Expansion bay ideas - dongles, LoRa and more

Framework Laptop 16
1

Hello, wanted to share some idea for expansion bays.
You probably know the project to hide dongles in an USB card. This takes it a bit further.

  1. Based on the reference design for the duel m.2 drives, we can have have one of those (for something like a LoRa card - which probably doesn’t actually need a whole connector to itself, and could be just integrated into the PCB)
  2. We can inset the back of the expansion bay or use a removable cover, and have a hub full of as many wireless dongles (such as Logitech nano, unify, and bolt, none of which work with eachother) and other small usb devices (perhaps make a way for one large one to fit in by opening it as well?)
  3. Leave space in it to fit things like a BLE tracker or similar device in it

Personally, I think that Framework should just release the duel m.2 as a development product instead of just the files - it is a great point to start from.

2

The idea of a LoRa module that can connect to one of the many lora mesh networks for internet access sounds interesting. I have no idea what I’d use it for, given how slow it’d be, but it would certainly be interesting. I definitely don’t see that coming anytime soon though unless a community member makes one.

3

I wanted to make a actual LoRa module, but it seems like way more work for less flexibility since you can get them in a mini pcie form factor…