Rotary Cell Phone

Smartphones are ubiquitous today, so much so that it’s basically a rebellion not to have one. But some people are rebelling against the screen time that comes with smartphones, returning to the flip phones that we used not so long ago. And space engineer Justine Haupt has taken it a step further, creating her own rotary cell phone. (1, 2)

Haupt is an astronomy instrumentation engineer at Brookhaven National Laboratory in New York. Although she works in technology, Haupt is not a smartphone fan. And for years, she used an LG flip phone to communicate with her family and friends. (2)

But Haupt wanted an even more basic option, so she decided to create her own. Haupt took a rotary dial from a vintage Trimline telephone and connected it to a microcontroller and an Adafruit Fona 3G cell transceiver. She then 3-D printed a case and put it all together. (2)

“I’m anti-smartphone, despite working in technology development,” Haupt told Wired. “All of my friends know that I have a flip phone, or have had a flip phone until now, and that I don’t text. I don’t. I just don’t like being that connected. I don’t want to have to respond to people at any point of the day. So this is kind of a way of downgrading my flip phone even more. And then if people say, “You don’t text? Why don’t you text?” I could just hold up the phone and say, ‘This is why!’” (2)

Creating the Rotary Phone

Haupt developed the rotary cell phone over the course of three years. She was originally inspired by rotary dials and was fascinated by the fact that they don’t have a use in our modern world. She wanted to incorporate one into a project that she could use in her everyday life. (2)

In Haupt’s interview with Wired, she said, “I just thought for a long time that rotary dials are so cool, they don’t have a use in modern society, and I’d love to make myself some device that uses it for data entry. And then I thought, Well, it might as well be a phone. And if I’m gonna do this, it should be something that I could really use. It wouldn’t just be a novelty. It would be something I could actually fit in my pocket, that I’d want to use as my primary cell phone.” (2)

According to Haupt, the rotary phone is still a work in progress. Eventually, she decided to add an e-paper display to the phone. It displays missed calls and incoming text messages. Haupt said that it seemed necessary to include the display for it to be a functional phone for this era. And it helps her avoid picking up robocalls. (2)

Tactile Experience

The aspect of the rotary cell phone that seems to appeal to Haupt the most is that using it is more of a tactile experience than using a smartphone. Almost all of a user’s interactions with a smartphone are touching the screen. Haupt’s phone has the rotary dial, a toggle on/off switch, and a few buttons. (2)

“There’s something to be said for a tactile interface, actual switches and buttons,” Haupt said to Wired. “Even simple things, like, a little FM radio that has a dial so you can listen to stations, even that’s been replaced by electronic keys that only let you increment left and right. I guess it’s fine, but it does come with its tradeoffs, and no one seems to care and I care.” (2)

After Haupt posted about the phone on her website, interest was so high that her site crashed. She now sells a kit that allows others to create their own phone, although they have to find a rotary dial themselves. And she has other projects in the works, like a full-size domestic robot “because robots are, you know—they’re awesome.” (2, 3)