L5 basic suport

I understand that people may have different priorities of what should be fixed next in L5. However, if L5 does not work as a phone it defies the purpose of its existence. I have noticed that when I talk to people with flagship products of Sumsung or iPhone all is OK. But when I talk to people with lower end phones they can not hear me. This problem has to do with the fact that L5 drops the connection to 2G during a call. I always get complains they can not hear me and always have to switch to a close-by landline. This is so annoying. I wonder how are the priorities set?

No VoIP, no suspend yet.

If these two are not the #1 priorities by purism why should someone be happy to carry a great terminal with him? I love it. I really love the qualities L5 has brought to my mobile computing, but if people can not hear me or the battery is frequently depleted, I will be eventually forced to a cheap Android and I do not want this.

I just want to ask Purism to reconsider the priorities. If people agree with this, please write here.

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They are priorities. They are just very hard and therefore take time. See for example this: https://teddit.net/r/Purism/comments/rh4wkg/purism_developed_over_a_quarter_million_lines_of/how0gl9/#c.

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As far as I can see, they are actively working on suspend support. Take a look at their GitLab instance.

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Librem 5 — painpoint assessment 2021

and read that whole topic for what people think.

Did you mean VoIP or VoLTE? Because I think VoIP is close.

Are you on amber or byzantium because realistically to get a lot of the major functionality you will have to be using the latter?

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Yeah, I got confused. VoLTE. And yes I am on Byzantium. The fact that people can not communicate with me over the phone and most of the time they hangup is very problematic.

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I can officially confirm, we have dedicated folks working on those.

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Thank you Purism and Dorota.

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I haven’t experienced the issue of the other side of the call not hearing anything, I do however, still have the issue of very poor audio quality for the outgoing voice call. So even though the other end does hear me it’s quite likely they will still struggle to understand what I’m saying.

A year after the final production units have started shipping and still there is a lack of support for external headsets (wired or wireless), I find that quite disappointing.

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So have you tried it? I think I am right in saying that even in amber some people have manually enabled VoLTE and found that it works. Maybe more in Europe than in the US. Almost certainly dependent on which carrier you are using.

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Wait, what you say is important. I did not know it is my choice to enable it. I will try ASAP.

And yes @Loki this is what I mean. People struggle to understand what I saying at the other end, and eventually the hangup being unable to understand.

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Just checked the interface. I see VoLTE no-where. Where is this setting? If it is hidden in some configuration file then I do not know where it is.

How to enable it @irvinewade ?
(I am on Byzantium)

Er, sorry, I should have noted that it’s not officially supported yet so there’s no GUI. It’s all technobabble as given here: https://source.puri.sm/Librem5/OS-issues/-/issues/162

Edit: And you’ll need this: https://source.puri.sm/Librem5/community-wiki/-/wikis/Tips-&-Tricks#executing-an-at-command-on-the-modem

I prefer Method B.

Warning: I haven’t tried VoLTE in my country because it’s not urgent (and 3G for calls is working fine). 3G will only be phased out here in a few years time, maybe more.

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Ive actually just purchased a Referb’ed Pixel 5 and am flashing CaylxOS (deGoogle services) on it as a time buyer replacement for my L5. The L5 is def not ready to be used as a daily driver. I’ve using it as my DD for about the last month and it has too many uncertainties and instabilities for me to rely on it for daily use. In the mean time I plan on putting it in my desk draw and retrying 6 months down the road.

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Be sure to maintain battery health.

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Could you share what those are?

Just to name a few…

– Both wifi and or cellular cut out from time to time. (not sure what triggers it)
– Side toggles for turning on wifi/cellular do not always function. Off position does always work though
– Sound call quality for ppl on the other end is not great. Commonly hear that it sounds like i am talking to them in a tunnel.
– Battery does not hold a good enough charge without being tied to charger throughout the day. Not practical for driving.
– Every reboot of the phone reset (or does not keep certain settings) within the phone.
– GPS tracking within the Maps app is not very accurate for pin point location
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Thanks for taking the time to tell us!

I’m still interested about which settings are getting lost on reboot. Do you mind expanding on that?

I think GPS does not work at all yet, so that will improve with time. We’re also working on battery life.

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I can confirm. After booting up (or switching on the Wifi kill switch), the Wifi connection is good. Then, after a few minutes the Internet suddenly stops working, although the icon above says it’s still there. Turning the switch off and on again usually helps… It typically happens when a wall is between me and the router.

Never had such problem. The switch is reliable.

Nobody complained for me. But I usually don’t speak outside.

It got much better withing the last months. From 100% to 30% it goes in 9 hours for me. (Cellular connection is on, Wifi is off with a soft switch).

Settings of which are lost upon reboot…

  • display size does not stay customized…always resorts back to 200%.
  • Mega Pixel exposure and balance settings, never save.

Also my L5 has issues connecting to certain Bluetooth devices. It usually see all broadcasting devices, just has troubles connecting to some, ie: the BT stereo in my Toyota 4Runner.

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@irvinewade I installed minicom on L5 and followed the above instructions with method B.
Here is what happens: I get into the modem ttyUSB1 and ATI returns the modem information.

I issue the two AT commands given It says OK. I disconnect from minicom (hang up) and turn off the modem as instructed. Then I flip the kill switch on and the modem reconnects with mobile telephony.

Again connect to it with minicom and isse
ATD6912345678
Nothing happens. It does not dial anything.
If I now issue

AT+BMRAT

it returns +BMRAT: FDD LTE
but there is no call going on as I said. If I go to the phone and now use calls to dialout it works (it does make the call) and on the minicom screen the AT+BMRAT now returns
+BMRAT: GPRS

So maybe I do something wrong? Could it be that gnome-calls is running and needs to stop somehow?

Moreover I noticed that if I change the NetworkMode to “3G 4G (preferred)” (as instructed by Azevedo) the phone can not make calls and can not receive calls. The only remedy is to return it to “2G 3G 4G (preferred)” and then it works again.

any help/ideas ?