves and technology as a tool is particularly interesting. This is exactly the point we were making at IFA Berlin this year.
It also sounds like you approached the purchase with a clear understanding of what you wanted from the device, what you were willing to adjust, and which limitations were actually part of the appeal. This is great because sometimes we do hear about people expecting the phone to change their life without experiencing any friction. Those cases are the toughest for me, personally.

We’re glad Mudita Kompakt has found a place in that setup, and that Offline+, local music, offline maps, the headphone jack, and the lack of a front-facing camera are serving you well. It’s also wonderful to see community-created tools & apps are becoming part of your everyday experience (I love many of them too). Our developer community continues to impress all of us at Mudita.

That said, receiving messages from only two iPhone users and having group conversations work sporadically is not something we would simply dismiss as “desirable difficulty.” You have already taken two important steps by deregistering your number from iMessage and turning off RCS, but there may still be several factors involved, including carrier provisioning, APN or MMS settings, mobile data access, or old conversation threads that remain associated with iMessage or RCS.

Even if texting is not currently high on your priority list, we would encourage you to contact our Customer Support team and provide logs so they can investigate what is happening behind the scenes. “If it’s important, they’ll call” is certainly one way to reclaim some peace, but we would still like your phone to receive the messages that it’s supposed to receive. Please also mention the earpiece volume when contacting them, particularly given your hearing needs. You may also want to try Volume+, which is a utility that was created by our very own @chadp

As for the broader characterization of Mudita, we understand why you see a lifestyle dimension to what we do. Mindfulness and intentional living are central to our work. At the same time, we do develop hardware and software, so we also recognize the responsibility that comes with being a technology company. The early experience was not as polished as it should have been for some users, and we understand why that left people feeling frustrated. Community developers have added tremendous value to Mudita Kompakt, but that doen;t remove our responsibility to continue improving the core device and operating system.

Please do create separate topics about OS-level age verification and the changing Android APK ecosystem. Both deserve focused conversations, and we would be interested to hear the communities perspective.

Thanks again for joining the forum, for supporting the community developers whose work you use, and for giving Mudita Kompakt such a thoughtful evaluation. We hope it continues to be the useful, deliberately limited tool you were looking for, right up until the day you finally manage to use it as a hammer. Although, for the record, we strongly recommend keeping the Sonim for that.

xlillianx · September 15, 2026, 7:44pm

Thank you for sharing your posts! As someone who has been sober from alcohol addiction for the last year and half, I find the use of the term addict both fascinating in its use and also apt, even as some may use it as shorthand for disparagement. I am an addict, I am just an addict who is not drinking right now (and with any luck, I never will!). I do not use the term with the weight of its usual connotations, for myself or others. The term simply describes the relationship to the substance, not necessarily the behavior that stems from its use. And to that, I think the description of “addiction” within the context of smartphone use fits. I think a much overlooked part of the discussion (and this is tying into harm reduction as part of addiction support as well), is the social and mechanical aspect.

The mechanical aspect is well researched, the way that social media companies and smart phone companies gamify our attention and response patterns, literally engineered to have us looking as much as possible at their screens to sell more ad space. It rewires the brain, is literally a chemical dependency. I would describe the anxiety and physical manifestations of that dependency of switching to a dumb phone (mindlessly reaching for the phone, FOMO to the point of panic, the pointless meandering around a dumbphone menu searching for dopamine hit those first few weeks) with the same language as I would describe chemical withdrawals. You can say it’s different, because alcohol or other substance withdrawals can kill you, but the chemical function of the brain is very much the same. It is worth talking about not within the context of “personal responsibility to not look at your phone” but in the framing of this being done to us by an outside influence. After all, there are alcoholics that function great within society on their chemical dependency, and others who do not.

Then, the social aspect. The thing that I didn’t realize about getting sober is how much of my friendships consisted of drinking. There’s a socially isolating part of kicking that specific thing, that motivates one to continue its use.
And the exact same thing happened when I got my first dumbphone. However many friendships consisted of sending memes to one-another, when that function was interrupted, so was the social bond. There’s a social reinforcement of alcohol use, as well as there is a social reinforcement of smartphone use, that I think an acknowledgement of expands the conversation about how much personal choice we really have in either of those things.

I’m neither rich nor a guy, but I’ve found that digital detox is a lot easier when you can’t afford the newest smartphone but can afford a $100 flip phone. The question is not of economics, but of support. I think about how addiction is not so much more prevalent in lower-income demographics, but is just more visible. The difference between a homeless man drinking himself to sleep on the street and a business man drinking till he passes out at a bar is how it looks to onlookers, and the connotations of the scene (and how expensive their drinks are).

Is a person who can’t afford a smartphone in the first place doing a digital detox? Is a person whose livelihood depends on them streaming online even able to do a digital detox if doing so imperils their rent? What is the invisible scaffolding that leads people to get pavlov’d into addiction? How much did the pandemic trauma-bond people en-mass to digital communication, and terrify us out of seeing each other in public settings? What is the economic impact of everyone stopping their smartphone use, and how does that motivate companies to ensure its continuation?

I feel these are questions worth asking, beyond a simple conception of personal responsibility. Not to say that is where you are coming from, but I do feel that so many people choose to frame it that way.

xlillianx · September 15, 2026, 7:49pm

Everyone go hop a freight train right now!! It’s good for you, I promise!!

xlillianx · September 15, 2026, 8:57pm

Omg thank you for the Volume+ recommendation! I just had a call today and was able to hear everything!

And thanks for reading the whole thing lol I think for me a big part of mindfulness is actually digging down into the why, not just the how. It seems sometimes that we live in a post-philosophical world, but it’s cool seeing people and even enterprises like Mudita begin to engage with the reasons why they do what they do. For that reason it makes sense why you’ve decided to embrace community development and feedback, instead of deciding wholesale what the experience will be and locking people into that. I think that’s awesome!

I’ll be submitting a ticket for the texting issues this week once I feel I’ve exhausted all possible avenues to fix it myself. I’m stubborn in that regard lol

And you can bet I will provide a thoughtful evaluation as to its ability to hammer once I get to it!

ploum · September 16, 2026, 3:13pm

Thanks a lot for that reaction. Over the years, I’ve received many complains from people who told me that “digital addiction was not an addiction” and that I had no idea what addiction truly was.

I always replied to those people: “what do you know about my life to tell me I don’t know what addiction is? And, no, I don’t use that term lightly”

Thanks again!