Here's a quick update from our side

Discuss The Industry
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Dear Fairphone community,

As promised, this is us checking in with updates to bring you up to speed on what we have been doing on the issues we discussed last time.

1. We’re steadily rebuilding our Customer Support services

We have been gradually increasing our capacity internally, with more full-time additions to the customer support team who are being onboarded this week. Additionally, we now have an AI chatbot that customers can access 24/7, that has been trained on our knowledge base. We are currently expanding this knowledge base with even more support articles as we speak. Both the knowledge base and the AI chatbot will help basic troubleshooting and speed up after-sales processes. If more assistance is necessary, the support team will be available to help customers further via a ticket.

2. Android 15 is coming soon.

We are still fully focused on the Android 15 upgrade for Fairphone 4 users, and are waiting on some suppliers to come through to share a definitive release date. As soon as we have something more concrete to share, this forum will be the first place we post it. Meanwhile, we are aiming to roll out Android 15 for Fairphone 5 users by the end of July.

3. Reassurance

As most of you must have seen by now, we launched a new phone last week!
A new device doesn’t, and shouldn’t, take away from supporting our older devices, and this message is also intended to reassure you about exactly that.
This community of ours is special. It is what makes Fairphone unique, and why all of you will always be our guiding light.
Once again, thank you for supporting Fairphone, and what we’re doing.

Stay fair,
The Fairphone Team.

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Every time a new FP is announced there are these promises that updates will be more timely, support will be improved, etc., and yet all the issues that were there with previous phones are still there and are already cropping up with FP6. At this point these statements are meaningless without action to back them up. Do better, a lot better.

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Please note that the support has improved dramatically, from zero hours of chat availability to 20 a week.

FP3, FP4 and FP5 have had the software update released, dated for June 2025.

I am not saying everything runs smoothly but I am able to appreciate when the improvement has been done.

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I just want to say, that I am happy that you now understand how much it is to communicate towards the community. Many companies never understood and slowly transformed brand loyalty into brand indifference at the very best. But as long as there is a clear interest to communicate, then it is okay if you stumble on the way, because we are not left in the dark.
Thank you

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I don’t think your negativity is well placed. Do you have any metrics that say nothing has changed? They provided information about what they did and what is planned, do you have any proof its a lie. Don’t get me wrong, you are entitled to opinion, but its posts like yours that makes companies not want to communicate. Because then its lose-lose - “no communication” = hatred, “communication” = hatred. Well guess what is easier to choose in such case. Please appreciate more the effort done rather than things that are not YET done.

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Hi @Alon_Brandt,

Great to hear that the support team is growing, I hope this is several people, not just one.

Mention of AI chatbots makes me nervous, I always find them a complete waste of my time because by the time I get to the point where I feel I need to contact customer services I’ve already tried everything I can find in the wikis, knowledge bases, forums, etc. I know it’s the current trend in customer support, to have an AI chatbot that acts as the gatekeeper to real people, but industry trends aren’t something that Fairphone normally enjoys following, so I hope that in this case you make it easy to bypass the bot and allow us to interact directly with your helpful and clever staff, because they’ll be infinitely times more capable than any AI chatbot.

Cheers :slight_smile:

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Hi, we have had a little discussion on AI chatbot here, We're hanging up our phones and coming to you LIVE - #57 by Meaghan and the following posts.

It seems it is quite easy to bypass a bot but only within the designated official chat hours, otherwise you are asked for your name and some basic info.

My experience is quite positive. I enquired about the Keep Club glitch, and got the info it has been recognised and being working on and is to be expected to improve with no further action needed on my side. I did not need (to trouble) a human agent for that so I would say it was a good use of resources.

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Hi @Meaghan,
Good to know the AI chatbot isn’t too bad, I hope it continues like that.
Cheers :slight_smile:

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Can you confirm the current target time for dealing with outstanding support tickets? Many of us have been waiting several months for a resolution and would like information on how much longer we need to wait.

Some form of compensation, even just in terms of good will gestures, would be welcome, too.

You have a lot of work to do to rebuild trust that has been badly damaged over the last six months or so. Updates like this one are welcome, but specifics would be better.

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Yes, I agree - it would be good to know what’s happening with outstanding tech support requests. My FP5 usb connection now only charges and I logged the support call on 29th April. I’ve not had anything at all since the initial acknowledgment. I do think 2 1/2 months to respond is quite poor.

Please Fairphone - at least send us something so we know we are still on your list. At the moment it feels like we’ve been abandoned.

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I’m going to commit forum heresy here and reply to myself! Sorry in advance.

I used the live chat feature on the FP website today. While opening hours are very short, the service I received today was outstanding. In total contrast to the lengthy delays previously.

I would still welcome more detail on FP’s customer service targets this experience has done a great deal to indicate that things are looking positive.

Thank you

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Very Nice :slight_smile: , have a nice Weekend :slight_smile:

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Was this the AI chat or were you speaking to a real person ? The AI chat was absolutely useless for me.

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Totally agree regarding the AI bot: utterly dreadful. I believe there is human support chat available Mon-Fri: 10:00-12:00. The hours are hilariously short but it is much much better when speaking to a real person!

It is accessed through the support chat icon on the homepage. I had to type in ‘request human agent’ to stop it prompting me to use the AI bot.

Hope you can get support

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Going to try tomorrow between 10 and 12. Fingers crossed.

Otherwise I may just buy a replacement usb port for it to see if that fixes the problem. Sigh.

Anyway thanks for the advice. (From a fellow countryman).

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Just here to say that we are waiting for an Android version upgrade on FP4 :raising_hands:
I’m aware of the challenges of working with suppliers who don’t want to support their platform anymore.
If you deliver Android 15 on FP4, you will be doing my day :slight_smile:

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Hi, personally I am not very interested in Android 15, however upgrading to it wouldn’t be an issue either.

What however is a concern for me is the poor support/driver quality for the Qualcomm soc in my FP4, that apparently causes my phone to drain battery as a maniac*. Is there any chance for improvement here? In which case would be the major reason for me to upgrade and continue using this phone.

*) I have already tried many things, like factory resets, installing LineageOS, all doesn’t seem to help.

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Fully agree with above - battery drain is a tragedy. I own FP4 for almost 2 years already. Someone has already documented that it’s a bug - kenel is called ecery second (!). Nothing was done about it until now. You can search forum posts, it’s welld ocumented by one user.
Even when someone is calling me, it takes 5 seconds to appear on the screen so I can answer. And no, my phone is not bloated and I have very few apps, regularly clear cache etc.
The month is almost ending. Many opomises were already broken regarding FP4. I am disappointed for over a year already seeing how it goes from this company.

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In the meanwhile, I fixed battery drain FP4 by downgrading to A12, see this thread

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Just to update my experience with FP support.

I did eventually get through the chatbot and was able to message someone called Robin. They pointed me towards a set of trouble shooting steps which I had already followed previously, but I went through them again. It was clear to me that my Fairphone was charging but was not communicating - it looked like it was a clear USB port malfunction.

I was told that if the trouble shooting didn’t resolve the issue I was then to send the phone off to Fairphone for them to look at. That seemed crazy bearing in mind the symptoms I’d reported and the results of the trouble shooting. Also like most folk, I can’t afford to be without my phone, and with the appalling level of support from Fairphone at present I did not want to send it away and be without it for for an extended period .

I ordered a replacement USB-C port for the FP5 (around £17 plus carriage) which came today. I installed it (a breeze) and the comms are now working - I plug it into my laptop and it immediately gets recognised, my usb-audio adaptor works etc.

So yes, I’m glad I bought a phone that is so easily repairable. However I can’t see most users tolerating this dreadful level of support. We all know we are paying more for FPs than similar phone - it is not unreasonable to expect a company to factor in a reasonable level of support as part of this extra cost.

I would probably buy another FP in the future but could not in all honesty recommend a FP to most people I know, as they would be 100% dependant on support from FP if anything went wrong, and a 2 month wait for support is just not acceptable to them (nor for me, but like others here, I am competent technically).

To cap it all off, I had an automated message from them today saying

“Dear Peter,

We apologize for our delay in responding to your message.

With this message we want to assure you that your request has been received, and we are doing our best to get back to you as soon as possible. To prevent further delay, we would like to ask you to not create multiple requests. If your request is urgent, then please reach out to our support team via Live Chat.

We also have an Online troubleshooting tool and useful Support articles to help guide you at home.

We appreciate your patience and value your continued support.

Your Fairphone Support Team”

I hope other people are getting better support on their issues.

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