Ryan McDonough

Founder, Sometime Artist

CFO and co-founder @Accompany, acquired by @Cisco. Turnaround CFO @Ning, sold to Glam Media. Former seed VC. McKinsey trained. @Wharton School and @Haas School of Business.

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TINKERING

LEGO Bluetooth Retro Telephone

A nostalgic desk phone you can actually pick up and use.
LEGO Bluetooth Retro Telephone

What If LEGO Was a Real Phone?

There’s something about old telephones that modern devices lost along the way. The weight. The separation between ear and voice. The quiet isolation of a ceramic speaker pressed to your head. So when I built the LEGO Creator 3-in-1 Retro Telephone (31174), I couldn’t leave it as a prop. I wanted to pick it up… and hear someone on the other end.

The Make

This started with a simple idea:

Take a real Bluetooth handset — and hide it inside LEGO.

What went into it:

  • 2× LEGO Creator Retro Telephone kits (31174)
  • 1× donor Bluetooth handset
  • A bit of patience (and a willingness to rebuild the handset geometry more than once)

The donor phone provided everything needed:

  • Ceramic speaker
  • Microphone
  • Bluetooth control board
  • Battery and charging

The challenge was making it all fit — without losing the soul of the original design.

 

Scaling the Build (Without Breaking the Illusion)

To make room for real hardware, the build needed to grow — just enough.

  • Main body widened from 10 to 12 studs
    → about a 20% increase in size
  • Handset slightly enlarged
    → to fit the speaker, mic, and internal wiring cleanly
  • Rotary dial section expanded
    → and became something more than just decoration

Everything still reads as LEGO — just a version that feels real in your hand.

 

The Hidden Compartment

Lift the rotary dial plate and you’ll find:

  • A Post-it pad styled like a 3.5” floppy disk
  • A Fisher Space Pen tucked into a custom holder

It’s a small detail — but it transforms the build from display piece into desk companion.

A phone that lets you take a call… and jot something down right after.

 

Yes, It Actually Works

This isn’t just aesthetic.

It’s a fully functional Bluetooth handset.

  • The ceramic speaker provides surprisingly rich, isolated audio
  • The physical separation between mic and speaker improves clarity
  • The form factor naturally encourages better posture and positioning

It turns out:

There’s a reason phones used to be shaped this way.

 

Why This One Works

This project hits a sweet spot I keep coming back to:

  • Familiar form
  • Unexpected function
  • Just enough engineering to make it real

It looks like something you remember.

Then you pick it up… and realize it’s something new.

 

What I Might Add Next

  • A functional rotary dial to trigger calls or actions
  • A wireless charging base hidden beneath the phone
  • Alternate inserts for the compartment (mini notebooks, cards, etc.)
 

Final Thoughts

We don’t really “use” phones anymore.

 

We tap them. Swipe them. Ignore them.

 

This one asks you to do something different:

Pick it up.