Convergence and the Librem 5- Do I NEED the kit?

#1

Hello,

I’m very interested in the Librem 5 as a productivity tool for my crew at work- Specifically, I think the ability to use the phone as a work station and easily transport all our individual files and data securely and safely in the form factor of a phone is amazing.

Will we be able to use this feature with the existing monitors and bluetooth keyboards that we have access to at the office? Or will I need to preorder the whole monitor kit for each employee? Does the base model Librem 5 include the cable needed?

I apologize if this has been asked before. I tried to make sure I looked before posting. Thanks so much for your time.

#2

Since it’s running Linux, I would imagine that anything you have that already works with Linux should also work with the Librem 5. I know on the laptops, in order to get bluetooth working at all, you have to do a little of your own legwork to get the kernel modules installed. This is only a mild inconvenience, though, and it might not even apply to the phone.

#3

I’d say you’ll definitely get it to work somehow without the kit, but you’re a bit on your own if minor or major incompatibilities show up. (And I would not expect the bare phone to come with a suitable cable).
So, for personal use I might try that, but for professional use the risk of wasting time to get it working smoothly might be a bit too high (I don’t want to sow doubts, it can of course work just perfectly well if you already have a screen (or adapter) for HDMI over USB).

On Bluetooth: I think for the phone they have free drivers available. But I still advise against bluetooth for this intention. If you plan to dock/undock the phone at least once a day, do you really want to plug the USB and additionally take care bluetooth is active and the proper devices are paired?
It’s of course good you can do that, but I’d just want to plug it* in and be ready to go.

*it: The screen via USB-C, which itself is also connected to mouse and keyboard, and of course possibly external disks etc.

#4

The phone is slated to provide video output over USB-C. That’s because we want to be compatible with the ubiquitous USB-C to HDMI adapters available anywhere. There might be subtle incompatibilities that I’m not aware of, but in general we want to make it Just Work.

Same goes for Bluetooth, obviously.

At some point, after we do tests, we might recommend some particular devices - please watch the announcements.

#5

I’d so pay for a ‘convergence kit’. Honestly, I’m not geeky at all and scouring the web for hardware is a boring chore to me. Also, I’m assuming the reason keyboards, dumb monitors, mice, etc. aren’t in the certified free program or on h-node is because they pretty much are all Free as in Freedom? I dunno, it’d be awesome if some company just made buying Free as in Freedom easy as a service. As well, you’ll be positioning yourself as the go to place to buy ‘convergence kits’ (for like, whatever) super early on :slight_smile:

#6

I’m hoping to pre-order the Librem 5 phone soon. (Tax season… we’ll see)

I don’t know if I’ll have enough for the kit right off the bat, so it is good to know I will be able to provide my own monitor, keyboard and mouse!

I’m glad Purism is blazing this trail. We need a good smartphone that respects user freedom.

#7

Thanks so much for the reply! That answered my biggest question.

Convergence is something I have wanted to see pulled off properly for a long, long time. Convergence in a secure and privacy-focused package like the Librem 5? I never even dreamed of seeing something that cool. I have so many potential uses for this feature in our workplace environment and I’m very excited to see how it’ll help our overall productivity.