Innovation

Disconnection and simplicity: technology rediscovers the value of limits

From audio players to e-ink notebooks, there is a growing niche in the market that transforms the renunciation of continuous connection into a cognitive luxury

by Alesandro Longo

24 May 2026

3' min read

Translated by AI

Versione italiana

3' min read

Translated by AI

Versione italiana

There was a time, not too long ago, when innovation coincided with a promise: to integrate more and more functions into one device. The smartphone, first and foremost. It was to become camera, music player, agenda, navigator, television, online bank, gaming console. Too much, perhaps, for some. Nostalgia has won some hearts, because now we are witnessing the opposite movement. A flourishing of gadgets that echo the time when analogue dominated. Or at least a discreet digital. Not so greedy with functions.

So now come devices that are content to do only one thing.

The Sony Walkman NW-A306 is a digital music player with Android 12, 32 GB memory, support for high-resolution audio formats, Bluetooth and a microSD slot. A digital product, yes. But also a return to a culture where listening has its own space, separate from the phone.

For many, it is a congenial separation

Listening to music from your smartphone means living with constant distraction: messages, notifications, algorithmic suggestions, calls, emails, apps open in the background. A dedicated player instead recreates a gesture closer to that of the old iPod or portable CD player: choose an album, put on the headphones, listen. Close your eyes to the outside world and open your heart to your emotions marked by music. Generation Z, followers of the values of disconnection and in search of a recovered mental focus, will certainly appreciate it.

A second front is that of e-ink screens. The ONYX Boox Palma 2 Pro has the shape and size of a smartphone, but is designed as a reader and light productivity tool. The Pro version integrates a 6.13-inch mobile e-paper colour display, 5G data support, 8 GB RAM and an octa-core processor, with modes designed for reading, browsing and using apps on the e-ink screen.

E-ink is not as fluid as an oled, it does not invite compulsive scrolling, it does not turn every gesture into instant entertainment. It is a technology that, precisely because it is less seductive, can become more suitable for reading, annotating, consulting documents, writing notes. Again, the inner world saved from the performative chaos of continuous connection that is always distracting.

The same applies to Paperslate Pro, an e-ink digital notebook geared towards writing and annotation, with frontlight, waterproofing and more memory than the simpler models. In this case, the value is not 'doing everything', but creating a working space that is poorer in stimuli. A designed poverty that becomes cognitive luxury.

At first glance, the Garmin inReach Messenger Plus seems to belong to another category: outdoors, safety, emergencies. It is an sos satellite communicator that connects to your smartphone and allows you to send messages, photos, voice notes or distress calls even in the absence of a cellular network.

And yet it is part of the same phenomenon

It does not promise a permanent connection to the digital world, but a minimal and functional reachability. It is the difference between being online and being found when we really want to be. In the first case, one remains immersed in the noise; in the second, one keeps a safety line.

The most explicitly analogue case is the Kodak Ektar H35, a 35 mm film half-frame camera. Kodak presents it as a camera capable of getting about twice as many shots from a roll of film: with 36 exposures you can get about 72 half-frame images. Smartphones, with AI-enhanced cameras, win on quality. But film plays in a different league. It introduces cost, waiting, error, limitation. Every shot has a weight. Not everything is photographed, not everything is immediately reviewed, not everything is shared.

Very different products, united by the same promise. To return to the user a portion of control over time, attention and the relationship with objects. They will remain a niche, let us be under no illusions. The smartphone, with its convenience and efficiency, wins over the mass market. But the very emergence of this small, new market still says a lot about what we have become in this age of rampant digital.