eSIM support for Fairphone 2 by eSIM.me?

Help Fairphone 2
1

Hi everyone,

I read an article, which said, that the Fairphone 2 is by far the oldest Android-Smartphone with Android Support and therefore got a new Android-Update.
Now, there is eSIM.me, which already equips the Fairphone 3 with eSIM technology. And as the compatibility with eSIM_me depends on the Android Version of a smartphone, there is a good chance, that the Fairphone 2 will support eSIM via eSIM_me.
If this is the case, the Fairphone 2 will be by far the oldest smartphone, which supports eSIM technology. And as we see the eSIM technology as a very ecological technology, we would see this as a tremendous sustainable approach.
So, can someone confirm eSIM_me running on a Fairphone 2? You will just find out by downloading the eSIM_me App (https://app.esim.me) and running it for the first time, as there is an automatic compatibility check.
If the compatibility check says it is compatible, please do not wonder, that you can not choose the Fairphone 2 on our site - we did not index for such old smartphone, yet. :wink:

I am excitedly looking forward to any response on this!

Best regards,
Max from eSIM_me

4 Likes
2

I’ve just run it on the Android 10 beta (with only a ‘normal’ SIM in slot SIM1 of the phone), and it says:

Your smartphone is not yet compatible.
BRAND: Fairphone
DEVICE: FP2
MODEL: FP2
VERSION.RELEASE: 10
VERSION.SDK_INT: 29

Make sure you are updated to the latest Android version and try again.

Readers list is empty

4 Likes
3

Can beta cause an issue here? Just wondering, as other Apps like DHL do not work with FPOS beta.

Is there a “minimum” Android Version required and which one is it?

4 Likes
4

Thank you so much for testing it! …though the result is not (yet) satisfying…

1 Like
5

In principle all phones running Android 9 and higher should be compatible as it includes by default the OMAPI support.
We do not know why they are doing it, but some manufacturers “remove” the OMAPI functionality when they define the ROM - so if there could be an adjustment in defining the Fairphone 2 ROM, which would include OMAPI, the Fairphone 2 should support eSIM_me as good as the Fairphone 3 does.

6

Same result with Lineage OS 18.1, Android 11 thus. It doesn’t work.

3 Likes
7

Thank you for this information. There are already some smartphone, which support eSIM_me with LineAge versions as their OS.

Could someone test the regular Android 9 version as well, please? Thank you very much in advance!

8

Just tested. Same problem (Your smartphone is not yet compatible) on a FP2 with current regular A9 (FPOS 21.12.0-rel.1).

4 Likes
9

I suspect that this is happening because the modem software from Qualcomm has not been updated for a while, and thus doesn’t include any new features that were introduced in Android 9.

If you want @Max_eSIM.me I could submit a bug report for the A10 beta to find out whether this is the case.

4 Likes
10

Hi, that would be great!
All which needs to be done is to enable the system feature “android.hardware.omapi.uicc”.
So, it is not really a bug, but it had been missed to specify this functionality in the system features of the Fairphone 2.

11

I’ve created an issue on the A10 tracker.

4 Likes
12

@Max_eSIM.me I spent some time looking into this.

Generally CTS test skips running OMAPI tests on devices launched earlier than Android Oreo https://cs.android.com/android/platform/superproject/+/android10-tests-dev:cts/tests/tests/secure_element/access_control/AccessControlApp1/src/android/omapi/accesscontrol1/cts/AccessControlTest.java;l=177 so Google doesn’t expect this to be available for older devices.
The feature flag you mentioned doesn’t seem to exist but it’s probably a typo because android.hardware.se.omapi.uicc exists but only starting with Android 11.

Adding android.hardware.secure_element@1.0 and SecureElement to the build leaves us with the following errors:

I SecureElementService: main onCreate
I SecureElementService: No HAL implementation for eSE1
I SecureElementService: No HAL implementation for SIM1

Much of the references to secure element I found were somewhat related to NFC and we neither have NFC support on FP2 nor do we have an actual embedded secure element - apart from the users’ SIM card of course.

This is where I stopped investigation, unfortunately it doesn’t seem to be trivial adding support for this feature. It’s probably missing some plumbing in the telephony stack and possibly even in the modem firmware.

Conclusion: It’s more work than just enabling a feature flag unfortunately :slight_smile:

9 Likes
13

Dear @lucaweiss,

there was indeed a type, the system feature is “android.hardware.se.omapi.uicc” and is part of Android since version 9. Is related to the HAL implementation for SIM1 (and potentially SIM2 on a Dual SIM device).

The NFC implementation can be ignored, as it is related to eSE1, which is not present as you write.

So if you could concentrate on the HAL for SIM implementation, is sufficient.
I am not sure if it helps, but FP3 has this system feature enabled, so maybe you can get some reference from there.

Let me know if you need more Information.

Best regards,
Chris | eSIM.me Team

15

This topic was automatically closed 180 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.