I switched off the WiFi hardware switch on my L5 today before leaving the house but Im traveling around and the WiFi is still showing in software and still showing nearby access points.
Is hardware switch on Librem 5 just a software switch that can stop turning off in an update or something? What is that???
It’s a physical switch. See @nicole.faerber 's comment: Wifi and camara switches - #2 by nicole.faerber
Okay so, is there a way to shake L5 such that you can switch it to the off position but still use the radio, via loose wire?
I doubt it. Check the schematics?
P.S. Isn’t “lie” kinda harsh for this question?
I am writing this with all HKS off, so if you see it I am confused!!!
The HKS don’t prevent typing. 
(That was a joke.)
I created the second recording because I realized someone could be concerned I might have turned the HKS back to enabling wifi while it was offscreen or something
okay I edited the title, but still, would like to know what’s the deal here… how can the device do this… and how I can make the hardware switch more of a guarantee?
So, uh, this anomaly should never happen. I’ll point the dev team toward this thread for review. Even if there’s a manufacturing defect e.g. solder bridge, or if some conductive particle found its way into your phone’s chassis, the design should make this nearly if not completely impossible.
Haha my thoughts (but nothing I really believed in).
If you ask me, the HKS may do not sit perfectly anymore. I realized that HKS can be turned on in a nearly off-position. So let’s think further: what if you used it that often, that it just got outworn and does not disconnect the circulation anymore? At least what I think about.
is there some way I can unscrew everything while holding a camera to help us find a part somewhere that is not disconnecting, or something?
Edit:
is there some way that using the 3D printed nylon back from here would induce charge into some kinda wire somewhere… so that it had energy to do wifi even if it was disconnected by hardware switch?
Or is the problem more likely that the physical switch part can break off and then move up and down without moving up and down some kind of internal connector?
There are a million ways to mount a camera for that purpose.
Yes, the switch cap can certainly break off from the switch itself where it appears that the switch is in the open position but the circuit remains closed. Perhaps try tugging gently with needlenose pliers to see if the switch cap is only resting in the socket but not truly connected to the switch.
Is this a case where I need to disassemble and tug on something on the inside, or a case where I should tug on the external switch part? (Is that what we call the switch cap?)
Ever since the issue first appeared, I have not toggled the switch for WiFi on/off so that it would remain in this state and I could see what I thought I was seeing. I was picturing that maybe if I go through a cycle of toggling it, then it might “recover” and begin working again. But that made me wonder… is that I sign that I’m being fooled and it’s a software switch… I just was confused.
I moved the switch to the position that would normally enable wifi and the wifi software icon blinked off then back on.
After this, moving the switch back to the off state causes the wifi software icon to turn off like normal.
So it indeed seems like a one time fluke. But I dont really understand it. How can I ensure it will never happen?
It kind of has that feeling like if the switch were a software on/off and missed sending the off signal that one time earlier today… or something…
Looks like defectives h.k.s. Start get it in touch for Purism to get a new h.k.s module. Also remember that current Gnu Core is bad,
Sometimes the icons will fail to update, so you can manually turn off and on your Librem 5 to update them.
Sure but that’s a wildly different problem than using a supposed hardware switch to disable radios and having them sometimes remain fully operational
Right, you may want to disassemble the Librem 5 to inspect its internals: