I would love to see them make modular and repairable:
Those things so often end up in the dump just because one small part fails, or gets too outdated. Think about all the parts in a wifi router that work just fine, but get thrown away anyway, because the radio module doesn’t support the shiny new WiFi version.
Average people really don't care about newest wifi version, so I'd say routers are one of the longest living electronics in most households, unless they are rented out from your ISP who might be interested in updating it often to justify the rent.
And if built it right it could last even longer than that, just upgrade the asics for the new standards instead of getting a whole new unit.
ISPs buy the cheapest reasonable equipment they can. When I have had equipment killed by lightning, the ISP's VDSL router has always been among the dead
It especially sucks that the ISP isn't following whatever standards there are, so other VDSL modems can't connect
ISPs buy the cheapest reasonable equipment they can. When I have had equipment killed by lightning, the ISP's VDSL router has always been among the dead
It especially sucks that the ISP isn't following whatever standards there are, so other VDSL modems can't connect
Printers. God that market sucks right now. I had to break down and get one recently and just feel dirty. I know I'm fucked when its eol
Brother laser printer
The only maintenance it needs is scraping the layers of dust off it occasionally 😂
Music players (though I've preordered a Tangara, so hopefully that will be covered).
I as far as I know the best OpenWRT AP's / Routers you can buy right now is the Banana Pi R64, R3, R4(Still in development). Open source firmware with a long support life of updates and security patches and a nice metal casing.
I say as far as I know because I have not bought one yet as I don't have the funds for that right now. It is my next AP replacement though.
Do electric cars next. No AI bullshit. Just modular, repairable, customizable vehicles.
Their 18M investment is missing a few zeroes to do that.
Well maybe they need a...
000 18M investment!
Jk, how about electric bikes then?
Already a crowded and fairly repairable market.
I was hearing the ECUs in the market were fineky to repair from a friend. I know there us a certain diy support for them, but more prosumer seeming then full right to repair.
framework p r i n t e r
Tablet?
I would think they'd do a phone first given the market for phones is way bigger.
Isn’t that basically what Fairphone is?
It's very similar but with a different philosophy. Fairphone is about sustainability and being ethical. Framework is about repairability and upgradability(which the fairphone isn't).
Sustainability is a large part of Framework's mission as well. The CEO has explicitly said that one of their goals is that none of their laptops should end up in a landfill.
That's definitely true. There's definitely a lot of overlap but, my point was that Fairphone specialized in making "ethical" electronics beyond just being repairable in a way afaik Framework does not. And I'm assuming that a Framework phone would be upgradable and the Fairphone is not.
People looking to buy one would also look to at the other as an alternative though.
There's room for an American ethical phone maker. There's room for far more than two such companies in the world
FairPhone is definitely about repairability. But yes, I keep waiting for a FairPhone that isn't a total redesign from the previous so we can finally get yearly upgrades without needing a new phone. But the truth is, before the FP4 the design was still catching up to the competition.
In my opinion Fairphone makes dodgy decisions, like removing a headphone jack and supplementing that with their own Fairbuds
Please, do phones! Not only are far too many millions of phones being discarded every year, but it's such a large consumer base (literally everyone) and the current offerings really offer nothing sustainable. It's also a product category that's perfect for modularity!
Yes, ok, Fairphone. They don't sell them anywhere outside of Europe.
Other products like printers, tablets, monitors, TVs, etc. just have too long of a product life cycle to consider them as their next project. I can't see a huge customer base of people wanting to repair their monitor or printer (no real upgrade path for Framework to offer here).
An ergo mechanical keyboard. There are already several that are good and repairable, but the more the merrier.
More serious phone competitors welcome as well!
Oh, and a Bluetooth speaker with a replaceable battery.
I feel like people who care about mechanical keyboards already have too many highly repairable, highly upgradable keyboards
I know I have enough that I have two plugged into the one machine for super easy switching
Better niche: ergo electrostatic capacitive switch keyboard
Literally no one sells them, & I hear many folks stick to mechanical because there are ergo options
Framework tackling phones is useless if they go the mainstream SoC route (Qualcomm, Mediatek) as they don't have the software team needed to make those work properly (I would argue alot of handset manufactures don't either). From what I hear you need a hell of software team to "fix" the garbage Android SDK released for those chips. Most importantly is if they go the closed mainstream SoC route which have EoL SDK support dates then what's the point of building a durable repairable phone at a higher price point when you have to throw it out at the same as everyone else?
I want to see Framework enter the Linux phone market using "open" chips like Rockchip alongside Pine64's Pinephone (Pro) and the Librem 5 as I think they would more likely have the funds, dev time and community support to help bring say PostmarketOS into a usable state then have to rework the SDK. This way the phone's EoL date would be determined be the local phone infrastructure shutdowns. A much longer amount of time.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
That’s one of the biggest reasons it just raised another $18 million in funding — it wants to expand beyond the laptop into “additional product categories.”
Framework CEO Nirav Patel tells me that has always been the plan and that the company originally had other viable ideas beyond laptops, too.
Framework might choose an “equally difficult” category or might instead try something “a bit smaller and simpler to execute, streamlined now that we have all this infrastructure.”
(Patel recently suggested to Jason Carman that Framework might adapt its marketing to reach more everyday audiences.)
The company’s $9 million seed round paid for the original 13-inch laptop design, which has carried on for three generations of components.
Today, Framework has about 50 employees, and it plans to expand to 60 before the end of the year, with “a bit of additional team growth” in 2025.
The original article contains 653 words, the summary contains 144 words. Saved 78%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
Please god revive project Ara, maybe using the GPU connector for all the modular pieces.
As someone who has been there and done that a few times (Worked at Apple with the first touchpad, Blackbird, laptop, the transition to PowerPC, the Apple Newton, Jawbone headsets and speakers, Leap Frog educational toys, Palm Pre mobile phone, Maker stuff at Intel, and more… sorry for the humble brag), I am salivating at the possibilities for more open (or maybe just open) hardware, forward thinking and innovative, and hackable, like the good ol´ days perhaps.
Maybe our tech can become less black box (especially to the up-and-comers who learn javascript and how to comment out the stuff that doesn´t work) and more inspirational.
If there is a one word label to tag the difference, I will go with Woz over Jobs…
Go Framework, Go!