I can handle the removal of the audio jack purely for the reason it means I can choose where I want my wired cans connected. Depending on the headphones I’m using and what I’m using them with, I can want the cable to be on the left or the right of the device.
I know I’m an odd case - but it is all about the - user defined - options.
And welcome, friend 
On the flip side, my new hearing aid has no facility for a direct input cable. So 3.5s are no go and my options are either bluetooth (built in to hearing aid) or a £2,500 specialist radio system designed for the hearing aid. I don’t have that kind of money lying around.
Quite frankly, the main concern of a 3.5 audio jack on an expansion card is what it’s going to do to battery life? Pretty much any of the expansion cards other than the USB-C pass-through cause significant power draw, both when the system is on and when the system is suspended; even passive cards such as the USB-A.
Even passive cards ??
… but now with the overhead of a USB-C interface sitting in-between and the logic for allowing the thing to be hot-plugged. It looks to me like a straightforward implementation would likely use more power (when present) than a hard-wired-in jack. You’ll probably have to work hard to reduce that to (near) nothing. I hope they can and will do that.
I’m pretty sure they were caught of-guard by the USB-A using noticeable power. A wired USB-A on a motherboard does not use that kind of power when nothing is plugged into it. Similarly for their HDMI cards etc.
The modularity of doing everything over USB-C definitely comes at a (power) price. Had I known, I would have bought 4 USB-C expansion cards for when on the road. It really saves quite a bit of battery life when suspended.
I wish in some sense I understood better
the overhead of a USB-C interface
if the power is on the interface to monitor the plug and play then sure that is to the USB C port on all ports and nothing to do with the USB A or HDMI
If on the other hand if the power is required only after and continuously whilst the USB A is plugged in what is it for. If the USB A requires power via a USB why if it doesn’t require power when hard wired. It is really about the USB A? So it’s not really the USB A that uses power but the main board once it has to communicate with a USB A.
So with a jack socket that is attached to a DAC surely the power is used by the DAC and some little by the communictaion with it.
If that is the case why would having a DAC removable via an expansion card would use more power.
I would think it uses less power in the sense it can be removed and there is also no comms with it so the mainboard uses less too.
I just don’t seem to see the problem at all
@amoun The issue is that the Thunderbolt port “sees” something plugged in all the time and thus does not suspend when the computer suspends, thus draining power when it shouldn’t. The latest firmware revision for the Displayport card tricks the Thunderbolt card into “seeing” an HID instead of Displayport when no display is attached, so the port is allowed to power down/go to a low-power state. Similar problems exist for all but the USBC card because that is simple pass-through and not conversion like the others, so the TB ports “see” nothing when those are plugged in.
So the issue is only about power use when suspended and as such when power available is a premium and this would mean if the 3.5 jack is plugged in when the computer is being suspended it the port will use power to check on it, whereas if it is hard wired it is just ‘disconnected/dead/non existent’
So the problem only exists as removing the cards is too much trouble to do before a quick suspend, that makes sense…
So the OS has to be targeted to sense that if nothing is connected to the 3.5 jack it disconnects from it.
@amoun I used suspend as an example but the power drain occurs regardless. Normally, when no display is connected to an Displayport or whatever port you choose, the controller for that port goes into a low-power state waiting to wake up when you plug something in. As far as the Thunderbolt port is concerned, something is plugged in, the expansion card. Thus it is kept in it’s high-power/active state at all times. I choose poorly in explaining that before, my bad. Since the USBC cards are dumb and contain no circuitry themselves, they alone are immune from this condition.
OK so any circuit plugged in requires the main board to communicate.
But going back to the 3.5, as this is not a suspend issue, if I understand correctly do you think the DAC or whatever in the audio card would require more power when it is plugged in that the DAC would use when it’s onboard.
Surely the circuit that detects a 3.5 is plugged in has to work wheter the DAC is in card or on board.
Also if the DAC is on board isn’t it being power all the time whereas with a n expansion card I can remove it.
I hope I’m not being too dumb etc. as I note I have been ‘told’ off for the way I question people’s posts and answers etc.
@amoun Not at all, this is fine. I think that any expansion card, absent any tricks like the HDMI card, will consume more power than the equivalent function being built into the board. This will occur purely for the same reason as above, an inability to move to a low-power state when not actively used. If the DAC is on the motherboard then it can move to this low-power state.
Unless they have improved the design where the expansion cards are no longer straight converting signals and communicating with the motherboard. As it stands now, they simply convert signals although I suppose some minor amount of communication must occur to ensure that conversion occurs properly. I think the DAC and the detection of if something is plugged in will all be on the expansion card.
I won’t claim to be an expert, I’m just regurgitating what I’ve read from various threads on the forum and from Framework employees on the matter. I don’t know how they could make the expansion cards smarter and I imagine, if they could, they would have created a Mark II version of all problematic expansion cards.
Small error, it isn’t HDMI, it is the DisplayPort cards that have a workaround. I’ll update my above posts now.
I wonder how feasible it would be to get a USB+headphone jack module. Like Dual USB-C Expansion Card - #320 by tbe, but with x1 USB-A and x1 3.5mm. Or a USB-C and 3.5mm.
3.5mm jack is literally the most reliable part in a smartphone. Buy a Shiftphone or Pinephone instead of a Fairphone
The jack in the FW13 is also very easily replaceable. The bad audio is due to downward-firing speakers instead of DAC. Also the headphone jack in the FW13 seems to use a single DAC from the speaker, as the speaker seems to be mechanically disconnected when you plug in your headphone (the OS claim that the speakers are unplugged), so more energy saving. AFAIK expansion cars other than USB consumes more power. I have another computer that has built-in HDMI, SD card slot and VGA that has lower power consumption compared to my FW13 with a microSD and HDMI expansion cards installed.
This is so backwards, it’s objectively safer to have physical buttons on cars, people are pushing back, some car manufactures are returning to physical buttons are some legislations are under way.
The audio expansion card is a bit expensive though.
Unfortunately there are many sheeples that get pushed around too easily. People still buying iphones after “batterygate” (apple intentionally reduce performance and battery life on older phones via OS updates to push users into buying newer ones)
Yeah, that’s not what that was, try again
Apple claimed that they reduced the power consumption of the processor to preserved the battery. However according to user experiences, both the performance and the battery runtime worsened after the update
No, they reduced the power consumption to stop the phone hard resetting itself when it tried to draw too much power.
If you’re going to pick that fight, at least get your facts right.
That may be so but your conclusion still does not make sense. iPhones start shutting down with high power draw on worn batteries, Apple pushes out a fix that limits performance to eliminate said high power draw. Event A led to Event B, there is clear causality. What you are stating is that Event B (nerfing performance) was caused by Event C (Apple wanting to sell more iPhones), completely leaving out Event A (Aging batteries cause unexpected shutdowns).
If the sole goal is to make new iPhones look better, it would make more sense to sandbag performance from the very beginning. You are arguing for a conspiracy that doesn’t exist. Even the article I linked to doesn’t argue what you are suggesting and nobody would accuse iFixIt of being an Apple apologist.
I’m not even taking a stance on Apple’s actions, just pointing out that it does not make logical sense what you are suggesting and no credible outlet has ever suggested the same as you that I’ve seen.
This is getting off-topic and more than a bit heated.
Actually since the thread has run its course, it’s best just to close it.