Questions about completely removing the cellular modem

Hardware Librem 5
18

  1. After removing the cellular modem, my Librem 5 works just as it did with the cellular modem disabled using the killswitch.

  2. Yes, it appears that the Librem 5 is designed to be fully functional with or without a cellular modem installed.

  3. @dos answered this question saying that “resuming from suspend is completely unrelated to whether you use the modem or not” and recently made a post listing what there is still to be done for suspend to work properly. and I hope that my use-case is included. While I never got an answer on this, I think that the Librem 5 will eventually be able to wake/resume from sleep without a cellular modem for notifications from non-cellular applications (alarm clock, instant messaging, etc.). (Edited to emphasize that this question has been answered by @dos)

  4. I have not noticed any difference in temperature after removing the cellular modem from my Librem 5.

  5. The antennas are actually firm enough to hold their position without rattling around, and there is a small piece of foam on the inside of the plastic cover that is designed to hold them onto the cellular modem. With the cellular modem removed, the foam holds them in place and prevents them from making any noise.

  6. With the cellular modem removed, it is safe to use the cellular killswitch, as described in answer 7.

  7. Yes, without a cellular modem installed, the cellular killswitch can be used to enable/disable Lockdown mode. Since there is no Lockdown mode icon (yet?), you can swipe down from the top of the device to display the quick settings in order to see whether Lockdown mode is enabled or disabled. The rotation button toggles between Portrait and Landscape when Lockdown mode is enabled, and the rotation button toggles between On and Off (auto-rotate) when Lockdown mode is disabled. Using the cellular killswitch to disable Lockdown mode allows games and other applications to use accelerometer, gyroscope, and other sensors in offline mode without needing to enable the cameras/microphones. I don’t think there is any way to download maps for offline use yet, but once that feature is added, offline GPS navigation will also be possible.

While I was removing the cellular modem from my Librem 5, I also upgraded to the new SparkLAN Wifi card, and I love that I can do all of this to my phone.

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