The mobile phone is an expensive and often surprisingly fragile device, whose manufacturers are notorious for making them as difficult to repair as possible. Glued-together cases and unreplaceable batteries abound, and technical information is non-existent. But amongst all that there’s one manufacturer with a different approach — Fairphone. Case in point, they’ve released the full service guide including schematics for their flagship Fairphone 5.
Fairphone’s selling point is the repairability and internal accessibility of their products and of course they’ve made hay with this as a marketing opportunity. But aside from that, it’s a fascinating chance to look in-depth at a modern smartphone from the inside out. We see the next-level PCB layout and how everything is so neatly packed into the minimum space, all without resorting to a heat gun.
It’s great to have another hackable phone, and fair play to Fairphone for releasing all this stuff, but perhaps the most interesting part from where we’re sitting is how and where this phone is being sold. There have been hackable phones before, for many the Pinephone will spring to mind, but they have always been sold to an audience who buy to hack. Here in Europe where this is being written, the Fairphone is being sold as a consumer device. It won’t shake Apple or Samsung from their perches, but for a hackable device to be so generally available to those who wish to do things with it can never be a bad thing.
We took a quick look at Fairphone back in 2015, when they launched.
Give me a phone with an antenna socket !!!!
FCC says no
FC the FCC !!!
the fcc will fc you more
Very true :)
They’ve said yes in the past
If that is what you need, then purchase an LTE modem from Microhard, Sierra Wireless, Mikrotik and others. Some have SMA antenna ports, others like the Mikrotik can be obtained in the focal point of a dish. You can mount a temperature hardened modem (like Microhard) upstairs at the antenna, and PoE for power, avoiding transmission line losses.
Yep, I got all that gear … and more …. I just want the extra convenience of having a smartphone with a suitable connector.
Sure you do buddy.
It’s true. I got SIM5700G modules and a 4G modem and 30 ft antenna up a tree that I planted 12 years ago specifically for the purpose. Just dont tell the FCing FCC !!!
Given all the different bands that phones use, I don’t see the point in that for portable use. Better off with a bunch of different built in PCB antennas or whatever, instead of a telescoping whip or pair of whips that you have to keep adjusting to tune into the right band from moment to moment. Once you get past approximately that level, it’s not portable enough to justify not using a better external transciever of some kind.
They already have them on the PCB. You just have to lead it out of the case and probably to a larger, more resilient form factor.
It used to be a thing 20 years ago. Some phones would have a connector on the back, with a matching one in the optional car cradle kit for better coverage while driving. I had an Ericsson A1018, a little rubber plug below the antenna at the back could be removed to reveal an antenna connector.
I want a phone with a LORA module.
Pinephone has a LORA add on – you simply change back cover of the phone.
I feel like there needs to be some fundamental overhaul in how our smartphones look and work. I think back to the early to mid 2000’s when phone designs were all over the place, before we all settled on the slab of glass that is the smartphone. That’s really at the heart of this issue, every aspect of the design is built around a big touchscreen. If we can somehow get away from that, keep the accessibility of a screen without all these fragile workarounds and failure points to keep them thin and light, we’ll all be happy campers.
Blame…the pocket.
heh that’s the source of my frustration. in the era of dumbphones, the sizes were all over the place but they were typically between 1″-1.5″ W x 3-6″ H x 0.5-1″ D. and they mostly all fit in my pocket, though there were a couple with pointless stubby antennas that didn’t survive the experience.
then the first few generations of smartphones were all 2.4″ W x 4.5″ H x 0.5″ D. and they fit in every pocket i had. dimensions all around comparable to a wallet, except a little longer (“H”). particularly, that 0.5″ depth never caused any trouble at all.
but then came phablets. the iphone 6. 2.6″ W x 5.4″ H x 0.27″ D. and that thing fit so poorly in pockets that it was famous for bending under the tension of hipster jeans. that extra 1″ H translated into leverage. 0.27″ SO THIN!!!
i was so impressed by thin phones when i first met them. very star trek PADD. the funny thing is, on TNG, the tech is obviously infinitely thin, but they still put a 0.5″ bumper around the edge of all of their PADDs. the team outfitting captain picard and the crew of the enterprise know that there’s just no user advantage to infinite thinness. and in fact, a lot of us do that…going around with 0.23″ phones with a bumper raising it over 0.5″. the funny thing is, when phones were that thick, they didn’t need bumpers! and they had replacable batteries too.
and now my phone is 2.9″ W x 6.3″ H x 0.3″ D. i can barely use it one handed. at least jeans makers have caught on — i used to have to alter every pair of pants with aftermarket pockets. but it still *barely* fits and you’re always conscious of the tension it’s under — because it’s always jabbing into you as you move. i’ve become one of those guys who sometimes takes his phone out of his pocket when he sits down at a table. you know, the people who have to turn around and run back into the restaurant because they forgot their phone.
and i’m just lucky that the current phone doesn’t eat pockets. the last one did. something about the edge on the camera bulge i guess?? always had a hole in my pocket. i repaired it and it made a hole in the patch.
pockets have something to do with it but pockets are tailing phones these days.
I use one that fits onto my belt because I got tired of replacing screen protectors, and easier to retrieve.
I often wear cargo pants, the phone has plenty of room and I don’t sit on it.
I love how he speaks as if STTNG is actually real and “they” in “their infinite future wisdom” choose to do things a certain way… lolz
I admit my phone’s only 5.8×2.7×0.35 so my pockets are plenty, but I think part of the blame goes to pant designs that put too much emphasis on fashion over function. I had more in my pockets before smartphones than I do now, so I always wore pants with better pockets to fit it all.
The problem is: I want a big screen and a thin device. So unfortunately there is just no space for a physical keyboard.
I wonder when they’ll get rid of all the point-to-point connections and just have an i2c bus (or something faster) to connect up all the chips. Easier to route, thinner PCBs. Because this ‘schematic’ is just a connection map with some passives. No real circuits in sight.
What is a “real circuit”? Sure, modern digital electronics is mostly just interconnected ICs.
Fast data transfer is quite incompatible with a shared bus, so point-to-point connections will remain.
And smartphones are full of fast data transfer, even 1080p60 video camera already transfers 3 Gbit/s.
But it may be that standards emerge and they’ll all use some common point-to-point serial protocol, like there is already e.g. MIPI CSI for cameras.
In a “typical” – *properly* administered service center – depot level – there are ATE analyzers that would confirm proper functioning to spec of the radio transceiver elements. For example, frequency error, sensitivity, modulation accuracy, etc, etc. Seriously doubt the average Joe (or corner fix-it shop) as access to an Agilent or Anritsu $100k piece of test equipment.
If one swaps out the main & secondary pcb’s – the core RF sections that are the basis for a phone, they’re presuming the factory supplier of same has tested said boards and QA’d them as acceptable to regulatory authorities (that it won’t be acting as an inadvertent EW jammer), and also it meets OEM specs for the assembled phone.
The other peripheral elements (camera, etc), are of no consequence to the core function of the basic device (which is communication via RF) – exception the screen, somewhat critical as the human interface.
” It won’t shake Apple or Samsung from their perches, but for a hackable device to be so generally available to those who wish to do things with it can never be a bad thing.”
Hacking is a small part of the picture. Availability of parts is the other.
Plust part sourcing policy.
> Here in Europe where this is being written, the Fairphone is being sold as a consumer device.
Unfortunately, there in Europe appears to be the only place it’s being sold. No plans for availability in the US as far as I can tell — do the carriers here all have too many demands for individual carrier certifications? Or does Apple have too much of a hold on the market here? Oh well, I guess I’ll just keep my Essential kicking as long as I can!
Could just buy one online. My stuff works there, don’t see why their stuff wouldn’t work here. Getting past the proprietary stuff could be difficult…..
You cannot place an order if your destination country is not on their list.
Some question too on warranty coverage outside “official” territory. For a 700 Euro phone that’s a non-starter.
I think the problem is that most people in the US don’t ever purchase a phone. The majority of the service providers sell you service and then up-sell a new phone that you make monthly payments on as part of your service contract.
Or go with an MVNO and buy the phone outright.
I want Fairphone to release the source code for the device tree for Fairphone 4 and 5. Having kernel source code is great but porting would be much easier this device tree source as well.
Already did, they partnered with LineageOS so they have official device trees on their GitHub
I suppose KiCad layout would be out of the question?