A Light Phone II in hand. Photo Jordan Mansfield, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
The Light Phone
What it took directly
- documentedThe Light Phone comes from Joe Hollier and Kaiwei Tang meeting at 30 Weeks, a design and technology incubator sponsored by Google, in 2014"In 2014, he found his way to 30 Weeks, a design and technology incubator sponsored by Google, where he met Tang." Michael Zelenko, The Verge (September 2019)
- documentedThe Light Phone took from a 2015 Kickstarter campaign for a credit-card-size phone that only made calls"The concept of the Light Phone, now raising funds on Kickstarter, is simple. It’s, um, just a mobile phone (remember those?). No screen, no browser, not even the ability to text" Michael Franco, CNET (May 20, 2015)
- statedLight Phone, Inc. comes from its two co-founders, Joseph Hollier and Kaiwei Tang"The Company’s currently outstanding shares are owned by the co-founders, Joseph Hollier and Kaiwei Tang." Light Phone, Inc., Form C-AR annual report filed with the SEC (2018)
- documentedThe Light Phone 1 took from Foxconn, the manufacturer that built it and invested in Light"raised millions from investors like Chinese manufacturing giant Foxconn, which also built the Light Phone 1." Michael Zelenko, The Verge (September 2019)
- statedThe Light Phone 2 answered the first Light Phone, a casual second phone, by aiming to be a fully functioning simple phone"The Light Phone 2, however, is designed with the intention of being a fully functioning simple phone, whether it’s your ‘only’ phone or ‘second’ phone." Light's public manifesto for the Light Phone 2 (quoted by The Verge, 2019)
- statedThe Light Flip took from years of interviews with young people who use flip phones"We’ve been interviewing young people that use flip phones for a few years" Kaiwei Tang, to Amanda Silberling, TechCrunch (July 2026)
- statedThe Light Flip took from the Light Phone OS and tools of Light's touch-screen phones"What we’re doing is offering the same Light Phone experience, the same Light Phone OS with our SDK developer program, all of the tools we already have today: alarm, calculator, calendar" Joe Hollier, to Amanda Silberling, TechCrunch (July 2026)
What it learned to do
- documentedKaiwei Tang learned from helping create the Motorola Razr, more than 20 years earlier"Kaiwei Tang helped create the iconic Motorola Razr over 20 years ago." Amanda Silberling, TechCrunch (July 2026)
- statedThe Light Phone 2 learned from the first phone's shortcomings, in Joe Hollier's words"Obviously, I love things that are conceptual and beautiful, but it has to work" Joe Hollier, to Michael Zelenko, The Verge (September 2019)
The tradition it sits in
- documentedThe Light Flip comes from the Motorola and Ericsson flip phones of the late '90s and early 2000s"a dumb flip phone with no front screen that looks like a sleeker version of Motorola or Ericsson handsets from the late '90s and early aughts." Julian Chokkattu, WIRED (July 2026)
- inferredThe Light Flip comes from the Motorola Razr, through Kaiwei Tang"he’s as surprised as anyone that his customers are begging for a flip phone." inferred — TechCrunch says Tang helped create the Razr, and WIRED likens the Flip to late-'90s Motorola handsets; neither Tang nor Light says the Razr shaped the Flip
- documentedThe Light Phone comes from a back-to-basics phone movement that also produced Jasper Morrison's calls-and-texts phone for Punkt (2015)"In a similar move, British designer Jasper Morrison created a basic phone with just calling and texting functions for Punkt as a "liberating" alternative to smartphones in 2015." Dezeen (2017) — the outlet's placement of the Light Phone beside Punkt, not a lineage claimed by Light
Where the whole form comes from
- statedThe Light Phone comes from its makers' doubt that the world needed another app"We couldn't help but feel that the last thing we thought the world needed was another app" Joe Hollier and Kaiwei Tang, to Dezeen (2017)
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