Did you just look at your phone? Are you looking at your phone right now? I'm typing this on a PC, and I'm looking at two phones. We may be looking at our phones too much, but we can't stop ourselves. Enter Siempo, an Android phone that's designed to be a lot less intrusive than rival devices.
I'm fascinated by simple phones, probably because I know I need an intervention. Siempo isn't a cheap feature phone like the Blu Tank II or a gadget for the elderly like the Doro SmartEasy: it's a midrange, high-quality Android phone with limited functions, which is designed to give you critical information but not to oppress.
I like the idea, but there's a catch, of course: it doesn't exist yet. Siempo founder Jorge Selva explained that the startup is still picking manufacturing partners and hopes to have its $349 phone for sale by the end of the year. The LTE-capable phone will probably be compatible with AT&T and T-Mobile.
(The hardware Selva showed me was a dummy; the screen shots you see below come from the Siempo software stack running on a Nexus 5X.)
Keep It Simple (But Not Stupid)
The idea for Siempo came about when Selva was stuck using a feature phone on a trip to Peru.
"After two weeks on that trip, I was sitting there and said, huh, I feel much less anxious and distracted," he said.
So why not just build or buy a feature phone? In the US, feature phones are at a crossroads. Carriers are demanding voice-over-LTE for phone calling, which feature phone OSes generally don't support. And there are a lot of simple features, like cloud syncing for contacts, which are easy to do on Android but difficult to do on feature phone OSes.
"We built our own design of hardware, our own operating system, and an e-ink screen, but realized it wasn't viable and pivoted into this," Selva said.
"This" is an Android phone with a small but manageable screen and a 5-megapixel camera on the back. (Most of the specs are in flux.) There's no front-facing camera so you don't end up obsessing about yourself.
The stripped-down operating system, based on the open-source parts of Android, just presents you with a text entry space where you type what you want to do: "call" or "text," for instance. You can also swipe right to see a very calm, restful menu with a fixed list of apps. There's no app store, but if you desperately need a certain app, you can install an APK.
Two custom apps—"mindful morning" and "tempo"—let you lock out various features and notifications for set periods of time so you can focus on other things. "Our goal is to get people to take back that control over time," Selva said.
The phone will have a "light email and browser experience," perhaps focused only on key correspondents and important sites, Selva said. For messaging, Siempo is looking at SMS for the US and WhatsApp for Europe.
While there are apps that prevent overuse on Android, they're too easy to dodge, he said. Baking limits into the core of the phone reduces "cognitive load" and makes it easy to relax, he said.
Can Siempo Simply Survive?
Creating a phone startup is very hard, and I've seen many fail. Navigating the Chinese manufacturing landscape can be tricky, and when you're working at very small volumes, it becomes expensive to produce individual products. Siempo will have to charge $349 for hardware a bigger company could sell for less. That's a midrange unlocked phone price, to be sure, but it's going to be hard for people not to mentally compare this to sub-$100 feature phones.
I think there's a market, if a niche market, for Siempo's simple device. I see it in my own home: my wife and I would like to focus on reading books at night, for instance, but I just can't help looking at my phone. The material and finish on the phone will have to be excellent, and the interface will have to be clear and simple. I hope they make it.
Siempo is currently on Kickstarter, which hopefully does not mean it will fall prey to the hardware crowdsourcing curse.