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Small-Scale Question Sunday for October 20, 2024

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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The problem is you'll have to physically swap over your SIM card every time. Actually, now that eSIMs are a thing I wonder if it's even possible to bounce between handsets in the way you're looking to.

If all you want is offline time then it's a lot easier to just switch off internet connectivity. You can probably get an IfThisThenThat app that could automate regular online/offline times. A quick search suggests it can be done natively in iOS.

Would separate SIM cards not work? The idea I had was to have an occasionally-on smartphone for regular things and an always-on flip phone for critical things. Sort of the same use case as a house phone.

I currently have an Android phone. It has a toggle for Wi-Fi and one for 4G connectivity, but I'm not aware of one specifically for "Internet" that still allows calls through. Not sure how that would differ substantially from just closing and reopening the Web browser. I guess it could be an easier way to toggle email notifications, but I can't see it meaningfully reducing the "onlineness" that I'm trying to get away from. Am I misunderstanding something?

Unless there's some way of cloning it your phone number is effectively locked to a single SIM card, so if you want either handset to receive phone calls to your number it needs to have that SIM inserted.

Hmm, just looked it up and apparently there are ways of cloning a SIM. You could look into that, I stopped at the search results page. SIM cloning is usually done for illicit purposes though so I'd expect it to present additional unexpected difficulties even beyond the incompatability you found trying to use a T-Mobile SIM in your Nokia. It almost certainly won't be supported* by the networks and their vendors though so unlike the T-Mobile/Nokia you can't just take it into a shop and ask them if you can try before you buy.

Wifi and 4G are the phone's means of connecting to the internet. Turn them off and you'll still have cell tower service for plain phone calls and SMS texts. You'd have no email, no browser, no doomscroll apps, no internet dependent notifications, but your "offline" apps will still work (things like the camera, timers, alarms, step counters... maybe maps? GPS will still work but it depends if you have the map saved locally for offline use).

I don't know what your skill set is like, and I've never done this, but I think an IfThisThenThat app should be able to do what you want with some simple rules that add up to "If it's between 5PM and 5AM then switch off wifi and 4G", or "if GPS is not [at the office] then switch off wifi and 4G".

*By "not supported" I imagine it could likely raise a flag of suspicious activity if two devices show up using the same SIM card simultaneously. One at a time would okay, but then that defeats most of the purpose of not having to swap the SIM between them.