Adding a Librem 5 power cable for stationary use

Hardware
1

I’d like to use Librem 5 as stationary modem via usb tethering
which comes at a heavy burden of prolonged battery charging times.

It would be great if i could plug the Librem 5 to a wall power socket
bypassing the battery - avoiding the extra long battery charging time.

Is it feasible for Purism to provide an optional Librem 5 power cable
bypassing and saving battery usage - for stationary use - similar to
the ones used with regular routers ?

Most home routers provide short term support if any, with little
concern to security, where Librem 5 has a major advantage.

Providing a power cable - to avoid the need for prolonged battery
charging time - would make Librem 5 a reasonable dual purpose
extra secure device (smartphone-router)

Does it make sense ?

1 Like
2

Well I think it will be possible to remove the battery and configure it to run as if it wasn’t a mobile device. (technically I think it’s possible, your case would be more on the software side)

3

Are you worried that leaving the phone plugged into power will degrade the phone’s battery? The issue here is not so much charging time, since this is regulated by the phone and the battery won’t be charged for longer than necessary (otherwise it would be a dangerous product). Rather, the issue is the amount of time the battery spends at 100% charge while being baked by the heat from the phone’s circuitry.

If the battery will not be required for many weeks or months at a time, then removing it entirely while not in use might be the best option, just powering the device through the USB cable. (I assume that will be possible.)

Without removing the battery, the only option to prolong its life would be to limit how far it charges (say to 60 or 70% instead of 100%). With any luck this will be possible in software, but I don’t know whether it will or not. I believe this has been done on Android phones. Someone would need to write the software to get it to do that.

Here is a relevant (but inconclusive) thread about limiting battery charge in Librem laptops: Manually limiting battery charge

4

That would be my concern. It would be pretty cool if you could use it without the battery installed. I hope that will be possible.

5

i’ve done this thing in the past on my BlackBerry Q10 and the heat baking was pretty severe. I could barely touch it in that state. do note that the battery wasn’t even that close to the heat source since it is hot-swapable (in bb q10).

the librem 5 beeing a removable non-hot-swapable type battery phone might pose even more severe over-heat risk than what i described above because the battery has less thermal insulation and is in close proximity to the heat source.

i’d rather not have a 700$ 3g/4g modem/router be the source of fire-hazard in my house.