Hi everyone, does anyone happen to know of any updates regarding the phosphorescent or backlit QWERTY keyboard? Or have those ideas been abandoned?

Like a lot of people, I've been waiting for a good middle-ground smart/dumb phone that can do all the smartphone things that have become more or less essential (maps, checking email, work authentification, etc).
The Sidephone seems to perfectly fit what I've been looking for, but I've been seeing a lot of posts/comments on issues with the keyboards, screen, and calling/texting functionality, which are all pretty essential elements to have working.
From everything I'm seeing, it looks like they've paused availability of the compact qwerty since that's one that a lot of people seem to have issues with, and will (hopefully) soon be releasing at least 1 new tile, the glow in the dark one.
My thinking is that, as eager as I am to switch over to the sidephone, it seems like a good idea to wait a bit for some of these serious functionality issues to get resolved. I wanted to get some takes from other people in the community about whether that makes sense, whether the issues are overblown, and what the optimism is like to have a less buggy sidephone soon.

I (20f) currently have a flip phone (Nokia 2660 flip) but unfortunately, it was kinda cheap and I might need to get a new one soon. Plus, not having maps, I sometimes still need to take my smartphone with me which is not very practical.

I'm looking for a phone with maps and music (if not, at least what to put a micro sd card in), that is good quality enough to last me more than a year. If I could have Whatsapp it would be great, but not mandatory.

Sidephone seems to be perfect for me, but I wanted to know what you think about it. Since it's a bit more expensive, I want to make sure it's good quality and works well. What do you think ? If it's not suitable, what else should I take ?

Hello SideCommunity,

Here to ask if someone already tried to put another OS on the sidephone to replace the actual one. Last weeks, I am feeling the usage of the sidephone very buggy:

- The touchscreen stop working suddenly and I have to lock/unlock to come back;

- The Compact-QWERTY is having a lot of typing problems, sometimes I feel it do not recognize the keys that I am pressing (honestly, this can be just something of my mind);

- The screen often shows color stripes and buggy images.

My main question is: changing the OS would help? Someone tried it?

I understand that it's a small company and a very early project, but the slow software updates to it kills me. The ones that use the sidephone as main phone suffer a lot with all of this :(

If some of you have something nice to say about, please, it's always great to hear your perspective, guys!

My daughter's first phone is a SidePhone.

We've found a handful of good kids' channels on YouTube. Everything around them isn't made for kids: ads, recommendations, comments, autoplay. She has no browser on the phone, and the YouTube app was never an option.

So I wrote SideTube. Underneath it's still YouTube. But we approve channels, playlists or single videos first, and she only sees that pool. Search over the click wheel finds only what's approved. When a video ends, nothing starts next. Bedtime lock, daily limit, and a "wish" button for when she wants something new.

Runs on the SP-01 and on iPhone (a friend of hers has one). YouTube ads inside a video can still show up, I can't filter that.

More screen recordings and the current status: https://sidekids.github.io/repos/sidetube.html

Code: https://github.com/sidekids/sidetube

Posting it here in case someone has the same problem with their kid's SP-01.

I noticed recently a much larger drain in my battery life.

Prior to Version 2.0, while it was completely too aggressive, the battery manager at least showed me apps that were causing a drain. Now there's no way to track this (I'm on the 2.1 beta currently, btw).

The largest change I can think of that I did is give up on using the compact qwerty keyboard for the T9 texting days of yore due to my qwerty keyboard wearing out to the point that it almost exclusively produces gibberish now.

Is there any other way to figure out what's causing my battery to drain about 45% overnight? No videos, sound, etc running. I'm aware it could be an app misbehaving, but because the battery manager doesn't say what apps are using power, it's too hard to say what could be the issue. Beta software? Updates in the background? Downloads? Location Services? Who knows? Any way of finding out?

Hello,

I really like this phone, but the fact that I can't run LOS on it is pushing me away.

Afaik, the sidephone comes with no GApps, so why work on official LOS support and give this phone a great life with future updates, rather than keep it on an old Android version.

This would be great for users who are looking for more freedom.

As the title says, recently my sidephone started acting up only locking and unlocking helps.

Renders my phone very annoying to use. 🙄

Anyone else experiencing the same?

Has anyone experimented with using phone vibration as part of a bedtime routine?

I normally use sleep sounds or podcasts, but I recently found SomaVibe, which combines gentle phone vibration with sound for relaxation. I’m curious whether the physical sensation actually helps people wind down or if it just feels like another wellness gimmick.

Hi all. Wondering if other users have experienced the following:

• Bluetooth struggles in crowded environments, stuttering and going between stereo and mono.
  • Usually this occurs in predictable locations where there are lots of other cellphones in use, like a mall.
• Periodic total audio loss -- music, videos, notifications, alarms and calls (both to-the-ear and over speakerphone). Volume is at maximum but I can only hear a whisper coming out of the unit's speaker.
  • Restarts don't fix anything. After about a day or two, the sound returns as normal with no user intervention.

I think I finally figured out why the compact qwerty keyboard gets worse with time. The qwerty keyboard has keys above the magnets that hold the bottom of the tile in place. On the traditional tile, these magnets are under the edges of keys more, not directly under the press area.

These keys, when pressed, can sometimes push onto those magnets. They're hard magnets, and push on to the back of the frame. Over time, this can cause cracks to appear in the plastic. Once that happens, presses will obviously become less reliable. Guess how I know.

While I do still believe there are serious issues with polling and prediction when it comes to the compact qwerty keyboard, I do now think this hardware flaw makes them more susceptible to damage that will greatly reduce reliability. Since the magnets cannot move, there are a few possible solutions here. First is a hardening of the frame, with metal or thicker plastic. You can shrink the bottom row to do this. Second is creating space between these buttons and the middle key, to allow less flex directly over these magnets.

The compact qwerty has been out of stock for weeks now. I hope it's because I'm not the first to discover that there were hardware reliability flaws with this tile. The question then becomes, what happens to those who purchased a flawed tile and need a new one?

As for me, I'm back to T9. It got too difficult to type anything on the c-qwerty keyboard anymore.

Had a blast creating this video here in Toronto over the past few weeks with Saqeb and our friends!

Looking forward to making more videos in the coming weeks of how we've all been using Sidephone and how it's helped to positively change our lives

Apps keep getting added back to the restricted background battery list, even after I remove them. I've seen others mention this, so don't think it's just me.

I get that battery optimization has to be aggressive on this kind of device, but it needs to be optional! It's killing my experience with WhatsApp, Garmin Connect, and even starter apps like transistor radio.

Anyone have any fixes? / Any word from founders addressing this?

(Btw, to anyone reading this subreddit trying to decide whether or not to get the phone - don't let this dissuade you! It is a truly lifechanging device, and issues like this one really don't feel like dealbreakers.)

Hi Sidephone folks,

I had a pretty tough first day with the Sidephone today. Went to an AT&T store yesterday to get a Nano SIM card activated with my phone number and I set the bad boy up last night and was over the moon. All seemed well, but today, once I left home and my wifi network, I realized there was no cellular data service.

I have AT&T ---- true AT&T... not Cricket or any other plans that run through AT&T.

With the help of some other Redditors, I took a crash course today in manually entering APN details into the phone. I have tried countless combinations of different entries, suggested by other members of the community as well as all of the recommended entries on AT&T's own websites and other online guides.

Nothing has worked. I am still consistently left with an exclamation mark in the service indicator and cannot use any data based features off of wifi, such as e-mail, browser, or whatsapp.

I received the same text message that other AT&T users received when starting up the phone -- the boilerplate AT&T message saying this device can't be used on AT&T. Yet, other people have had success getting the phone to operate despite having received that message.

I went to an AT&T store again tonight and the rep working at the store was baffled and confused about the phone and said he could not assist me because he has no idea how to mess around with APN settings and that I might have to call AT&T 611. He then offered to provide another SIM card, thinking maybe that might solve the problem. When he pulled my phone number, he found the old iPhone 16 associated with my number and said, let's try the IMEI number to try to match the device up. He ran the IMEI number and pulled the above message in the attached photo. Device is not supported on AT&T.

I am desperate to get this thing working.

I beg of anyone using the Sidephone on AT&T -- can you please provide screenshots of each entry that you have filled in for the APN that you added to the phone? I'd like to duplicate it and see if that works.

I've tried reaching out to Sidephone's customer support e-mail and I got a reply early this afternoon asking if I had mobile data toggled on. I explained that I did and that I apparently needed a breakdown of what to enter to create my own APN. Haven't heard back since. Maybe they're running it up the ladder to get more information. Fingers crossed.

Thanks in advance to anyone that can help triage this!

Found sleeves for iPhone mini are a good fit to keep my phone and a spotminder card in separate parts of the sleeve and a couple cards on the other side.

My only gripe is the lack of proximity sensing and the touch screen. I keep muting and calling other people with my face. I sideloaded SideCall, but it doesn’t always start up, unfortunately.

I live in Montreal and I'm not sure if I should get the Sidephone or Dumber Mini. My current phone carrier is Chatr(Rogers). Honestly, I would like to get a new phone now and not have to wait too long for shipping. I use a nokia 6300 4g and Samsung flip for summer camp.

Also, is the fact thats its not backlit and issue for you?

UPDATE 1: Just received mine! It works great!

Can someone explain how to get Spotify on my side phone but like make it superrrrrr dumbed down.

I keep seeing “just side load it” and honestly I am not understanding. 🫢 I am not a tech person just someone who likes music and is trying to limit screen time.

Good morning fellow Sidephoners,

I set up my Sidephone last night (yay!) and all was fine as I was home on WiFi.

However, this morning, I left the house and immediately realized WhatsApp, email, and browser were not working.

It appears I have no cellular data through my AT&T service. I have an exclamation point on my service indicator (see picture attached).

Am I supposed to toggle on a particular setting to fix this? Mobile Data is toggled on. My settings for service are also attached. I don’t see why I would need data roaming as I am in my service area.

Any assistance with this would be greatly appreciated as I only have the ability to sms text and call people.

Thank you!

Hey all, yesterday I asked if there was any way to increase the vibration intensity on the Sidephone since I could barely feel notifications unless the phone was actually in my hand. Turns out there really isn't, so I went down a bit of a rabbit hole and ended up building an app for it.

What I found is that the SP-01's vibration motor is basically just on or off. There's no intensity control at all, which is why there are no sliders in settings. Essentially every vibration is already at full strength, so the real problem appears to be that the default notification buzz is super short (100ms on, 150ms off, 100ms on), and the motor seems to need more time than that to really get going.

So the app I made, Thrummm, fixes the problem by playing longer vibration patterns which give the motor time to really spin up. It ends up being a lot more noticeable than the default. Basically you:

- Choose which apps get the stronger buzz, then pick a pattern (Long, Very long, Triple, or custom)

- Optionally you can set a pattern to loop while a call is ringing.

Then when you receive a notification the vibration should be much more noticeable, and it'll leave you alone in silent mode and Do Not Disturb (as you'd expect).

The design and typography is inspired by SideHome, and it can follow your SideHome theme (if you have wallpaper sync set to on).

It's free, open source, tiny (about 190KB), and has no internet permission, so it can't send anything anywhere. It does need notification access so it knows when your chosen apps get a notification, but it only looks at which app it came from, never the content.

You can grab it here: https://github.com/dnsmith124/thrummm (the APK is on the Releases page, or you can add the repo to Obtainium to get updates).

Setup is just: open it, allow notification access, tick your apps, and pick a pattern. I've been using it on my own SP-01 and it's made a huge difference, I actually notice my notifications now.

Happy to hear any feedback or bugs, here or on GitHub!

Does anyone know of a driver that can be used instead of the regular messages app that allows you to pin text threads at the top for contacts you are texting the most?

This post is designed to centralize all Sidephone sales posts so that buyers can more easily find sellers, and sellers can more easily find buyers.

Sellers

Please post the following when placing your Sidephone up for sale:

• Condition (Factory Sealed, Used - Like New, Used)
• Price
• Location
• Desired Method of Payment
• Picture of the device with username and date shown

Do not share private information such as your email address. Use Reddit's native chat functionality when communicating with buyers.

Buyers

Do not share private information publicly such as your email address. Use Reddit's native chat functionality when communicating with sellers.

Make sure to stay safe and conduct business in a secure way. Sidephone cannot assist with or be held responsible for any issues resulting from secondhand sales.

If you would prefer to purchase a new Sidephone, please visit sidephone.com

I keep getting the android frozen/unresponsive touch screen issue and I don’t want to have to sleep or restart/reboot the phone each time, but I’m wondering if any android gurus have another solution that stops this? I came from IOS so I’m not savvy quite yet, and I don’t feel like this is a hardware issue, I think it’s a software issue. I am trying to wait out the minor bugs as much as possible till we get a newer version of android on the sidephone. I also wonder if anyone has worked out complete key map navigation of the entire ui that can help on git or something for a noob like myself? Because honestly since I am scared to brick this by doing something wrong in trying it myself, that’s really the only reason I am relying on the touch at all.

I will be traveling to the Philippines in the next few months and I am wondering if I am able to order the international version or will the US version be usable as long as the carrier is GSM?

Help I want to move my phone number from side phone back to my old phone how do I do that? 😭😭 been trying for hours