Fairphone has created a smartphone that owners can repair themselves - This sustainable smartphone aims to reduce global electronic waste::In a bid to reduce global electronic waste, Fairphone has created a smartphone that owners can repair themselves. What makes its technology so sustainable?
When I couldn’t repair my Nokia and replace the 5 € USB-Port because there happened to be a small crack in the screen (of course you have to remove the glued on screen to accese the innards), I caved and bought a Fairphone 3.
Worst decision ever. The stupid thing refuses to break to let me even use the better repairability.
you got me
almost like a toyota, outdated and often too expensive for what it can do but will last forever.
too expensive for what it can do but will last forever
As far as I’m concerned, this is contradictory; if something is going to last forever, and not ridiculously overpriced, then it’s worth the premium.
i think it’s worth the price, but some people don’t think as far. they just compare specs and say “this chinesium phone scores 2 points better in some benchmark and costs 200€” not knowing why it’s that cheap in the first place. old toyotas are still worth something for a reason.
I mean, they’re not even that expensive to begin with.
Agreed. They’re statement was very subjective, so it’s kind of hard to argue with that metric.
You say that but there are Toyotas with 100k miles and 15 years old selling for 4k off MSRP of a brand-new vehicle. Which is to say way above original MSRP.
In pure maintenance consumable items alone - it’s a bad deal. It’s so a bad deal when you take consideration that new cars can have half the interest rate of a new one.
Can confirm, nothing broke yet :(
I was so ready to go hard on this comment, you got me there pal.
Ironically Nokia* now make highly repairable phones** again
* Specifically, the company that bought the Nokia Phones brand
** Only their G series
I had the same thing with the FP2. I even got a cheap spare one from ebay to use for spares. Both are still fine. One is now an alarm clock and the other one is a gps for my bike
Fairphone existed for years now, and the title makes it seem like as if they made a new phone just now that is repairable.
Yeah, the Fairphone 2 is 7 years old and you can still buy all the important replacement parts directly from their store.
Does it still get OS updates?
the main complaint from me is still the headphone jack. they faced insane backlash when they released the FP4. i thought this company cares about the user as well as the environment. but it seems they didn’t realize that people want actual features (like wireless charging, the headphone jack, or a usable battery size).
don’t get me wrong, i own a Fairphone 4 and love using it. but making these mistakes 2 times in a row now is just pathetic.
“we want to reduce e-waste by forcing everyone to throw out their wired headphones and buy a new set of wireless ones every couple of years when the battery goes dead”
The hypocrisy enrages me here
I’ve been using the same pair of Sony XB50AP wired headphones for over 7 years now. It works fine (although not great) even after going through couple washing machine cycles. Meanwhile my wireless WH1000XM3 broke after 2 years of use.
Also I own an Android with no headphone jack, so I have to use a USB-C to 3.5mm dongle. And I can feel it’s slowly destroying the type C port’s connectors on my phone everytime I plug the dongle in, making the headphone connection sometimes not even recognizeable on my phone.
The WH-1000XM3 have repairable batteries. You can buy them online, and pop them in after undoing two screws
Thanks for the headsup but mine broke because of something wrong inside the device, probably something wrong with the pcb (might be water corrosion or something). Plus the headband on WH1000XM3 is just so easy to broke. I’ve replace both side of the headband just because it’s designed very poorly.
forcing everyone to use a high quality 9$ dongle DAC with their wired headphones
Ftfy
Which you have to carry around separately, which comes at a convenience cost and so you’re more likely to just go for wireless ones (I know I have after the headphone jack wore out in my phone)
And also not charge at the same time unless you get a well shielded dac dongle with a usb female which also allows charging and supports thunderbolt, which is another piece of future e-waste that you’ll have to carry around in addition to your phone and 3.5mm only dongle, as the unconnected wire will get caught on your hand if you try to use your phone
Your idea of a fix makes as much sense as apple calling selling you 90% of a new device fixing your device - let’s not allow degenerate business practices just because a brand like to think of themselves as green and ethical, it’s anti-consumer and anti-environment, no ifs, no buts.
My nice head phones came with a case, I usually keep them in that case. The dongle fits inside with them.
Unfortunately my previous phone’s headphone jack was underpowered and didn’t work well with my headphones so I used to dongle despite having a jack.
This is the unfortunate reality with most phones that do include the headphone jack (RIP LG)
There are wireless earbuds with repairable batteries. Just not Fairbuds, which have soldered batteries (LOL!)
The problem is there is no competition here. I’d love to see several repairable smartphones with slightly different features that create some competition. For example something with a max 5.5” screen and only a single camera.
Yes, absolutely. fairphone themselves say they want to create competition by making the fairphones. sadly, no one has really fully committed to this.
Actually, there is at least one other company specializing in sustainable / repairable electronics - besides Fairphone - I’m aware of.
Check out Shiftphone: Their new Shiftphone 8 (still under development / construction) will be a pretty solid deal with a reasonable price-performance ratio - already pre ordered mine and very excited for final delivery in March.
… Their previous models as well as spare parts, etc. are also still available through their shop.
I can’t speak to your other requirements but the Nokia brand has a couple of repairable phones as a result of an ifixit partnership.
As Linux Phones they’re a bit more niche but the Librem 5 and the Pine Phone/Pro are very repairability focussed
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Usable battery size? The FP5 has a 4200mah battery which is about 500mah less than the s23 plus which is pretty reasonable and I’ve found it very usable for day to day use. Wireless charing is a pointless gimmick personally and I don’t see the utility of it. Lack of a headphone jack is a pain though.
Wireless charging is a good alternative to have when your usb-c port breaks.
Of course, with Fairphone is is less of an issue since replacing those is like 15€.
I thought the same of wireless charging before I tried it. I now have a charger on my desk that I sit my phone on whenever I’m there. Charging isn’t something I ever even think about now. It just is charged.
I’ve just never had that be a problem for me. I’ve had wireless charging phones before and I never really felt having a wireless charger any more convenient than just plugging my phone in. Really the only time I used wireless charging was on an old phone when the micro-b port failed but with the advent of type c being and the ease of swapping a charging port on the FP5 it just seems to be adding needless expense to the device to have a less efficient method of charging the device.
My guess for the real reason is that they buy off-the-shelf components from suppliers and don’t have enough money to design and order a custom motherboard with a headphone jack.
they designed the whole thing themselves. that’s why the schematics are publicly available. they definetely made a choice to fuck over users.
Laughs in FP3
Jep their decision that I shouldn’t waste energy is the reason i don’t want one(wireless charging)
plus it’s easy as heck to add during development, i simply don’t get why they didn’t include it.
I do sometimes feel like what we really want is something a little bit more like how Framework are doing things. Yes it’s easily repairable, but it’s also easily upgradable.
Upgradability isn’t really a design consideration for fairphone. So everyone is stuck with the kind of mediocre camera that they decided to put on it. It would be nice if the option was there to have something a bit better.
Actually, they do.
The Fairphone 3 was upgradable to the Fairphone 3+ by buying spare parts like the camera and installing them yourself.
The thing is that phones don’t really need upgrades.
phones don’t really need upgrades
Huh??? I went through 4 phones during the lifespan of my last PC
Yeah and you didn’t really need any of them.
A smartphone from 9 years ago is still enough hardware to handle everything a smartphone needs to do.
I wish that was true but it feels like the opposite to me. Running videos in a browser on my phone seems to be worse than when I first started using it - I suspect due to them becoming more demanding.
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Maybe if you don’t communicate with people regularly lmfao.
My current phone is about 3 years old and is getting slower with age, the camera is mid when compared to newer models, the under screen fingerprint sensor is ass, etc
My first phone? A slow mess, not running a modern operating system, overheated if you looked at it funny, camera looked like there was Vaseline on the lens, battery was shit, usb micro-b, etc
the camera is mid when compared to newer models
This is a weird take. New phones having newer features doesn’t mean yours got worse than it was when you bought it.
A factory reset and battery swap will restore most old devices to their original state. If they were good enough three years ago there’s no reason it’s not now.
Right, except the original comment was that phones don’t need upgrades. I’m saying that my circle of people, myself included, all appreciate getting new phones for newer features. So the notion that upgrades are unnecessary is a little delulu
For battery swaps, I’m not arguing against that. This is all under the main comments about frameworks strategy of designing upgrades into their product – so i don’t have to buy a whole new phone to get a new camera and battery :p
Appreciating an upgrade isn’t the same thing as needing one. I’m glad(?) that you recognize you and your friends are submitting to social pressure and consumerism but if you’ll forgive me I think it’s still a very weird take when not buying something you don’t need is still an option.
I’m still rocking my pixel 3 from ages ago, still don’t feel like i need a replacement, plus i prefer my 3 over the later iterations and from other brands
The main upgrade they need is the processor because the companies making those are not supporting newer Android-Versions and at some point that becomes a security-issue.
Problem is that replacing the processor to a newer generation usually means the whole mainboard is obsolete, too and then is very quickly doesn’t become easy to upgrade anymore
just switching between different types of cameras, screens etc. wouldn’t be as big of a problem but that’s also not part of the main-problem either
It’s a great thing, and I hope the industry (with motivation by EU) will follow a trend towards repairability and sustainability. However I think the most sustainable way is buying used devices.
Unfortunately you need something with long firmware and software support. Qualcomm is your enemy, they stop updating the firmware of their chips after about two years and that’s why android phones often stop getting updates less than 2 years after you buy them.
That’s true. I use LineageOS to get at least OS updates, but firmware is definitely problematic. I just wished mobile hardware would be more generic like in Desktop PCs, that would solve a lot of problems.
We need a phone equivalent of the 80’s BIOS wars.
But it’s not in anyone’s best interest to spend the resources to develop a standardized hardware interface. Though at this point you’d think it would be straightforward to use UEFI.
they’re selling refurbished FP4s now but yeah, buy used phones, or at least B-stock.
Used devices still break and end in landfills, though, used might be better than new for carbon output today, but repairable is gonna win out in that regard long term
even better, a used repairable phone.
Hopefully in the future repairable and used can go hand in hand! Those are not mutually exclusive attributes.
Own a 4 had to replace the screen, and it was refreshingly easy with the modular system. My only issue is parts availability at times.
I’ve replaced a few screens that were glued in place (Samsung being one), just had to warm them with a hair dryer and used a playing card to cut through the adhesive. Easy-peasy.
My wife and I got new phones earlier this year, because her battery wasn’t holding a charge anymore. The FP5 looked awesome and had everything we wanted, but they won’t release it in the US. So we were stuck with the usual suspects. I understand why FP can’t bring all of their stuff here, but it still sucks.
I’m the US… Literally a new phone every one or two years.
If you’re thrifty like me, it’s every four years. And watch as that phone suffers from bad battery life, then incredible slowdown, then apps not updating/working, or worst… your phone provider refuses to support your device any longer. You Feel forced to upgrade your perfectly workable mobile device.
We pay a subscription fee for both the service AND the hardware.
My current phone is 5 years old. Could use a battery (which I can buy for $10). It runs faster than any phone in my circle (running a fork of Lineage, currently Android 13, and it will get the update to 14 any day now).
No reason phones can’t last a long time.
Oh, and I paid $100 for this phone, so I have 3 them, one for testing and one as a hot spare, and still spent less than buying new.
I’m still rocking my Galaxy S8. Gonna use it till the battery is toast.
I’ll get occasional hangups and stuff but it’s definitely useable still.
Same here. However the lack of security update + battery life ans slowness is pushing me toward a new phone.
A shame, it’s still in good condition. And that small form factor is becoming more and more rare…
is this an ad?
I see it more like a hacker news style “show HN”
I feel like I still want a phone that is repairable but also upgradeable. Slowly being able to swap in a better screen, better camera, and a new mainboard when it’s time to upgrade.
The Google Ara was supposed to be exactly this. I think it has since been abandoned. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Ara#:~:text=Google%20planned%20to%20launch%20a,planned%20consumer%20launch%20in%202017.
Yes I’m very disappointed the the FP4 looks almost the same as the FP4 but isn’t backwards compatible in the slightest… I was looking forward to upgrade my screen.
I think the Pinephone/Pinephone Pro has this functionality.
It’s still very much a developer’s device, though. It isn’t ready for widespread use.
Fairphone 5 Please come to the US ☹️
You’re not allowed nice things until you get rid of the guns, remember?
If you have friends in the EU, maybe you could pay them what it would cost in terms of buying and shipping the phone over here. Or, if you can find one, maybe there’s someone online who does imports that might be willing to help import one.
But yeah, I really hope they expand their business here even though they’ll be absolutely 100% legally bullied out of business and forced to leave the US market because cApItAlIsM.
Sadly, their software QA sucks and thus the phone is buggy as hell.
Whitch is really frustrating because otherwise it’s a pretty good (if oversized and overly expensive) phone.
the OS is missing features, i’ll give you that. but it’s never as buggy as the 300€ phones people compare it to. trust me, i owned a Poco X3.
Missing features? It’s more or less stock Android with a different launcher. Which features are missing? 😯
I miss mostly small details. example: an option only have the fingerprint reader activate if the power button is pressed (when screen is off). why? cause the fingerprint sensor is the power button, and it’s the place I happen to hold the phone at when putting it IN my pocket, often unlocking it. it also keeps vibrating with ‘negative detection’ haptic feedback when just handling the phone, and any part of the hand touches the sensor.
there are quite a few options like this missing that area common on other phones.
exactly
Indeed. I own the 3 and it’s ups and downs. In the end it is still good enough plus the aspect of more fairness in the whole process.
Do report these on the FP forum when you encounter them, the staff seem pretty proactive at getting these fixed, although it takes them a while… (at least they were for the FP3 - even community requests for a very low screen brightness were honored, and now they’re supporting two versions of android for the FP3 due to Google’s fingerprint sensor requirement nonsense on Android 13)
Sure, done that. But the issues I have have been open for months (e.g. the really unresponsive screen since they “fixed” the ghost touch issue by reducing the screen sensitivity for all phones, even the ones not affected by ghost touches, making other phones ignore touches all the time).
Or Android 13 frequently crashing, resetting or freezing if you dare to use 5G. That’s a blocker level bug that is open since Android 13 was released and support told me a week ago that they still have no clue why this happens.
And even though some of these bugs are super easy to fix (and I proposed some fixes that I got running on my phone using root, with no access to any source code) they still spend months not fixing them.
The very low screen brightness for example took from February to October to fix, even though it took me 15min and I sent my fix to support and posted it on the forums. No change happened until they updated to A13, which rewrote that part of AOSP.
And the ghost touch/screen sensitivity issue, which has a dead simple fix, is still open since launch. The issue there is that the screens have very different levels of sensitivity from the factory. So if they set one software sensitivity level, either some get ghost touches or others get an unresponsive screen. So the fix is to just add a toggle or a slider in the settings that users can use to adjust the screen sensitivity, just like e.g. Samsung has done for a long time. Instead, they just arbitrarily change that value to ruin the experience for someone else.
And yes, that proposed solution has been on the forums for years and it was also sent to support.
Own a fp4, dont have any issues. But i am running lineageOS on it :')
I’ve had a fairphone 4 running /e/OS (aftermarket) for a month now and im very happy with it. It consistently surprises me and exceeds my expectations in terms of flexibility and reliability (and of course privacy).
You should be aware that there are occasionally compatibility issues with common apps – particularly proprietary ones. The worst incident was when the NordVPN app stopped working for me a few days ago… though this may have been a problem with /e/OS or the custom launcher ive installed rather than with Fairphone. I ended up switching to Mullvad VPN and i like it a lot more.
Also I have not been able to purchase any paid apps via the App Lounge… i get a google error message stating that my device isnt registered with the Google Play Store or something like that. not sure if its just me or a widespread problem. I suspect it is an /e/OS issue that might not present itself if u are just using stock Android. If you have some absolutely must-have google play store paid apps that you can’t do without, I’d avoid /e/OS for now and some research to make sure this bug doesnt exist when using Android on FP4.
At this stage i cant recommend it for mom & dad or someone without any tech savvy whatsoever… but the privacy and flexibility make these minor setbacks absolutely worth it to me.
Overall i have no regrets and I can honestly say this is one of the most satisfying purchases I’ve ever made.
Also I have not been able to purchase any paid apps
It’s the same on my Pixel 6a with CalyxOS and the Aurora Store (anonymous access to Play Store). We simply cannot get a paid Play Store app to work without logging into Google. I can get my bank app, local transit app, firefox, bitwarden, etc from there as well as what I’ve settled on for driving nav, HereWeGo.
That’s TomTom’s free nav app and it appears to get it’s traffic info from the commercial solutions TomTom provides to truckers (paid service for them). It’s good enough, but I do miss Google Maps sometimes. I like it better than Apple Maps.
Most everything else is handled through FDroid and the apps are decent to great, no show stoppers. I don’t use it for much that would leak privacy on the app side besides banking, browsing and navigation though. It’s not for everyone.
The only way I can think of to use paid apps is to pay the developer directly and then sideload. I don’t even know if any devs do that.
As long as /e/os hangs tough my next phone will probably be a FairPhone, I really dig the philosophy and repairability.
You can buy apps from the play store with your google account in a browser, then log into your google account in aurora to download them. If your google account is important to you, you should be aware of the risk that google might ban it though. I recommend using a separate account for aurora. And it’s also of course less private than using aurora anonymously.
log into your google account in aurora
Yeah, no deal. Google login does not touch this phone. It’s just how I like it.
I tried /e/OS too, and had a great experience. The system has a polished feel and a lot of privacy-oriented settings by default, when compared to stock android.
I see a lot of criticism about that OS on reddit/lemmy, but never objectively stating what they mean, so I don’t know what to think about it.
I believe the concept behind Fairphone sounds interesting, but I think this thing about being environmentally friendly shouldn’t be focused on high-end devices, if the Fairphone 5 costs the same as 10 cheap devices(considering cheap devices have a lifetime of 1.5 years) and a biggest % of people would be able to afford a 60 bucks device vs a 600 bucks one I don’t see the point here, maybe they should make a device focused on the cheap budget pocket to really fight with the devices consumerism who are the ones what mainly create the e-waste problem. I’m not an expert but this is my humble POV.
I wonder if its just cheaper to make the crappy disposable devices, either because just gluing shit together is easy, or because the existing business model & supply lines based on planned obsolescence are established and optimised.
Ultimately any business model based on chasing anything but the most money is going to be at a disadvantage under capitalism. Want to prioritise good products, less waste, human dignity, not destroying the ecology? Well, you’re going to make less money, so you can spend less on capturing market share and you will always have a more niche and more expensive product that will be left behind by products that focus on money above all else.
I believe anything don’t cost by itself, I mean money and prices are a man-made concept englobed into economy, so I believe making cheap stuff and making expensive stuff are just two concepts englobed into capitalism.
My point would be, to get rid of e-waste we don’t need eco-friendly corporations, we need to get rid of the mayor problem which it’s capitalism by itself and it’s consumerism practices.
Yeah, in a better world where the people have control of the means of production, we wouldn’t care at all about financial return when making something. We’d make it to work well and to last and to be repairable, just like current open source hardware is. We’d make it for us.
True dat folk! ✌️🤞
Needs indefinite software support too. It has 8 years software support, which is the best that exists I think, but that means I’ll have to trash it in 8 years for no good reason. The only reason I’ve had to get rid of old phones is because they weren’t providing security updates anymore.
The problem is that, apparently the software support is lacking.
It seems security updates are (very) slow to come.
It’s a shame because the concept is very interesting and was thinking of taking the fairphone 5 as my next phone. However the bad feedback regarding updates made me look into another model
Security updates are good but the major of the weakness it’s the human using the device, there wouldn’t be any security update which can fight a dumb user, my humble POV.
I’m not saying you are dumb, what I’m saying it’s from my POV security updates are redundant.
According what I know about devices security updates are meant to protect corporations interests they usually are not to protect you from being hacked it’s more like to protect the corporations devices from you hacking it.
There’s vulnerabilities like the recent iMessage exploit that are executed remotely through no interaction by the user. In combination with the ability to self-spread you get mass exploits like WannaCry which spread to 300k+ computers in 7 hours. All you need is a network connection.
Imo, paying a small extra for the device makes sense because it’s not a huge company, and the r&d must be expensive.
Yeah I mean for people who can afford any phone out there it’s not a big problem, but if you are from IDK maybe the 80% who cannot do it I believe it’s better if they focus or at least have a line of products for the people who would be interested in a budget price phone, people who don’t need the most great-eco-friendly phone with 16GB of RAM and 1TB of ROM, maybe something optimized for work with 4GB/64GB configuration and could last 5 years it’s a better idea for me but anyway I’m really not interested into having 24 cores CPU and 350 megapixel camara just to watch porn and news in Lemmy haha. It depends of the needs of the user but maybe focusing too into a more practical phone for the 80% of users could be good for the business.
It’s a very neat idea (I myself would get a mid range phone like that), but I wonder if they can actually do that… Has anyone ever asked them?
The problem I think it’s about the production and costs, all corporations nowdays manufacture in China so I believe if there would be a great budget/eco-friendly phone or another products what can actually fight in the global market it have to be a Chinese company who make it. But I believe the Chinese are not interested in it if they can keep making cheap stuff and sell it like hamburgers for the hungers. So for Fairphone being an European company I think it’s better to stick in the high-end niche. At least that way they can sell their stuff to eco-friendly wannabes and keep making a good profit in the side.
With geopolitics being what they are I think there is a lot of onshoring coming. As well as moving production from China to other places.
This is total green washing marketing bs.
They purposely removed the headphone jack and started selling disposable earbuds. This one move alone will generate more ewaste than any swappable parts.
This company is full of it. They don’t care about the environment and they certainly don’t care about their customers.
While the headphone issue is problematic, it’s a single issue amidst a deluge of ethical and sustainable practices by the company. Including, but not limited to:
Fairphone carefully sources the components in every device, and the workers who put them together have safe and healthy working conditions. Where possible, Fairphone uses recycled materials (plastic, tin solder paste, steel, and nickel alloy), sources Fairtrade gold, and buys cobalt and silver credits to support the improvement of working conditions for miners.
The factories that make the Fairphone pay a living wage to workers. It also employs 100 percent renewable energy. Fairphone invests in projects to reduce CO2 emissions, and to balance bringing a new phone into the world, Fairphone recycles the equivalent amount of e-waste. It has a B Corp certification, which means its claims have been independently vetted, and Fairphone regularly releases impact reports.
(As reported by wired.com)
Absolutely they should get push back on the headphone situation. But calling it “greenwashibg marking bs” is textbook “letting perfect be the enemy of good”. Simply put, almost no other company even competes with Fairphone in the field of ethical phone manufacturing.
Are you going to back that up with something or stick to “my word is truth”? Because it doesn’t take much to go to their site and see that the earbuds are discontinued. Or that for a company full of it they sure go to great lengths about being transparent. They even have a page explaining why they removed the headphone jack.
I get that their own site could all be “just marketing” but that’s why I’m asking where’s the proof that they’re as shitty as you claim?
The headphone jack is worse off than just the USBc port.
While I’d like two USB ports (one in top and in on bottom), the headphone jack won’t be missed.
I mean, how many people still use wired earbuds? I’d be surprised if it is 5% of users
“I mean, how many people in this town eat hamburgers anyway? Ever since the only hamburger shop for miles around burned down I would be surprised if it’s 5%”
Me, everyday. Bluetooth just doesn’t offer the same sound quality.
I have three pairs of wired earphones (plus more regular headphones) and a portable DAC amp. I know what you mean though, Bluetooth headphones really are the norm these days. The tech in them also make them hard to repair.
I use a usbc dac and a 3d printed brace to prevent it from bending. For how infrequently I use the earbuds it’s fine for me. Most of my phone based music listening is at work on an AliExpress Bluetooth device hooked up to the speakers pulled from my car before junking it. (Catalytic had been stolen and it had 400+ thou. km on it)
I do, however the headphone jack on my last phone was so bad I ended up just using the dongle anyway to get decent audio.
I can disagree with this a little. At least the bootloader isn’t locked. But overall, you’re right.
When are we going to get worldwide shipping Fairphone? Next year maybe?
