What new Expansion Card types do you want to see released?

[MJ1]

@lengau

@Chunmeista

Super basic, but a sunk-in version of the USB port. Just flip the laptop upside down to unplug a dongle.

I could definitely get behind this. Or better still, one that has a USB port plus an internal space for one of these mini-dongles. (Sunk in or not for the external one doesn’t bother me - I’d just like to not have to waste a port for my headphones.)

One of these might interest you two.

A few designs in this thread.

Dongle Hider

This is a new version of my previous hider, the old one was too shallow and the braces were too flexible. I can’t edit my old post to update it, so I’ll post it here. The narrower braces are made to fit against the back wall. [dongle hider] [img8] dongle hider.stl (899.7 KB)

Then a dual port option

USB-A-ugment: USB-A port card with internal dongle port and addons

Finally, I can show an ambitious Expansion Card of mine, that I’ve already been using personally. It’s the USB-A card on steroids - designed to be compatible with it, but it can do so much more! [photo1692725938] For a start, there’s an internal USB-A socket for your mouse receiver - you don’t even have to take it apart or solder onto the board, a receiver can plug right in and you can unplug it whenever you want. There’s also a USB-C pulldown switch - you can power the card off whenever you …

@Chunmeista (just adding a ping because I don’t know if a quote within another quote will actually notify someone)

[Jonathan_Haas]

@Kyle_Reis

USB-C cards are already super simple, cheap to make, and consume no power when nothing’s connected, so I doubt it would be worth the cost of setting up production lines for those compared to just using USB-C cards.

They’d just need to sell the cases of the storage cards separately without the electronics. I think these would be super useful for DIY projects, even if they’d be probably the same price as the USB-C expansion cards.

[Jacob_Eva_LES]

@Kyle_Reis

Although I doubt a Framework official module would be significantly better without being way more expensive.

Indeed, much of the reason for the limitations for our expansion card is that LTE modems are quite expensive beyond the feature set we have provided. As the market is currently, things get very expensive indeed.

@Kyle_Reis

4x4 MIMO (multiple antennas working together to boost performance)

I’d like to comment that although this is true, we do support the use of an optional diversity antenna. This mainly assists with scenarios where signal loss may occur due to high speed movement (e.g. in a car or train). The difference of course is nowhere near the effectiveness of a MIMO antenna, but it does help boost signal reception strength in some scenarios.

Reference (pages 74-76)

[Kyle_Reis]

@Jacob_Eva_LES

Indeed, much of the reason for the limitations for our expansion card is that LTE modems are quite expensive beyond the feature set we have provided. As the market is currently, things get very expensive indeed.

Understood.

There are however a bunch of budget smartphones with better capabilities than your card. Some (such as the OnePlus Nord n200) even have all the features I listed and even 5G at a similar price to your card, and those are full phones.

I think (and you might know this better than me) that the 5G/4G capable laptop market is generally a niche with customers willing to pay a lot for it, so the companies in that market can charge high profit margins. I’m not accusing you of doing that, but wouldn’t be surprised if your modem supplier (Quectel?) is making high profit margins.

There’s also economies of scale benefits. The budget phone manufacturers are selling hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of their budget phones, I doubt you’re selling anywhere near that many Framework LTE modules.

So I understand the limitations of it, although I would like to see more.

IMO the biggest limitations with yours are the lack of aggregation (ability to be connected to multiple frequencies simultaneously for boosted performance) and limited frequency support. Lacking support for B71 (600 MHz) really cripples the experience with my carrier, T-Mobile US (B71 is their main long range band with ~2.3 million square miles of coverage). 5G, 256qam, and 4x4 MIMO are mainly nice to haves.

[Matthias_Keller]

For me, definitely dual USB-C and maybe dual USB-A (but this will become obsolete during the next few years) – so dual USB-C. Does not necessarily have to support charging the laptop but PD out would be nice to charge devices (for example my camera (Canon R5) can only be charged using PD, not using 5V alone).

[Kyle_Reis]

@Matthias_Keller

For me, definitely dual USB-C and maybe dual USB-A (but this will become obsolete during the next few years) – so dual USB-C.

The expansion card are not large enough to fit dual USB-A.

@Matthias_Keller

PD out would be nice to charge devices (for example my camera (Canon R5) can only be charged using PD, not using 5V alone).

The Framework laptop itself only supports 5v output to the expansion card, although it does support devices using PD to request a higher output amperage (3A vs the default 1.5A). Although I don’t think that is enough for the Canon R5.

IIRC @tbe is developing a dual USB-C card that has a chip to request 3A PD out.

[Jacob_Eva_LES]

@Kyle_Reis

There are however a bunch of budget smartphones with better capabilities than your card. Some (such as the OnePlus Nord n200) even have all the features I listed and even 5G at a similar price to your card, and those are full phones.

This is true.

@Kyle_Reis

I think (and you might know this better than me) that the 5G/4G capable laptop market is generally a niche with customers willing to pay a lot for it

It’s certainly not for everyone, yes. It’s mostly down to convenience really, do you want to carry your phone around everywhere with you and tether, which on cheaper phones drains the battery like mad? Or would you rather remain constantly connected via a USB peripheral?

For some the answer to the former is yes, for some the answer is no, hence the market exists

@Kyle_Reis

but wouldn’t be surprised if your modem supplier (Quectel?) is making high profit margins

It’s possible, but if this is the case, it’s the case with most modem suppliers to be honest, since the pricing is largely similar.

@Kyle_Reis

There’s also economies of scale benefits. The budget phone manufacturers are selling hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of their budget phones, I doubt you’re selling anywhere near that many Framework LTE modules.

Hit the nail on the head there buddy. It’s also to do with the fact that a lot of these phones have the modems baked into the SoC, so these cheap modems may be available to them, but not to us, since we cannot fit a whole SoC. Which brings me onto our next point, space constraints. This was a large determining factor in the module we used, as I’m sure you can imagine. It was quite difficult just to find something that fits, let alone having all the latest features!

@Kyle_Reis

So I understand the limitations of it, although I would like to see more.

So would we, unfortunately we cannot develop our own modem, so we have to make do with what’s on the shelf

@Kyle_Reis

IMO the biggest limitations with yours are the lack of aggregation (ability to be connected to multiple frequencies simultaneously for boosted performance) and limited frequency support. Lacking support for B71 (600 MHz) really cripples the experience with my carrier, T-Mobile US (B71 is their main long range band with ~2.3 million square miles of coverage).

Thanks for this feedback, it’s very useful

[Josh_Cook]

@Jacob_Eva_LES

It’s possible, but if this is the case, it’s the case with most modem suppliers to be honest, since the pricing is largely similar.

Digi-Key and Mouser create their own pricing, you can get it direct from them for 20USD at 10pcs

[Jacob_Eva_LES]

@Josh_Cook

Digi-Key and Mouser create their own pricing, you can get it direct from them for 20USD at 10pcs

Quite right, the markup on digi-key and mouser is pretty mad!

[Xavier_Jiang]

Full size SD card is in store now!
Ok not yet but very close.
Honestly a humongous achievement. Someone went out of their way to nit-pick through the hundreds of different versions of the same part to find exactly the one that fit, then designed the circuitry to work.

Is it PCIe-level fast, honestly, I don’t even care that much. would be a nice bonus, though.

[Niko_Cantero]

Next up Hi-Fi audio? ;3 maybe with a built in amp too?

[tgrauss]

1/2.5/5/10Gb monomode bidi optical module with LC plug would be very nice, of course provided with the complementary sfp+ module to plug in the switch.
The connector is smaller than ethernet.

Another module that would be nice is a new release of the audio jack module with 3 jacks for 5.1 out + mic and with each jack being able a combo 3.5mm with analog and toslink.

[Klay_Hart]

I’m thinking a smart card reader would be awesome to have! Obviously it would stick out of the laptop since I’m sure even a card would be bigger than the expansion card slot. I think of business laptops that had a built in reader and the card would stick out. I wouldn’t expect something quite as seamless, but it would beat having a cable hanging off the side of the laptop.

Maybe this idea would be better suited for the expansion bay, but would definitely need to incorporate other ports and such. I do think having it as an expansion card is still a good idea just for the hotswapability.

[Roberto_Peon]

Like someone else above, I’d like to see a recessed USB-A port that I can use to populate an OTP. I suspect that even a small number like 3mm might be OK.
I care about this because I often accidentally hit the OTP with my leg or arm, and, were it recessed, this would happen far less often.

It’d also be great for a bunch of USB-A stuff in general which sticks beyond the edge of the laptop, but I may not want it to do so.

The other fun expansion alternative would be an OTP (that is more accident-proof than what we put into USB-A or USB-C ports on laptops).

[Roberto_Peon]

The “other” other expansion “card” I want to see released is something that allows for taller feet. Seems like the expansion card bays are sturdy enough to perhaps have some taller feet there!

[Jonathan_Graber]

I would love to se a 2.5Gb ethernet port that can also accept POE+(+) so you can charge the laptop and get network access with only one cable and use only one port on your laptop without the need for an external dock

[Francis]

PoE is limited to 15.4 W. There is no way you can charge your laptop that way. It is designed so that you can have a wifi access point connected with just one network cable over up to 100m distance. You can not expect anything more than that (or the power going through the twisted pair cable would create too much interference to allow normal network communication over the same cable).

[Kyle_Reis]

@Francis

PoE is limited to 15.4 W. There is no way you can charge your laptop that way.

1. Framework laptops can charge at 15w, although if you are using it while charging them it would likely mainly hold the battery level mostly steady.

2. @Jonathan_Graber said “accept POE+(+)”. POE+ can do 25.5w and POE++ can do 71.3w. 71.3w would be plenty.

[Aaron_Baff]

@Niko_Cantero

Next up Hi-Fi audio? ;3 maybe with a built in amp too?

Make it a 4 conductor so super audio nerds can have balanced audio output In addition, a mic input (separate jack ideally) would be pretty awesome.

[CharonPDX]

High-speed (USB 3.2 Gen2 / USB4 / Thunderbolt) storage for use as an easily-swappable fast boot drive.