A Wind Phone is usually a real phone in a real place — in a garden, by the sea, in a forest, or along a quiet path. But what happens if there isn't one nearby? One person decides to bring the familiar experience of making a “call” online.

A phone you can reach from anywhere

windphone.org is a digital interpretation of the Wind Phone — a small web app you can use directly on your phone or computer.

Select Call the Wind, enter the name of the person you want to “call,” and, if you like, add a photo of them.

Then all that's left to do is talk.

Nothing is recorded, and what you say is not stored. The visual wind on the screen responds to your voice, and when the conversation ends, the words simply disappear.

This Wind Phone also begins with a personal story

The creator of windphone.org built the app in memory of his mother Dhana.

After her death, he misses not just the big conversations, but those everyday moments when you reach for the phone because something has happened and your first thought is to call that very person.

He knows the story of Itaru Sasaki's original Wind Phone in Japan, but asks himself a simple question: what about people who don't have a phone like that nearby?

That's how his digital version came to be — accessible from anywhere.

But can a virtual phone replace a real one?

Probably not. And perhaps it doesn't need to.

Much of what makes a physical Wind Phone feel so special comes from the act itself — going to a particular place, standing in front of the phone, picking up a real handset, and staying there for a while.

The virtual Wind Phone lacks the weight of the handset in your hand, the place, the wind, or the journey to get there.

But it preserves something else that feels very familiar — the very act of making a call.

And if the nearest Wind Phone is hundreds of miles away, sometimes it may be enough to have a phone in your hand and someone you still wish you could call.

Call the wind

windphone.org is free and can be used in a browser without installing an app. Nothing you say is recorded or stored.

If you have something to say, you can give it a try.