What should we build next?

General Topics
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Printer

Like others have said, modern printers are terrible, and not necessarily because of technical limitations. Nowadays every printer will try to force or trick you into an online account, a subscription or it’ll just plain break. A lot of people realize this too, so a printer should be an easy sell to many consumers.

Pros

I think making a good printer is much easier than ideas like modular phones or earbuds, and has a broader market than modular routers or other enthusiast-targeted equipment.

Cons

Of course, the market for printers isn’t going to grow massively, and by not employing the same tactics as the competition (like forced online accounts, subscriptions and frequent replacements), framework might end up needing to charge more upfront.

TLDR: I would love to see a framework printer, but I’m uncertain if it’d be a good business decision.

Dock or eGPU or similar accessories

A Dock that supports expansion cards would be really cool. There are already great eGPU cases, but AFAIK none of them can have their boards upgraded for newer thunderbolt standards. You could of course also combine the Dock with the eGPU or do a separate Dock and just give the eGPU some bays for expansion cards as well.

Pros

This would be an opportunity to build off of what framework already offers, making for an easier entry. It would also make existing expansion cards more useful independently from the framework laptop, since they are awkward to use otherwise due to their shape.
Since the framework laptop doesn’t have a dedicated GPU, there is demand for eGPUs.

Cons

There may not be enough demand, or it may be hard to match the pricing of the competition. But it’s a solid idea that should be considered.

More options for the framework laptop

The laptop is currently framework’s main product, and there are still interesting features which are unavailable. Framework should continue to add more options over time, some ideas:

  • touchscreen
  • OLED display
  • backlit keyboard
  • key colors to match chassis (I prefer that look personally)

Lots of exciting ideas are also about what to do with older parts of the laptop. For example, you could make a set to turn an old laptop display into a HDMI monitor!

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Things that I would personally buy from you:

  • iPod Touch-like non-phone
  • a tablet
  • a slightly thicker laptop with built in Ethernet
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For me, the top desire would be an android phone. But it seems to be a very difficult market. Mobile processors come with the huge problem of not being supported by the manufacturer for long enough and not being open enough that they can have continued support without the manufacturer’s help. I wouldn’t want Framework to tackle the market before there is a way to succeed, low risk of hurting the company.

Beyond that, I’d love an open mouse. Open source firmware. A connector on the board to expose i2c and any extra io pins the microprocessor has. Available files to print a couple different size shells. That way people on the marketplace could create shells and daughter boards with any arrangement of extra buttons or gamer bling they wish. RGB leds, haptic feedback, even an oled display could be added on.

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@nrp, thanks for asking. Lots of great ideas in this thread already. Maybe convert it to a poll, with write in answers, to make the “me too” reply volume a little less.

Already said that I would absolutely buy if made and well done:

  • modular TB dock
  • VR headset and/or productivity glasses monitor
  • printer (color laser please) + modular scanner add-on
  • modular upgradeable but still reasonably water resistant mobile phone (crowded segment but OMG needs an evolution towards openness and transparent security!)
  • range of BT headsets ( modular over the ear + gamer mic and
    aviation headset addons, to on the ear, to behind the neck, to true wireless )

Ones I have not seen mentioned in this thread yet (possibly due to my speed reading):

  • Laser projectors in pico (pocketable size), micro (quarter backpack size), and full (shoebox sized or so). I have a Philips PPX620 which is self destructing due to heat and battery manufacturing defect after ~3 years in use. Awesome unit and I love it but the “we’ll support it for its lifetime!” to “developers are all on other products” story change happened way too fast. Each unit capable of switching between ultra-short throw to normal long throw would be amazing.

  • Modular prosumer home router and wireless AP. Modules supporting LoRaWAN, Tri-band Wifi, and CBRS LTE/5G small cell would be awesome. The “I share internet-only guest access to others in exchange for free automagic guest internet-only roaming onto everyone else’s router” model is something I really would love to see done right. See FreedomFi, Helium, and Pollen projects for some attempts at this, but there’s huge downsides in how they are going about it, especially on the upfront equipment costs and hassle to setup, payments in new crypto tokens that are a huge gamble for adopters, etc.

  • Modular air quality monitors for indoor and outdoor use, and weather stations (been done already but definitely could be done better).

  • Home energy monitoring and control. Something between the high dollar options like Savant (which are slick but try to lock you into their ecosystem) and Iotawatt (open but not slick and not nearly as capable, especially in active control). IEEE 2030.5 load shedding, pricing signalling, charge now, etc compatibility as more utilities start to leverage that

  • Solar & home scale wind → EV bidirectional charging + Fixed battery storage <-> Home <-> Grid (optional). Now that ISO 15118-20 is published, these products are going to appear on the market quickly, but price, openness, interoperability are serious trade offs with all but one combo that I have found. I know what state of the art is in this industry and honestly the current crop of COTS products could easily be undercut by Framework.

  • 3d printers, metal SLS, laser engravers, cnc cutting, etc. Again, its been done and there are some cheap options in this space, but the learning curve, especially for doing your own upgrades, is steep. I have an idea for this market that has never been done to my knowledge that would blow away everything on the market, and have been trying to find the right partner to dev it with.

  • Farm, garden, and landscape bot kits

  • Animal feeding and monitoring kits (from domestic pets, to domestic livestock, to commercial livestock)

  • Another idea I have not seen in production yet, so I cannot publish here it if it turns out it is patent-able

  • Drones, both quadricopter and flying wing style. Photogrammetry and lasergrammetry modules are especially needed for prosumer surveying, vegetation monitoring, etc. Costs on those COTS are astronomical. DIY is possible but tons of wrinkles in the rug from my research so far. A middle ground, modular kit set would be amazing.

  • e-bike drive, battery, charging ecosystems need slicking up and cost cutting. I have ideas.

I don’t suppose you all are looking to hire an initial product dev specialist to identify pain points for electronics consumers and do initial spec’ing on new projects are you? Puts hand up if you are Lol

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A bigger laptop/screen model to satisfy some of the other tastes and needs would be the path of least resistance, and probably bring in more customers for Framework. I would likely buy such a laptop at some point.

As many others have mentioned, a phone that supports configuration and customization/repair would be excellent. I have GrapheneOS on a device and really like it. Framework would need to partner with them if a build for a Framework phone would happen, but there are other options, including just using stock Android without garbage bloatware, that would sell phones.

The dumb TV idea is a good one, too, though probably harder to make profit.

Same with tablet - I’d like a tablet with a repairable screen and upgradeable hardware, but I’m almost certainly in the minority.

I’d like to propose a streaming device without all the crap that the others put on, or possibly a media center PC that is router-sized that incorporates out of the box functionality for video library viewing. I’d buy that. I’m almost ready to build one, but I’m not happy with the options I’ve found. Another way to go here would be an open source NAS, that can be upgraded and repaired, with MCPC functionality baked in.

Lastly, from my position at work, I can say with certainty that there is a good market for small, standardized hardware for incorporation into medical devices that will run Windows and Linux but still look like a laptop or a touchscreen device. You can charge more for these, too, since there will be a need to revision control everything to a high degree and keep designs stable for longer time spans, as much as possible. Probably not what you’re going for, but I figured I’d mention it.

I, for one, can’t wait to see what’s next from Framework.

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Not truly self-sustaining. Earth still requires the Sun.

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Many of these ideas have already been mentioned by others in this thread and elsewhere, but I think it would be interesting to see the following:

  • A desktop case for the existing mainboard design (for backward compatibility) for a small desk sized computer (not a 3d printed case). Something along the lines of the recently released Windows Dev Kit 2023: Available today: Windows Dev Kit 2023 aka Project Volterra - Windows Developer Blog but with expansion card support and that is repairable.
  • A display case with VESA mount to transform the current display to a desktop monitor. This would improve the options for re-using components.
  • A fanless Intel U CPU based mainboard
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In-stock batteries for existing products! My main reason for choosing framework is that it promises that it’s easy to replace the battery. For other laptops it’s either not possible or it’s very hard to source batteries and/or you cannot install them yourself (at which point I might as well buy a new laptop, if only to tie me over the period when the laptop is away being serviced).

It now looks like Framework is going to have the same problem that it’s hard/impossible to get replacement batteries for it.

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I would like to see a tablet (doesn’t have to have to have an IP68 rating, I’d be happy with IP53), or a larger chassis option for the Framework laptop with a bigger screen and full numpad.

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Agree with @Nils , if you can’t source the part, any part, the laptop isn’t truly repairable or serviceable.

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You can currently get them through support I think, but not through the marketplace. Hope they open up the marketplace soon!

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I’ve been thinking about starting a thread about a specific next product here and am happy to see others are proposing this too: Please do a TB dock, correctly.

By that i mean not only reparable and/or modular (using the existing expansion port format would of course be wonderful).

A lot of the existing TB docks have all sorts of bugs, seemingly always in their firmware, that their makers seem to never really fix - or at least not on any serious timeframe. A repairable/“sustainable” TB dock, IMO, would have to be something that would have its firmware bugs addressed, and even new functionality added where practical, for a considerable amount of time. Something like the Samsung/Apple firmware upgrade and support lifetime for their phones, of 4-5 years, would be my benchmark. The opposite of the throwawayware that most manufacturersbrands put out now.

I think the amount of messages that can be found on this forum about “this TB dock does that weird thing with the FW laptop unless I turn things off/on, plug/unplug” etc underscores just how crappy the overall quality picture is with existing TB docks.

Perhaps even more controversially, but partly to underline how strongly I feel about the importance of a quality TB dock, I would even argue that a “gen 2” of the FW laptop design should do away with the modular ports and just go with “as many as possible TB ports”. Let the product focus be more discrete: The laptop is a great laptop, and the dock is a great dock (part of whose job is to be the “port format junction”).

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What if it was a service ? And not a product.
One of my friend asked me “why is the framework built to fail?” … Why do you want to make ME change anything in my laptop ?
Lots of persons around me don t want a repairable laptop…but a maintainable laptop !
So why not build some kind of ecosystem with the repairshops still in existance.
Make them a discount for selling the framework. And they could offer the service of repairing/ upgrading framework laptop.
THere are shops that repair phones and “apple” products, they could do framework repairs if they could see a financial advantage.
The then answer to my relative would be “Hey this is a laptop that you can repaire in any shop. Like Apple , but for cheap …”

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This is actually a good idea, like a partner program I guess. But it depends heavily on the uptake of the laptop. But it is gonna be an chicken and egg thing, users waiting for more shops to get into the program before buying while shops wait for more Framework laptop users to make it worth it.

That being said, with the Framework guides, I think the repair shop can get it fixed or upgraded with the part you want, just the issue about the part availability.

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I am impressed of that many und good ideas!

Thank you for it and Frame.Work, to encourrage the community to take part.

I think, Frame.work should first stable the business to worldwide shipping and support inclusive B2B.

The laptop itself can still be improved: more processors (AMD!), more form factors, more screens, cameras, fair production and raw materials, etc.

To expand the product portfolio, I would find it good to stay in the closer environment of the laptop. So a docking station, mouse and keyboard.

It would be best to have a survey on what the community wants.

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I’ll reiterate two ideas mentioned previously that interest me. A printer with pdf support built-in, sensible modern connection protocols, and open firmware would be amazing. I love the thunderbolt dock idea with expansion port support built-in.

My contribution to this list that I haven’t seen mentioned by anyone (though I could have just missed it) is a portable external screen, preferably OLED with 16:10 aspect ratio. Lastly, I realize this is CPU bound but support for ECC memory would be fantastic.

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I would love ECC RAM. Are there any laptop processors that support it?

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12950HX.

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@Philippe I’m with you. I think there is a lot of room to work with within the current space of laptops. I really would love to see AMD CPUs/APUs and USB4 support with high bandwidths and PCIE support to make it easy to hook up eGPUs. Maybe a second m.2 slot in a larger form factor or the possibility to use the USB4 PCIE lanes to attach high bandwidth SSDs as an expansion card instead of using an USB interface. The latter would bring the possibility to install windows on that “expansion card” even if windows to go is dead.

As for a docking station it would be really nice if there was one that supports the framework expansion cards. A fully modular dock where you can take with you what you need and slot it back in at home. The “Niche expansion cards” thread is full of useful and creative ideas so there will be no shortage for expandability on the dock.

Peripherals should be less of a concern. There are many highly repairable and customizable mechanical keyboards out there. As for mice it’s a little different. A short time ago I was on a hunt for a replacement for my 10a old Logitech M180 and because I have roccat peripherals on my main desk I will go with an upcoming product of them. I will not say there is a shortage of good mice, but I hate using the ones with integrated batteries (the new roccat kone air has changable ones). A repairable alternative would be awesome.

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Literally, a Framework Smartphone would be a dream!

Since none of the other repairable phone companies (i.e. Fairphone) sells products in Canada, this would be something I’d buy.

It would need to be a high-spec phone, though. I’m not a fan of the low-end specs and hardware offered on Fairphones, which I understand, but I believe that higher-spec hardware = longer product life.

Also… an Xbox controller with easy to replace bumpers and thumbsticks would be an instant buy for me. I’m not a heavy gamer, but have gone through far too many controllers, including Microsoft’s top-tier Elite 2 controllers, simply because a button fails and replacements are either poor quality or not easy to install.

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