Box fan + duct tape + MERV 13 pleated filter solved that one? So the key there seems to be to somehow create a market for an interchangeable filter that’s suitable for an aesthetically pleasing design.
that’s why I wanted to add that it wasn’t meant to police things, but to simply redirect people to talk more about non-laptop things, I don’t want us to fight about things, just to refocus people back to the original post!
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a repairable, upgradable, programmable remote control with infrared, bluetooth and wifi capabilities
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A Studio Monitor would be cool.
With a webcam maybe and 100 % Adobe RGB.
Also a (ergonomic) Mouse made of bamboo or recycled plastic would be nice.
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Realistically anything beyond laptops, tablets, and phones is going to get progressively more niche. Like a repairable and open source printer would be amazing, but I’d never buy one because I have printed maybe 5 things in the last 8 or so years. Even buying and selling a home was all digital.
A dock would be great, changeable Io, power delivery, and connection would be really cool, but what percentage of people who have a laptop need or want a dock?
Game console would be an obvious answer, but Valve just dropped a strong entry with high repairability and support.
I really don’t know. I’d love to see more products, especially if you can get some cross compatibility on things like the expansion cards.
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A fully repairable smartphone is the next logical step. Aside from fairphone, nobody else is really doing this and we have far more phone e-waste being generated year after year than laptop waste, since people tend to upgrade every 3 years or so.
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I’m surprise a few mention wearable and smart home category.
There are some obvious category like Smartphones. I wouldn’t rush and buy a new phone just for the sake of reparability but might just for modularity and adding new features without replacing the whole phone or other electronics in general.
Wearables like smartwatch, smart/audio glasses keeps getting new sensor so you would need to throw away old ones for new once and battery is not user replaceable. Please prove industry wrong that if you want IPx8 you can only use glue.
Fun fact my Bose audio glasses broke after 1 year and it’s a common issue. Throwing away and buy a new one is the only solution.
Smart Home is another choice I rarely see people mention. I would like to add experience I got. I have been using Google Wifi (now Nest Wifi) for years. It’s mesh network so I bought couple of them. I plan to but the new Nest Wifi pro but I realized it is not backward compatible. I’m so shock of why Google advertise for sustainability? but I could see an upgradeable smart home without throwing current ones away. Also Matter standard just came out so all my smart home devices would go to trash if I want Matter standard devices.
Let’s end on fun idea VR headset I think a lot of framework employees came from oculus and my oculus quest is getting outdated. Again throwing them away and buy a new one is the only choice if I want to play the new Iron man VR game
Edit: Forgot to mention something to do with Interchangeable battery between devices. It would be nice to plug battery to laptop, phones, tablet using the same battery some might need more number of units. like phone use 1 unit of battery, laptop might use 5 for example
Edit 2: Just realized I want to see reparable NAS or compact mini home server with M.2 SSDs. Logic behind this is like building hardware that we can trust and easy to use like Google Photos/ Google drive or iCloud without monthly fee and will ensure that it will last for long time like enable raid by default. I used to have a NAS but it’s very hard to use and unrepairable.
Edit 3: To add from above idea. I saw a lot of people request for GPU so what about all in one repairable/upgradeable compact external GPU/SSD
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Have you looked into setting up a TrueNAS box? Just install this on any ol’ PC and use standard components for the hardware from there. M.2 to PCI-E x4 adapters can be found all over Amazon for like $10 and you don’t really NEED new hardware for something like that. I have a TrueNAS running a Ryzen 3 1300X with 4 3TB spinning disk hard drives and it works just fine once it’s configured.
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Have you looked into setting up a TrueNAS box? Just install this on any ol’ PC and use standard components for the hardware from there. M.2 to PCI-E x4 adapters can be found all over Amazon for like $10 and you don’t really NEED new hardware for something like that. I have a TrueNAS running a Ryzen 3 1300X with 4 3TB spinning disk hard drives and it works just fine once it’s configured.
@SteveHeist Thanks but I’m looking for something small like Raspberry Pi size since I’m limited by space. Maybe it would turn out to be external GPU/NAS combo.
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I mean… you could always just ya know use a Raspberry Pi for that. USB to M.2 sleds can also be had around $15 on Amazon just from a quick google search. Just whack like 4 into the onboard USB ports on your Pi and go from there.
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I think an open, repairable cell phone is the product most in alignment with Frameworks’ focus on repairability, and goodness knows there’s a market for it. But it’s historically been very difficult for new manufacturers to break into that market: I’d hate to see Framework pour money down that hole the way the Ubuntu and the Mozilla phones did.
I’d also love to see a good tablet. I’m not sure how repairable that could be made given how thin those tend to be, but just a well-performing, reliable tablet would be a joy.
The challenge I see with both these things, and with a lot of other suggestions, is that they require both hardware and a lot of custom software. Framework isn’t a software company and may not want to become a software company.
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I assume that Ubuntu and Mozilla phones are open hardware or Linux phones? But it is not repairable, right?
My concern for creating the phone is that Fairphone and Shiftphone already exist in the repairable mobile phone market in Europe. What prevents these companies from doing business in the Americas and Asia? Are they not ready to scale the business yet? Do they have the challenge to be funded?
When the Framework Laptop was launched, there was no competitor in the repairable laptop market. I think the ideal situation is no competitor in a market, but there are potential needs from users.
Thanks for the info!!
This might be a topic to discuss on Fairphones’s forum if I want more detailed info from people on their forum. However, while I have Fairphone now, I just wanted to give the perspectives to Framework people.
Perhaps, the VCs in Silicon Valley may prefer to fund a company in Silicon Valley like Framework according to the book “The New Geography Of Jobs - Enrico Moretti” - Chapter 4. Forces to Attraction published in 2013 that I read in the past. It is “old” info before remote working was more promoted as the present. I think the situation can be different now.
The article below is cited in the text. I just paste the info.
Syndication Networks and the Spatial Distribution of Venture Capital Investments on JSTOR
Sociological investigations of economic exchange reveal how institutions and social structures shape transaction patterns among economic actors. This article explores how interfirm networks in the U.S. venture capital (VC) market affect spatial patterns of exchange. Evidence suggests that information about potential investment opportunities generally circulates within geographic and industry spaces. In turn, the circumscribed flow of information within these spaces contributes to the geographic‐ and industry‐localization of VC investments.
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Well I’m going to be one in a very small minority here. There are many good ideas in this thread but I strongly believe Framework should continue to walk before they try running. There is so much scope for different laptop sizes, screen types, processors etc that it will take years for Framework to offer the range that many other computer companies do.
I have no problem with them expending into some computer peripherals like eGPUs etc but do we really want them to diversify and spread their expertise so thinly into other non-related consumer electronics?
Keep doing what you’re good at and maybe, when the company is fully established, you can think of other business models. Samsung and LG know how to build washing machines and TVs, as well as computers, but I don’t want that from Framework for at least the next five years. Be a great computer company first!
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That isn’t a choice they get to make. It’s a requirement at this point to be competitive. Look at MacBooks, look at Pixel phones, look at Surface laptops, or game consoles. Look at the current iteration of the FW laptop. Users on the forum want Coreboot, the only way that happens is if the company will dev that. I like this community but I wouldn’t trust a community firmware for my laptop. Any new hardware product is going to require custom firmware/software. If off-the-shelf was available, someone would have done this already.
You aren’t. See my first and second posts in this thread. It is critical that FW first smooth out any issues with current products (battery drain from expansion cards/standby battery drain, RTC issues, etc) before even considering branching into new products. If they don’t they will lose so much support from users, myself included for giving continued support and sustainability mere lip-service.
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360 hinge+touch display, so FW could be a convertible.
Also, the thunderbolt dock station with support for fw expansion cards (mentioned above) sounds super rad!
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There’s a difference between a hardware company that makes products with a software layer vs. a software company that sells hardware. Lenovo and Acer make hardware that runs software largely produced by other companies. Apple and Google are software companies that sell hardware - Apple’s always been that, and Google has become that.
If Framework is directly competing with Apple or Google or Microsoft, they have to become a software house… So far that’s not what they’re doing; they’re competing in the hardware space.
To be clear, I’d love an alternative to Android or Apple in the phone or tablet space. But that’s largely about the software, not the hardware, and represents a big departure from Frameworks’ current model.
Hardware is just a brick without software. Look at the atrocious battery life of the FW laptop. Now compare it to any other laptop. Some of that is down to hardware choices but I would argue that every other laptop maker has spent decades refining their firmware, Framework needs to compete with that. Especially Apple, a company that has built it’s entire reputation on hardware and software integration. It isnt enough to merely produce a mainboard and chassis. Look at Valve and the Steam Deck, the project is only viable because of Proton and WINE, in other words, software integration. Every hardware manufacturer, if it wants to continue to exist, must always improve software integration.
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Agreed: there’s absolutely room for Framework to improve their firmware, and that should be high priority.
But there’s a big difference between a hardware company writing firmware for their products on the one hand, and software companies like Apple, MS, Google, and Valve producing hardware to run their software on the other hand. Frameworks’ competitors aren’t Apple or Microsoft; they’re competing against Dell, Lenovo, Acer, and other laptop manufacturers.
I’m not saying Framework couldn’t or shouldn’t move into the software space; I’m saying they’re not there now, and getting into software development on that scale requires a much bigger investment. It’s also orthogonal to their company mission of selling hardware that users can maintain and upgrade.
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