Librem 5 Fir Batch

Librem Phones (Librem 5)
#78

Sure. I am not against putting it on the backlog. Just it is also useful to compare the topics on the backlog in order to order them.

I share my experience.
When I watch a movie on a notebook most of the time I connect a sound system via the 3,5mm port because notebook sound is usually bad. Regardless of some brand name like B&O or whatever written on the notebook. There is just not enough space for a proper sound hardware in a notebook. And when I have such experience with any notebook, I don’t even need to try to achieve much on a smartphone.

#79

Not allowed in the EU anymore.

1 Like
#80

Too Bad EU. Whatever the 2mm+usb-c still pirate permitted. :wink:

1 Like
#81

Yes, quality stereophonic sound outputs (including built-in stereo/TRRS socket) are part of mainline Linux by definition.

2 Likes
#82

Maybe. Maybe not. Would have to read the fine print e.g. is it permitted for a device to have more than one charging option providing that one of the charging options is USB-C?

(This isn’t exactly a serious suggestion because I can imagine that having both will make noone happy.)

And then there are adapter options for charging.

3 Likes
#83

Adapters only count if USB-C is the connection to the device. EU said “we want to stop e-waste and every device should be able to be charged by every standard charging-cable (USB-C-cable ofc)”.

#84

Did they said that? Anyway, as long as Apple is allowed to insert Apple 2.4A protocol into newly produced power supplies, their USB-C outputs, they do not care much (as EU representatives probably do not know much about on what they voted). Therefore power supplies should clearly state which charging protocols particular power supplies provide and not that are most of them so-called full protocol while include Apple 2.4A, which will mostly overtake even if end-device is not originally supposed to work with Apple 2.4 protocol (and therefore probably overheat). Just to mention that BC1.2 and Samsung 2.0A charging protocols are quite endangered that way (not to extend this post toward other very fine technologies like QC4+ or PD3.1).

Well, and by the way, speaking about PD3.1, I’ll get UM3506, 32Bit RISC-V core charging controller, into my hands relatively soon, I hope so, in form of this very fine power supply.

2 Likes
#85

And even if they did say that, there can be a large gap between “words” and “reality”.

There is also a difference between “charging” and “operating”. There is more chance of “any charger” being able to charge the battery than being able to operate the device.

Manufacturers can defeat this directive by making the charging so ridiculously slow that you go out and buy the manufacturer’s specific overpriced charger anyway. :rofl:

I think this saga has a long way to go before we see how well it works in practice.

1 Like
#86

So what I had in mind is that if you are determined to charge your phone via a barrel connector and that is all that the phone offers, a phone might still be compliant providing that it
a) does not come with a charger, and
b) does come with a tiny adapter that has USB-C PD on one side and a barrel connector on the other side.

Not only would this be more secure but it would also be the only way to retrofit this directive to some older phones. (I understand that the directive is not retrospective but for practical reasons e.g. availability of replacement chargers, it might still be desirable to do so.)

1 Like
#87

->As far as I know<- this shouldn’t be the way because of e-waste. Nearly every device (not only phones) should use same charging cables because anything else makes no sense. However, I haven’t read a lot of digital politics while last months and I may missed something (and politicians sometimes change their mind). So if you have some news it would be nice to get a link that I can read it (ger or en). I also update you, when I’m more up to date.

1 Like
#88

Understanding that we are talking about a hypothetical but … with the approach of using an adapter, a USB-C charger and a USB-C to USB-C cable would work just fine with this hypothetical phone. (I mean “would work” if it works at all because obviously USB-C doesn’t always “just work”.)

So to clarify my previous post:

a phone might still be compliant providing that it
a) does not come with a charger, and
b) does not come with a charging cable, and
c) does come with a tiny adapter that has USB-C PD on one side and a barrel connector on the other side (and it doesn’t even matter whether it comes with this adapter as long as the customer can obtain the adapter).

By way of illustration that such adapters are not themselves hypothetical: UPERFECT X Mini lapdock works with Librem 5 (first bullet point) If it’s good enough for Kyle, it’s good enough for me. :wink:

#89

I agree. And in addition, I have no doubt that USB Type-C is very fine port/connector: https://ae01.alicdn.com/kf/Sf48c2b098e634e00871017b628d289a7a.jpg :wink:.

EDIT: @Ick, this article (although relatively old one) is about manufacturer that follows exactly what you wrote in your post: “It is USB-IF PD3.0–certified with TID 3666; is compatible with USB PD3.0 and Type-C V1.4; and can support BC1.2 DCP, CDP, and SDP while the source is attached. The HUSB238 can be used in electronic devices that have legacy barrel connectors (also called ”barrel connector replacement”) or USB Micro-B connectors as an alternative power resource.”

#90

Wishes in Fir:
Built-in FLIR Lepton 3.5 thermal sensor.

FLIR
FLIR1200×628 580 KB

Will be first-in-the-world in professional gnu devices by Purism. :wink:

1 Like
#91

What is the application of the thermal sensor? Why would I want higher price, higher complexity, higher weight, and higher energy consumption in order to have this sensor packed next to everything else?

#92

Thermal scanner, this help to troubleshooting a lot things, things that the human eye cannot see but you will with a Fir Purism device. : )

#93

Good question.

The poster specified “FLIR Lepton 3.5” which is a product name rather than a device type. FLIR is an ancronym coined by the maker of the “FLIR Lepton 3.5” and stands for “Forward Looking Infra-Red”. Teledyne FLIR sells their products mostly to government law enforcement: border patrol, surveillance, search and rescue, security camera, grow-light drug grower detection, …

Personally I can’t imagine why one would want it integrated into a phone. That said, for geek-out uses there have been raspberry pi boards incorporating these. [From Teledyne FLIR themselves see https://www.flir.com/developer/lepton-integration/lepton-integration-raspberry-pi/ ]

#94

I am just thinking for a longer time that maybe the main problem of Librem 5 is that there are several very different use cases and Librem 5 tries to satisfy way too many user groups at the same time leading to many people disappointed and to splitting the highly limited resources to work on too many topics at the same time.

  1. A 4G mobile phone that is more trustable than the mobile phones on the market.
  2. An Android phone where you have real control over the camera, microphone, and wireless communication like LTE, WiFi, and Bluetooth.
  3. A general purpose Linux notebook in the size of a Smartphone.
  4. A Linux Smartphone.

Librem 5 tries to be all 4 at the same time and ends up in the middle due to limitations in the CPU and energy consumption.
So actually there could have been 4 different devices:

The first one could have been something with even less computational power than Librem 5, but do the job of being a secure mobile phone well. Kill switches, good battery life, stable modem, Linux based OS without modern apps. No desktop Linux apps. Weaker and less power hungry CPU. Something like the Precursor phone but better (Precursor does not even have a modem at the moment if I am not mistaken).

The second could be an Android Smartphone with stock Android that gives hardware control to the user. Just Android but with hardware kill switches for sensors, camera, microphone, Bluetooth, WiFi, and LTE modem.

The third is what Librem 5 currently tries to be, but the task is a huge one.

The fourth would be a Linux Smartphone without the security bells and whistles. Focus not on the higher hardware security compared to Android or iOS, but using similar SoC like Android and iOS and delivering just the Linux alternative so that the users benefit from the better performance and battery life and the ecosystem of apps gets developed. No better security. Just breaking the oligopoly of Google and Apple.

I think we suffer due to too high ambitions considering the limited resources. You see, if an engineer spends time to fine tune the thermal sensor and make it work and to write an app for the thermal sensor, the same engineer is not working on other topics. So you are not getting a better product. You are sacrificing the core functionality in order to get some decorations on the top.

Battery...how is it even possible?
#95
2 Likes
#96

I think the entire effort for Fir should be to refine the existing platform to make it better, adding a bunch of fringe devices to it at this stage makes no sense. Remember they are not Samsung, they can’t dedicate thousands of engineers to this. Make it smaller and more energy efficient is going to be a big enough challenge when you can’t use industry standard blobby hardware.

3 Likes
#97

… which raises a good question: Is the proposed IR sensor even viable? i.e. is it blob-free?

Technically speaking, the Librem 5 already has IR hardware - but it is well beyond my knowledge as to what the overlap and gaps would be between the existing IR hardware and the proposed sensor.

1 Like