What if the cure for doomscrolling is a phone from 1985? Maker channel ForgeCore 3D-printed a bright red wall-mounted landline, and the twist is that your smartphone lives inside it. Open the front like a little cabinet door, plug your iPhone in to charge, close it up, and suddenly the only way to talk to anyone is by picking up a handset on a coiled cord. The 12-second Short, titled “A phone that fixes brainrot?”, has racked up about 3.9 million views and 36,000 likes since it went up on Oct. 30.
How the wall phone works
The Short moves fast, so here is the slow-motion version. The whole face of the phone, keypad and all, swings open on a hinge. Inside is a cradle for your phone with a charging cable already routed in. The handset is the clever bit: ForgeCore tucked a pair of wired EarPods into the receiver, so the speaker sits at your ear and the mic sits at your mouth. The video even shows an animated cutaway (labeled “Vfx animation”) of the earbuds nestled inside the red plastic.
Then comes the money shot: the creator lounging on a couch, chatting away on a phone that is screwed to the wall, like it is a Tuesday night in 1989. All that is missing is a sibling yelling “Get off the phone, I need to use it!”
Wait, how do you answer it?
That was the top question in the comments, by a mile. One viewer asked, in a comment with about 1,400 likes, how you answer or hang up, how you call anyone, and how you keep the phone from overheating in a plastic box. ForgeCore’s own reply cleared up the first part: “You just tap the earpod button in the handle of the phone.” That works because the inline remote on wired EarPods can answer and end calls. For dialing out, commenters pointed out you can ask Siri. The keypad on the front looks great, but it does not appear to be wired to anything.
Our favorite pushback came from a commenter who suggested you “just buy one of those Bluetooth landline adapters.” Sure, but where is the fun in that? The overheating worry is fair, too. Charging inside a closed shell can get warm, so we would leave some ventilation and skip it for marathon gaming sessions. For a phone that mostly sits there taking calls, it should be fine.
Does it actually fix brainrot?
Kind of, and that is the genius of it. You are not giving up your phone. Calls still come in, and you can still talk to Grandma. You are just putting the infinite scroll behind a door across the room. Every time you want to check social media, you have to walk to the wall, open a cabinet and unplug a phone while a big red landline stares at you. That little bit of friction is the whole point, and it is a lot more stylish than a phone lockbox.
Can you get one?
Not off a shelf. This is a maker project, not a product. ForgeCore sells 3D print files for a lot of its builds through its online shop and supports the channel on Patreon, but we could not confirm whether the landline files are available yet. If you want to be ready when they are, or you just want to start printing your own wacky desk gadgets, the Bambu Lab A1 mini is an easy starter printer, and right now there is a bundle with an LED lamp kit: see the Bambu Lab A1 mini 3D Printer + LED Lamp Kit here. Just know that the phone’s case looks big, so check the print size before you hit go.
GadgetKing take
This is the kind of build we love: silly, practical and a little bit of a protest. It will not stop you from doomscrolling if you really want to, but it turns grabbing your phone into a deliberate choice. Plus it gives your living room a retro prop that is guaranteed to start conversations, ideally on the landline.
Sources: ForgeCore on YouTube, ForgeCore’s reply and viewer comments on the Short, and Trari. Images: ForgeCore (video stills).
More ways to tame your phone: the Light Flip Phone, the OORAII F4 flip-cube Pomodoro timer, the Star Trek communicator Bluetooth handset and, for fellow 3D printing fans, the Voxelpla X-Filter for Bambu Lab printers.
