The Rotary Un-Smartphone is a followup to this personal project. It's a production-ready ground-up design with all new parts (yes, the rotary dial too) and many neat bells and whistles.

Q: Do I need to know electronics? What skills are required for assembly? Can anyone build it?

A: No soldering is required, but it's an advanced build. To get a sense of what's involved, look through the assembly instructions (above).

A: Everything you need to make a complete, working phone. Just supply a SIM card from your cell carrier (in theory... see note above in red).

A: All design -- electrical, mechanical, and software -- was entirely by Justine Haupt (Sky's Edge is my creative outlet).

Q: Can I order specific parts (not the whole kit), and make the rest myself?

A: Sure! Or, if you love doing things from scratch, you can use the design files to make the entire thing on your own. It's open source.

Q: Everyone's talking about 5G. Will this work on the 5G networks?

A: This is a fully-modern LTE device supporting Voice over LTE (VoLTE). 5G mainly adds mm-wave high-bandwidth service capabilities for extremely fast data rates, but this is not a useful feature for a voice-only cell phone like the Rotary Un-Smartphone. Because LTE is the backbone upon which 5G is built, the infrastructure for voice, text, and lower-bandwidth data transfer that LTE provides will exist for years to come. There's no disadvantage to using an LTE phone on the 5G networks, despite the wireless companies' seeming desperation in pushing 5G.

Q: My region is still using 3G, and will be for some time. Will the RUSP work for me?

A: Yes, the Rotary Un-Smartpthone will fall-back to 3G if LTE service is unavailable.

A: Considering it's a "kit" phone, I would argue that it's replaceable by default, although it does require disassembly and easy soldering. This phone will run on any single-cell LiPo battery that will fit in the space, whether it comes from Sky's Edge or a third-party. As shipped, the battery capacit is 1000mAh.

A: The microcontroller is an ATMega2560V (or 1280V, depending on supply) running an Arduino bootloader. The cellular modem is a uBlox LARA-R6401 (N. American), LARA-R6801 (EMEA/APAC+), or LARA-R6001 (global version). All versions should work in all regions to some degree, but the specific regional variants are optimized for carriers and bands associated with those regions.

Q: In what ways is it a more functional telephone than a smartphone?