Inspired by a post by @onyourbikes and the end-of-life of the Pixel 3a, I've been considering repurposing the phone as a dumbhone for my kids. To my mind, Graphene is incredibly well-suited to this given the deficiencies in the so-call dumbphones now on the market, most of which (with the exception of expensive specialist phones like the Punkt MP02) have semi-smart operating systems that you cannot control and that bundle software (e.g. Facebook on the Nokia 225) you cannot remove.
With Graphene I am able to create a wonderfully locked-down, google-free profile for a child that massively limits what the child can do with the phone, including effectively cutting it off from any use of the internet if I wanted to by disabling Vanadium (albeit that that can be re-enabled by the user; the one week point) or by a solely talk-and-text plan.
The one question with this I have is whether this is a good use of a phone that no longer receives any security updates, like the Pixel 3a? To what extent do you need to worry about future security updates if using Graphene OS in this manner?
Any thoughts on this would be much appreciated. I really hate the idea of ditching entirely a completely functional phone like by Pixel 3a with GrapheneOS, even though I recognize that that phone is no longer suitable for my professional use, where I have some genuine need for decent security. And, while I don't want to give my kids true smartphones just yet, I also don't really like the current semi-dumbphone options that are left of the market.