it seems the Librem Phone is getting one HKS for baseband and one for WiFi/BT. One thing that Android annoys me with is that you can’t turn off the mobile connection without turning off WiFi as well. Likewise it would be great to be able to kill BT without killing WiFi with it. But I guess they are provided by the same module, so, no chance?
a bit off topic, but these killswitches could be interesting for battery life in the end, as you could switch to a “calls-only” mode, or wifi-only etc. That could prove a huge selling point
Well, actually you can (tested on various phones running CyanogenMod/LineageOS). Put the phone into airplane mode, then re-enable wi-fi or bluetooth as you see fit. Likewise, bluetooth and wi-fi have separate controls in the phones I’ve used. (yes, it’s off-topic, I know)
I know that, of course. The thing is, it’s annoying you have to re-enable wifi. Apart from that, it’s a bit messed up: For wifi to be off you have to turn something off (wifi), for mobile to be off you have turn something on (plane mode). I’m using Power Toggles to put toggle icons on my home screen. They visualise this mess quite nicely.
i generally dislike the presence of a killswitch or switches. there is a cause for removing as much physically moving parts as possible in mobile devices. you see others going down to 3 buttons to deliver a robust and reliable phone.
instead of a hardware switch i would be fine with a software switch if there would be a separate led showing the state. i assume the motivation for a hks is that a malware could turn on devices where that isn’t desired.
a led which is properly connected (not like we’ve seen in the past with certain webcam leds that were instead sw controlled) that reliable shows power status would be fine for me.