A new battery-free, camera-free, generally phone-free smartphone has been invented aiming to help you "stay connected with the real world".

Aimed at stopping people from ruining dates, getting distracted at concerts and clogging up sidewalks, the tongue-in-cheek product "acts as a surrogate to any smart mobile device, enabling you to always have a rectangle of smooth, cold plastic to clutch without forgoing any potential engagement with your direct environment".

Its creators have already raised over $8,000 for it on Kickstarter (after seeking $5,000), and will presumably spend about $100 of it 3D-printing the phones and the other $7,900 filling a swimming pool with parmesan cheese or something.

As well as a reminder that there is more to life than that piece of plastic you spend so much of the day staring at, the NoPhone offers a fun game in which you place it on the table during social interactions and see if anyone actually notices it's not a phone.

(NoPhone)

(NoPhone)

The finished NoPhone will have a mirrored front, allowing for "real-time selfies" as long as someone is standing behind you. Verbal hashtags can be added by "syncing your brain and vocal cords".

"With the NoPhone, my eye contact skills have improved 73%" said one early adopter Whitney R.

"Because of the NoPhone, I haven't drunk texted my ex boyfriend in one whole week," Craig G added.