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Fairphone and audio

Jim Audiomisc

Jim Audiomisc

pfm Member
Anyone here have any experiences with a 'Fairphone'? I'm wondering if something like that might make the basis of a modest - and open - portable audio player.
 
Um, I have a Fairphone, it is "just" a.n.other Android phone from many perspectives, other than the "fair" / ethical nature, and extra cost that comes with that. Not sure what you are looking for feedback on Jim?
 
In part I'm wondering about the actual audio performance of its headphone output and how well it might play using apps akin to VLC or Audacious - i.e. standard playing software for Linux, etc. When I looked on the web all I could find was that it was a bit 'louder' for the 3+ speaker than the 3. Which doesn't say much.

Alternatively, as it is free and open hardware I'm wondering if it can be hacked into a DAP.

Or if not, why no-one I know of has produced such a thing.

I don't have a modern mobile 'phone' so can't be more specific as I lack info.
 
Hi Jim, I have to be honest I don't use the headphone socket, so can't report at this stage. I have no access to headphones at present so any assessment will have to wait a few days at least and then is just one random subjective perspective ... happy to give you my random subjective perspective on stuff but not sure how much you will value that :p

Despite developing a commercial product that used Buildroot to build a bespoke Linux distro and cross compiler I don't know what support there is for building anything for Fairphone whether open hardware or not. I haven't look in to it, I got it, and use it, as a smartphone.

I would guess nobody has done such a thing as it is not a cheap thing to play with. If any of the pi stuff is based around a build system you can tweak it might be possible to then build it for Fairphone hardware but I have no knowledge of where to start from on that.

Sorry, not being much help :(
 
I think Pinephone might be more suitable for hacking. Cheaper too. I have never had one in my hands, so no idea how its headphone output is.
https://www.pine64.org/pinephone/

The Fairphone is just a bog-standard Android phone (although IIRC there are /e/ and Sailfish images available for it). They're more about a fair supply chain and hardware replace-ability than FOSS.
 
Yes, there are two faces to this - in my view - desirable coin. One is that the hardware should be repairable and/or upgradeable so you don't having to keep junking one box-of-bits ti get an improvement. The other is that you get the same level of free-and-open control over the software as you can with a standard Linux system. One of these would be good, both would be ideal. And would make it potentially 'greener' as well by reducing the rate at which stuff gets binned.
 
It depends on how free-as-in-freedom you want your phone to be. :)

Pretty much all of them have non-free drivers for the modem and wi-fi and Fairphone is no different. Android is open source only by the most minimal definition, as almost everything sitting on top of it is proprietary. Sailfish deceived me, as it turned out that the UI and several of the core apps were never open-sourced, but under the hood it's very much a GNU/Linux system. I think /e/ is all open source (built on top of AOSP; https://gitlab.e.foundation/e). Likewise for Linneage OS. I never installed Linneage because one perusal of the Linneage OS forum for a particular phone I had gave the impression that the image was being maintained by a 14 year old, definitely not someone I would trust. /e/ seems more trustworthy in that way.

I'll note that you can replace the mainboard, the screen, etc. on the Pinephone:
https://wiki.pine64.org/index.php/PinePhone

Also the Pinephone's headphone jack doubles as a serial port which is just cool.

If you go the Fairphone route, your best bet would be to install /e/ on it, I think.
 
The above info is interesting, but some of the details make me suspect that the hardware isn't ideal. However I keep feeling that it is about time we had a repairable and updatable mobile device that can be used as a good DAP, not a 'phone'. And *not* in thrall to a big company. I don't want to feel I need a new device just because I've hit the max mini-SD card size it can read or the battery is failing but can't be replaced, etc. Given the climate this isn't simply a matter of personal choice, either!
 
Jim Audiomisc said:
The above info is interesting, but some of the details make me suspect that the hardware isn't ideal. However I keep feeling that it is about time we had a repairable and updatable mobile device that can be used as a good DAP, not a 'phone'. And *not* in thrall to a big company. I don't want to feel I need a new device just because I've hit the max mini-SD card size it can read or the battery is failing but can't be replaced, etc. Given the climate this isn't simply a matter of personal choice, either!
Click to expand...

I agree with all of that. It's a sad fact that there are compromises, though, so I guess it would be up to you to decide which compromises are more important to you. Based on what you say, I still think the PinePhone might be the way to go. Much of it (battery included) is replaceable, albeit probably not in as convenient of a way as the Fairphone. I'm not sure how much of a primary concern this was for you but the SD card limit is 2Tb, so more than enough for any sane music collection. Also, the whole mainboard can be replaced if an updated version comes out. The phone has hardware kill-switches, so you can just shut off, e.g., the modem if you just want to use it as a DAP for local files. Pine64 is largely community-driven (although there is an associated company, Pine Microsystems). Given the community nature, there has been a proliferation of effort getting different systems up and running on it, so you would have your pick of the litter, although you might have to get your hands dirty a bit.

Fairphone, on the other hand, excels through its ethical supply chain, use of low-conflict and recycled materials, and easy maintainability and replaceability of the hardware. I have no idea what PinePhones are made of, so to speak. You will have an easier out-of-the-box experience, but that will be a Google-laden Android experience. To turn it into a freedom-friendly DAP, you would have to flash /e/ onto it and then see what suitable Android music playing software is available from the F-Droid FOSS-only app store. That system user interface will still, first and foremost, be a phone interface. In many ways, it would be overkill for a DAP. With the PinePhone, you might be able to restrict it just to a DAP-like experience, but that might require coding if nothing suitable is available. To the best of my knowledge, any attempt to port a different OS to the Fairphone would need the support of the company.

What you need is for someone to make Rockbox available for modern smartphone SOCs.
 
Completely agree with the need for something less throw away Jim. Does Ubuntu touch help at all? It seems there have been some efforts to run it on Fairphones. I am not familiar with it in any way but since Ubuntu started off as Debian with a less hard line FOSS stance and commercial support I might assume Ubuntu touch would offer a potential for a familiar *nix environment to start from?
 
Ah, well, I doubt Ubuntu would help me much with our current mobile phone. It's a Nokia 3310. 8-]

We bought it for one purpose only. For when we need to call a taxi or an ambulance when out shopping and my wife, Chris, has a fit. She has epilepsy. So we decided it would be handy, and it has been on occasion.

But it is just essentially a phone. (OK it does do short texts, but we ignore that and haven't given anyone the number because we leave it switched off when we're indoors and want it clear if and when needed when out!)

So what I'm wondering about is the idea of using something like an open/repairable/green mobile device hardware as the basis of a DAP, not a phone. The FairPhone, etc, indicate this is already coming to pass for the phone. But should we not also have a DAP of a similar kind? Or modify the use of a 'phone' of this kind? - regardless of if it is also used as a mobile device for other purposes?
 
Jim Audiomisc said:
But should we not also have a DAP of a similar kind?
Click to expand...

I think a big problem is that even a free-as-in-freedom smartphone, which arguably has higher demand than a free-as-in-freedom DAP, has proven very difficult to launch and sustain. Getting hardware sorted out for a commercial FAIF DAP would be extremely challenging (unless EOMA68 happens), and would almost certainly be business suicide. So yes, repurposing a phone is, I think, the only way to go, especially if you can just kill the modem on it via a hardware switch.

BTW, since for a DAP you don't necessarily need wi-fi or 4G, you already get to ignore one of the big stumbling blocks for FOSS phone OS's: non-free modem drivers. So, if you take something like PostmarketOS and make a spinoff that launches straight into a music player, you could have an effective DAP that can be installed on any number of legacy devices, saving them from the landfill. You would just need to check which ones have replaceable batteries at a minimum. Fairphone 2 looks to be well-along with PostmarketOS support: https://wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/Fairphone_2_(fairphone-fp2)

Edit to say: this is all very interesting for me and I'm in full agreement with your assessment of the need, so please see all of my posts as encouraging rather than pessimistic & discouraging.
 
Thanks for the above info. I don't yet know anything about Ubuntu Touch or the other things you mention. I doubt I'd have any ability to make a version of "PostmarketOS" though, so could only ask/encourage others to do that sort of thing. Once something was done I could get a device to try and test, and then write about, though. Any other URLs were I could learn more?

I presume that - as yet - phones can't have a new OS loaded in a simple a way as "shove in CD/DVD with the distro on it and start 'er up'! Ideally, being able to change something like a card with a suitable content should eventually be possible with open devices.(?)
 
Right, booting a different OS to a phone is a lot more involved. I've never done it myself. It usually involves booting into a "maintenance mode" (I can't remember the actual name...something like that) and then flashing the OS image to the ROM. Some bootloaders are locked and require extra hoops to jump through. Most importantly, every phone is different, so specific images and specific instructions are required for each device. This is a big reason why I suggested PinePhone in the first place, because the whole point is letting the community do what they want with it. For Fairphone, you would need the company's cooperation to develop an OS image for the device, so options are limited. Some companies, like Sony, are actually good about it (Sony has an "Open Devices" program and they provide AOSP images and bootloader unlocking, which makes it easier for alternative OSes like Linneage to develop images).

All told, any avenue will require careful research: the right device, the right software, the right level of required work for your interest & time.

I think the most suitable options are:

1. Fairphone with /e/ (a de-Googled, FOSS Android fork) and a FOSS music player for Android. Job done, but user-experience-wise it's still very much a phone playing music rather than a DAP.
2. PinePhone with one of the supported OSes, modem disabled via hardware kill switch, & a Linux music player. Your best bet may well be, say, Arch Linux ARM (for tweak-ability), Phosh UI (based on Gnome but built for phones), and Lollypop as a music player, which has an adaptive interface for working on small phone-sized screens. Set Lollypop to launch at startup and, voila, DAP. You might also throw in Pulseeffects if you want to have easy DSP capabilities (parametric EQ etc).
3. Old phone with PostmarketOS, Phosh UI and Lollypop. Possibly more work to get installed and up-and-running.

I personally think #2 is the way to go given the general hack-ability of the device. It's also cheaper than the Fairphone. It might take a month or two to receive though.
 
I've put ther above on my 'to try' list! However I've been distracted by The Proms (good) and our central heating pump failing (bad!). However at some point I'll try going futher, probably along the PinePhone route for the sake of experiment. But I'm a total noob so far as 'phones' are concerned so I'll have to get over the shock of not being able to load a distro via the optical drive. 8-] I also wonder about the codec chips used perhaps all being, erm, limited, in their ability.

Has anyone published decent measurements on the audio output of these phones? Old-fashioned info like distortion levels, etc, etc. I can't check one because I don't have one! Maybe an email to the producers is a good idea...
 
Sounds good. I'll be very interested to hear your progress and I'll contribute what I can.

I haven't seen any measurements of the audio output on any of these devices. I think the general assumption should be that they don't have anything close to a top-of-the-line DAC, but who knows if it's a "good enough" one and if the implementation is reasonable. I guess in the worst case, you can get a USB DAC dongle to use in place of the internal one. In my experience, at least, any mobile audio I've heard has been fine (good, not great).
 
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