Comment by Fnoord | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Fnoord | Hacker News Reader

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There's also the Light Phone 2, and arguably, a smartwatch is a "minimalist smartphone". Personally, I own a Fairphone 3. The ThinkPad of smartphones, as you can easily open/repair it.

I went to the website of Mudita Pure and found the following:

> Ultralow SAR value

> Mudita Pure is designed to reduce SAR (Specific Absorption Rate) value as much as possible, without compromising on the signal strength. In order to achieve this, we’ve made our antenna with in-house shielding, using patented technology that we developed.

> Good reception and ultralow SAR thanks to a custom antenna

> There are plenty of antennas on the market but none of them allowed us to maintain good reception while minimizing our exposure to radio frequency energy. We spent quite a bit of time and money (2 years, nearly $1 million) to develop and patent our own solution. We built our unique antenna in-house, using this patented technology (patent US 9,900,411 B2, EU 3185352).

I wonder what exactly their patent consists of, and how SAR matters. I also wonder if the device is rugged, which OS it runs, and how good its gonna be regarding software updates. Light Phone 2, in comparison, runs Android with e-ink display.

The phone looks pretty cool but I'm not sure what their deal is with the radiation stuff. Their claims [1] seem a bit fearmongery. They even say stuff like "Although it has not yet been proven, the stress felt by those sensitive to EMF exposure may cause cortisol levels to rise"... not been proven, so why say it then??

Additionally it appears the only product they have ever shipped before is a music album [2], so I'm not sure how they go from that to a phone. I'd be surprised if this turns out to be any more than Indiegogo vaporware.

[1]: https://mudita.com/products/pure/sar

[2]: https://mudita.com/products/nick-lewis/

I work at Mudita so I hope you find this information somewhat useful in terms of your concerns.

1. The reason we mention people sensitive to EMF exposure is because after attending the 2019 EMF Conference in California (https://emfconference.com/), one of the major issues those people were facing was that without technology, they completely isolated themselves from their friends and family.

A phone like Mudita Pure, which could be charged by their doctors, psychologists or care givers (in serious cases some people don't use any electricity at home) might mean the difference between being able to keep in touch with people they care about and being completely and utterly alone.

We have tried to approach the subject in a respectful manner, without judgement of those who may be dealing with this. As it's likely I wrote the site copy you're referring to, it was not my intention for it to come across as 'fearmongery'.

2. Nick Lewis is a friend of Mudita's founder Michal.

3. I can assure you it's not vaporware. We launch in Autumn/Fall 2020.

If you have any more questions, reach out via hello@mudita.com and someone will be in touch.

1. I won't go into depth about my issues with the copy on that page, but I didn't see that narrative on the page anywhere. Maybe you should include that.

It actually seems like a good idea to provide such people with electronic communication devices, whether you believe in their conditions or not. They should be able to stay in contact with the outside world, if they are indeed unable to come in contact with EMF.

2. My statement wasn't about who they were, but how a company would go from releasing a music album, to manufacturing electronic devices. As far as I can tell you haven't shipped any hardware to consumers before(?)

3. Well I would hope you'd give that assurance, but any company developing vaporware would probably say it isn't vaporware. I'll check it out later this year though, it seems like an interesting idea so I hope it ends up materializing.

Thanks for your feedback, I work for Mudita so hopefully I can help answer some of your concerns.

Here's a link to Apple's Legal page regarding RF (radiofrequency) exposure, you can find the SAR value of all of their devices on their website: https://www.apple.com/legal/rfexposure/iphone12,1/en/ If Apple and other mobile phone manufacturers mention the SAR value of their devices, why wouldn't Mudita?

Unlike Light Phone 2, Mudita Pure isn't running a customized Android OS. "We developed our own dedicated operating system (MuditaOS) and chose the open source, real-time operating system kernel FreeRTOS®️ as our starting point. Optimized for the hardware, it makes Pure fast and power efficient, with a boot time of just 5 seconds." (Source: https://mudita.com/products/pure/)

If you'd like to know more about our updates, patent or materials, send an email to: hello@mudita.com

Thanks for sharing the Light phone! Cool to see there are other people that just want basics.

Fairphone looks like exactly what I want. Why do all the cool phones not work in the US?

There are reports about it working (till various degrees) in USA. Till what extend, I do not know. Consult the forums for more information. Its a friendly community.

Different frequency bands, mostly. With a side of CDMA / device authorization on Verizon and Sprint.

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