March & April Forum Update 🪻

Discuss The Industry
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Dear community,

As the blossoms start to appear, especially the hyacinths in Amsterdam :hyacinth:, we have a packed update for you. From industry-shaking reports to a message for our beloved Fairphone 3 users, here is what’s been happening at Fairphone over the last weeks:

1. Beyond Carbon: Our First-Ever Nature Report :herb:

We’ve just released a landmark study: The Industry’s First-Ever Nature Report. While the tech world is obsessed with “Net Zero” and carbon footprints, we wanted to look deeper. Our report reveals that 75% of a smartphone’s environmental impact happens before you even open the box, specifically during mining and manufacturing.

Key Takeaways:

  • Biodiversity Risk: We identified 11 global mining “hotspots” where the extraction of minerals like gold, cobalt, and tin is putting severe pressure on local ecosystems.

  • The “Carbon Mask”: A product can be “low-carbon” but still highly destructive to nature through water pollution and soil degradation.

  • Our Call to Action: We’re pushing the industry to stop using 10-year-old data and start treating biodiversity loss as a core business risk.

:backhand_index_pointing_right: Read the full Nature Report here

2. Behind the Scenes: The Making of a Modular Icon (Ep. 2) :movie_camera:

The second episode of our “Journey to Gen. 6” series is live! In this installment, we dive into the “technical grit” of designing the Fairphone 6.

Our designers and engineers get honest about the “modular puzzle”: How we managed to fit 12 replaceable modules into a slim, flagship-feeling device without sacrificing battery density. If you’ve ever wondered about the prototypes that didn’t make it, this is the episode for you.

:backhand_index_pointing_right: Watch Episode 2 on YouTube

3. Fairphone 3: Seven Years of Fair & The Path Ahead :mobile_phone:

In 2019, we promised 5 years of support for the FP3. We are incredibly proud to have reached 7 years! :tada:
The time has come to officially retire the device this summer (August 2026).

What this means for FP3/3+ owners:

  • Security & Support: Official software support and spare part sales will conclude in August.

  • The Android 14 “Gift”: While an official update to Android 14 turned out to be unfeasible, we are publicly releasing our Android 14 development source code. This allows the amazing open-source community (LineageOS, /e/OS, postmarketOS) to continue the device’s legacy even longer! Check out our Software Longevity Team’s Forum post here: Fairphone 3 Android 14 source code .

  • Continue Your Journey Offer: Of course we want to keep you in the Fairphone family! Active Fairphone 3 owners who bought their Fairphone via our webshop, check your emails for a special offer. :love_letter:

:backhand_index_pointing_right: Read our full blog post here

Thank you all for being such an active & engaged community!

Your Fairphone Team :green_heart:

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The blog post is unavailable (as is the whole fairphone.com/stories site). An FP3 user pasted the contents here. [Edit: might be an error on my end – 500: Internal Server Error]

Quite abrupt :pleading_face: given many FP2 spare parts remained available several years after the end of FP2 support.

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two messages from the website

the older I presume

Until when will spare parts be available on your website for Fairphone 3(+)?
We originally committed to selling spare parts for the Fairphone 3(+) until 5 years after launch in 2019, and we are proud to have met that commitment. While we have started to run out of some modules, others will remain available for purchase while stocks last in 2026. We remain committed to servicing Fairphone 3(+)'s at our repair centres until at least 31-12-2027.

and now

Do note that we will be ceasing sales of spare parts and accessories for the device in August 2026 as we are retiring the Fairphone 3(+), and after August 5, 2026, customer support will be limited to spare parts that are still under warranty.

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thanks for flagging, looking into it :folded_hands:t2:

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I hope that is just badly phrased and means as long as spare parts are on stock one can buy them and it just means nothing new is produced. Thats how it was for the FP2 a sfar as I remember

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link should work now @urs_lesse

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Nice, but when will it be? Right now or in the future? Because there have already been issues with the purchase date and original invoices following changes to the Fairphone website or the Keep Club, so I’m not sure how accurate and up-to-date Fairphone’s records are :sweat_smile:

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.. the open-source community provides incredible ways to keep your phone secure and functional for years to come. Switching to an alternative OS allows you to receive security patches and feature updates long after the official life cycle.

while I appreciate Fairphones general support and pointing device owners in that direction, I’m critical of seeing it done without adding a caveat. This way it’s only a half-truth.

Vendor software components are significant and are hard to fix or maintain at all and will not go away on either of the alternatives. To not acknowledge the remaining risk of no vendor updates in paragraphs praising opensource efforts results in loss of credibility and trust when users are eventually clued in.

Projects and people keeping phones useful for longer are to be celebrated, but there’s an industry reluctant or uninterested in decreasing their side of the risk they introduce.

A end-of-life annoucement is an opportunity to point that out too. While there are systemic improvements, the principles of industry for later generation Fairphones are no different.

I have a FP3 in my hands and it feels brand new.

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@Mixigodo any Fairphone 3 user who thinks they are eligible but did not receive an email can reach out to CS :envelope_with_arrow:

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I didn’t receive the email because, even though I bought my Fairphone 3 in August 2019 (and it’s still the phone I use every day), it doesn’t show up in my Fairphone profile. In the orders section, it says…

Resumo

Is an order you expect to see not shown? We are in the process of improving our webshop, and for a short period your account history may not be accurate. If you need any information, or have questions about a previous order, please reach out to our Support Team, they will be able to assist you further.

…so a few months ago I contacted customer service, who sent me a copy of the invoice (even though I already had it), and added the pending points to my Keep Club account. However, my FP3 order still doesn’t appear in the orders section of my Fairphone account. I guess that’s why I haven’t received that email we were talking about.

It’s a shame that these errors keep happening, as that have already penalized me in the past with the Keep Club: if I’m not keeping an eye on the forum, I might miss out on this offer solely because of glitches in Fairphone’s database or website, in addition to having to “bother” customer service about an offer I might not even end up using.

Thank you, in any case, for explaining the current situation with the Fairphone 3 and how to access that “special offer” anyway :slightly_smiling_face:.

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Hi @Mixigodo I’m sorry to hear about your experience and will make sure to forward it to the relevant teams internally!

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Hi! I emailed customer support on Saturday. I’m going to wait a few days to see if they get back to me. Thank you very much :slight_smile:

Edit: A week after I wrote to customer support, they replied very kindly and sent me the discount code I was elegible for :slight_smile: