Is the Light Phone III worth $899?

The Light Phone III is worth $899 if you want a hard physical limit on your phone use and you can live without iMessage, RCS texting, banking apps, rideshare, and a full camera, or you're happy to carry a second phone for those. If you need any of them every day, you're paying $899 for a phone that sends you back to your iPhone. Deleting the apps on your iPhone and replacing Safari gets you most of the calm for free.

It's a good product, and reviewers mostly like it. Here's what you get, what you give up, and how to decide.

What does the Light Phone III do?

The Light Phone III is a small black-and-white phone built around a short list of tools. Compared with the Light Phone II, it has a 3.9 inch OLED screen instead of e-ink, so it's faster and easier to read. It also adds a rear camera with a flash.

Its tools cover the basics:

Calls and text messages (SMS and MMS only, with no RCS)
Directions, with simple turn-by-turn navigation
A camera
Notes, an alarm, and a calculator
A music player and podcasts
A hotspot

There's no browser, no email, no app store, and no social media, and Light has said it doesn't plan to add them. That's the point of the phone. There's nothing on it to scroll.

What does it cost?

The Light Phone III is $899. It launched at $799 in March 2025, and early preorders were lower than that, so you'll still see older prices in reviews.

Remember that it's a phone, so it needs its own service. If you keep your iPhone for the things the Light Phone can't do, you're paying for two phones and their service.

What can't the Light Phone III do?

This is where most people decide. The Light Phone III can't run apps, so you lose:

RCS. This is the big one. The Light Phone III doesn't support RCS, the modern texting standard that Android phones use and that iPhones use with Android since iOS 18. It only sends SMS and MMS, the older standards. So photos and videos arrive compressed, typing indicators and read receipts go away, and group chats with a mix of iPhone and Android users can break or split. Light's setup guide tells you to turn off RCS and iMessage before switching, or messages sent to your number may not reach the Light Phone.
iMessage. Your iPhone friends will see green bubbles, and you'll drop out of iMessage group chats.
WhatsApp, Signal, Discord, and Slack. If your friends, family, or team coordinate there, you'll be left out of those conversations.
Banking, Apple Pay, and boarding passes.
Uber, Lyft, parking, and transit apps.
Two-factor apps for work.
A great camera. The camera is fine for a quick photo, but it isn't an iPhone camera.

Reviewers keep running into the same thing. The phone works well on its own, but the rest of the world expects you to have apps. One reviewer wondered how he'd coordinate with his badminton group without WhatsApp.

Light Phone III or Light Flip?

Light announced a second phone in July 2026, the Light Flip. It's a flip phone with a T9 keypad and a 2.8 inch screen, running the same kind of stripped-down software. It costs $299 and is expected to ship in April 2027.

Get the Light Phone III if you want a touchscreen, a better camera, and a phone you can ship today.
Wait for the Light Flip if you want the lowest price, physical buttons, and a phone that's even less like a smartphone.

Either way, you give up the same apps.

The cost of a second phone

Most people who buy a Light Phone keep their iPhone. They leave the iPhone at home for the evening, or bring both and try not to use one.

That works for some people. But it means:

Two devices to charge and carry.
Your iPhone still has everything on it. When you're home, the feeds are waiting in the drawer.
More hardware. Most of a phone's carbon footprint comes from making it, so a second phone has an environmental cost even if you barely use it.

If the Light Phone becomes your only phone, these don't apply. That's the version of the plan that works best, and also the hardest one to stick with.

The free alternative: remove the apps from your iPhone

The reason the Light Phone works is that the distracting apps aren't on it. You can do that to the phone you already own, and keep the apps you really need.

Block Downloads, so the apps you delete can't come back.
Block Safari, so the habit doesn't move to the browser.
Delete the social apps, video apps, and spare browsers.
Lock the settings with a Screen Time code.

Before you start, install Anti Browser and set it as your default browser. It's a link only browser: it opens links from Messages, email, and QR codes, but it has no address bar, no general web search, and no feed. So you can still open the link someone sends you, and you can't start a browsing session. Anti walks you through the four steps during onboarding.

You keep iMessage, RCS, Maps, your bank, your camera, and your boarding passes. You lose the feeds. Our Light Phone alternative post has a side-by-side comparison, and the dumbphone guide goes through every step.

The Light Phone deals with the in-between apps by leaving them out. On an iPhone, you get to keep the ones you need, but some of them, like email and YouTube, can still eat an hour. The Anti Phone System adds Gentle Screen Time for those. It keeps the app on your phone and gives each visit a session, then a short rest. It also comes with a guide to breaking the habit for good, and Drain for your Mac or Windows PC. It's a lot less than $899.

What the iPhone version doesn't give you

Be honest about it:

It's still an iPhone. It has a bright screen and it's built to be picked up. The Light Phone's plainness is part of what makes it work.
It can be undone. The Screen Time code can unlock everything. Have someone you trust set it, or let Anti's vault keep it for when you really need it.
It takes some setup. The Light Phone is minimal out of the box. The iPhone takes about an hour.

So, is it worth it?

The Light Phone III is worth $899 if you want a phone that physically can't do more, you're ready to give up iMessage, RCS, and the apps around them, and you'd rather pay than rely on your own settings.

It's not worth it if you'll end up carrying your iPhone anyway. In that case, you've paid $899 and the feeds are still in your other pocket. Take them off the phone you already have first. If that isn't enough, the Light Phone will still be there.