Fairphone 2: Fixing Your Phone to Make a Difference
Modular
It is not only the electronics value chain that suffers from a lack of transparency, for many people the devices they use also are opaque. Schmidt: “For many people their mobile phone is the last thing they see before they go to sleep and the first thing when they wake up. Nevertheless, most people have no idea how it works, it's a black box to them they replace every 2 years. That's one of the reasons we chose to have a modular design. When you can take your phone apart, repair it when necessary, you get a sense of ownership, you build a stronger connection to it.”
Fairphone offers 5 modules in its spare parts shop: a Display Module, Camera Module, Battery, a Bottom Module which contains the speaker, vibration motor, USB connector and primary microphone and the Top Module containing the receiver, headset connector, LED, ambient light and proximity sensor (ALS/PS), front camera and noise-cancelling microphone. The modules cover all the moving parts of the phone because they break most often, Schmidt explains. When you drop your phone and crack the display, you can replace it for € 85,70 rather than buy an entirely new device. iFixit, home to the repairability zealots of the electronics age, did a teardown of the FP2 and graded it with a 10 out of 10. With a single tool - a Phillips screwdriver - you can completely gut your phone in under 5 minutes.
Fairphone hopes to extend the time people hang on to their phones from the average 2 years, to 5. It is both a way to get people to forge a stronger bond with their devices and to reduce environmental impact. Schmidt: “The largest environmental damage in a device's life cycle happens in the production phase. Compared to that, the impact of using a phone is almost negligible.”
The FP2 is equipped with an extension port, another feature to support the by now familiar themes longevity and user freedom. “You can't predict the future”, says Schmidt. “There may be features people want on their phone 3 years from now we cannot foresee yet. That's why we've added a generic USB port to add functionalities. One example is adding NFC for mobile payments. But it can be anything, we invite developers to use the Fairphone as a development platform. We have one person from the Fairphone community who is using the port to add a hardware keyboard. Others are using it to connect a Yubikey, a hardware authentication device that increases security when logging into online accounts.”
It is not only the electronics value chain that suffers from a lack of transparency, for many people the devices they use also are opaque. Schmidt: “For many people their mobile phone is the last thing they see before they go to sleep and the first thing when they wake up. Nevertheless, most people have no idea how it works, it's a black box to them they replace every 2 years. That's one of the reasons we chose to have a modular design. When you can take your phone apart, repair it when necessary, you get a sense of ownership, you build a stronger connection to it.”
Fairphone offers 5 modules in its spare parts shop: a Display Module, Camera Module, Battery, a Bottom Module which contains the speaker, vibration motor, USB connector and primary microphone and the Top Module containing the receiver, headset connector, LED, ambient light and proximity sensor (ALS/PS), front camera and noise-cancelling microphone. The modules cover all the moving parts of the phone because they break most often, Schmidt explains. When you drop your phone and crack the display, you can replace it for € 85,70 rather than buy an entirely new device. iFixit, home to the repairability zealots of the electronics age, did a teardown of the FP2 and graded it with a 10 out of 10. With a single tool - a Phillips screwdriver - you can completely gut your phone in under 5 minutes.
Fairphone hopes to extend the time people hang on to their phones from the average 2 years, to 5. It is both a way to get people to forge a stronger bond with their devices and to reduce environmental impact. Schmidt: “The largest environmental damage in a device's life cycle happens in the production phase. Compared to that, the impact of using a phone is almost negligible.”
The FP2 is equipped with an extension port, another feature to support the by now familiar themes longevity and user freedom. “You can't predict the future”, says Schmidt. “There may be features people want on their phone 3 years from now we cannot foresee yet. That's why we've added a generic USB port to add functionalities. One example is adding NFC for mobile payments. But it can be anything, we invite developers to use the Fairphone as a development platform. We have one person from the Fairphone community who is using the port to add a hardware keyboard. Others are using it to connect a Yubikey, a hardware authentication device that increases security when logging into online accounts.”
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