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Justine, her rotary dial mobile phone and the pitfalls of mass production
by David Lee
The rotary dial mobile phone’s here!
An order arriving isn’t usually newsworthy. But, in this case, it was – I’d almost given up hope.
It took three years, five months and 12 days from order to delivery. I ordered the Rotary Un-Smartphone (RUSP) on 16 August 2022, and it arrived a few days ago. This rotary dial phone is a radical alternative to today’s touchscreen phones. It was developed entirely by Justine Haupt – that’s right, one person. Due to the overwhelming interest in this project, Justine began accepting orders and embarking on mass production. This marked the beginning of a long series of setbacks, misfortunes and mishaps, described in detail in this post from November 2023:
But the biggest blow for Justine was yet to come. In 2024, her husband died of cancer. About a year later, on 19 August 2025, Justine announced the end of the project. Existing orders would still be fulfilled, and support would continue. However, no new orders were being accepted, and there would be no second version of the phone – at least not from her. The project is open source and could theoretically be continued. But hardly anyone would be crazy enough to do so. Justine made the announcement in a blog post:
«Manufacturing is so very HARD. It’s no wonder there are only a small handful of players in the cellphone market and that by and large they tend to be mega-corporations.»
Progress is already slow, and regulatory requirements become a bigger problem, as they can change rapidly. Then there are the production costs, which large corporations can minimise with huge production volumes. I paid 400 US dollars for the RUSP – a hefty price for what the phone can do. However, Justine writes that this isn’t enough to cover the costs.
Self-assembly required
I’d actually chosen the option of a fully assembled phone, but that’s not what I got. I don’t know why. I’m left with a collection of individual parts I have to put together myself. There’s no soldering required, but the instructions are really long. At least the most difficult part’s already done: the rotary dial mechanism works. It’s not clear whether the phone will even work on a European network. I can only hope it doesn’t take as long to get working as it did to get delivered.
David Lee
Senior Editor
David.Lee@digitecgalaxus.chMy interest in IT and writing landed me in tech journalism early on (2000). I want to know how we can use technology without being used. Outside of the office, I’m a keen musician who makes up for lacking talent with excessive enthusiasm.
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