As the device had developed an aversion against scrolling, which made it unusable for many day-to-day scenarios, I reset it to factory settings, switched back to original FP OS, installed everything that was not required and used it for (2FA) authentication purposes at home only.
In the meantime I switched to a Murena FP5 running /e/OS as a daily driver.
For the FP2, I also think migrating it to /e/OS and using it for some lightweight and non-scroll-intensive purposes, e.g. as smart home remote control. Any suggestions?
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Guys, you are awesome!
Yup, indeed 8y! Mom is still successfully using FP2, thanks to LTS Android updates. I think we’ve only had some case fit, and battery issues - rest of the hardware still seems to be intact!
Congrats, that sounds great! Looks like it can be done. Hope to keep it running for another year.
Mine is also to turn 8 years on Monday and still going strong without noticeable limits.
But I also managed to keep enough batteries. 4 pieces. 2 of the first generation which meanwhile had to be disposed due to noticeable capacity loss and both showing power level drops when reaching ~30% charge level.
The remaining 2 of the second generation are still in proper condition. The youngest is just about 1 year old.
I keep the handset mainly as audio, podcast, radio source at home running /e/ OS Android Q e-1.8.1-q-20230206257879-dev-FP2.zip on it.
Remote control, good point. I’m using Flic buttons for app control, nothing smart home fancy, but they could also if needed with appropriate hardware.
Latest /e/ OS Android R e-1.19.1-r-20240110372392-dev-FP2.zip didn’t operate reliable on my device. Which is why I yesterday reverted back to Android Q. A factory reset didn’t help.
Massive troubles began with the jump to Android R ota update after 1.18.1-q. It didn’t take long for me to recognize that there were some severe stability issues. Some apps (DLF, Mondly) started to crash the UI. Re-installation of those apps didn’t help. With the latest e-1.19.1-r even browsing got nearly impossible. Some pages, also from my bookmarks, wouldn’t load anymore. Sometimes the browser simply stalled for 1-2 minutes for no obvious reason. Scrolling was sluggish even on plain text pages. Every now and then the UI got stuck and didn’t take any input.
All is gone again with Android Q based /e/ OS 1.18.1-q and the device performs smooth. I haven’t any apps installed such as What’s app, FB or stuff that’s known to sometimes rise troubles.
Maybe a full installation of the latest version side-loaded with TWRP would had fixed something, but since I don’t do anything critical with the device I’m fine again with an older version and probably keep it that way.
Also the account registration process seemingly was advanced or now fully implemented with the latest version.
With Android Q I could use my bike lock app “ILockIt” without having to register any (Google) account. Simply install the app, login to the manufacturer server and the lock could be coupled, configured and controlled.
Not so with the Android R version. I’ve tried an afternoon, but there was no other way to login to the manufacturer server without also registering my phone with my Google account, which I surely wanted to avoid. Deleting the account later again keeps the app still working, but what for then have an almost de-googled OS running…
Another reason why I converted back to Android Q again, no need to register my phone with Google to get this app (maybe others as well) working and my bike lock coupled.
Let’s see if the handset can reach 10 years before being returned to the maker operational with a sweet message on the screen. , I somehow would feel bad knowingly having it ripped apart just for spare parts, but sure that’s not much of a difference as feeding the recycling realm.
Btw. all parts (beside the faulty v1 back camera) are still first generation from the initial manufacturing.
Thanks for providing insight into your use cases, very interesting.
Also thanks for pointing out that /e/ OS 1.18.1-q might be the better option for the FP2. I think I’ll give that one a try when I have a few hours, I just downloaded this release from the /e/ site.
My FP2 is from December 2015, but the reboots became more and more frequent, so I switched to an FP3.
Every now and then I start the FP2 to see if it still works, but I no longer “use” it.
The FP3, in use with LOS, shows no major instabilities for me, I can easily use it for over 1000 hours without rebooting
I’m also using with always more difficulty my FP2 daily. Strong patience is necessary
Scrolling is indeed an issue here too. And since a few months I have a new type of bug, a blue screen of death followed by a reboot, it can happen anytime.
Also probably some bad contact with the battery, since “twisting” the phone is often necessary to reboot it. I’m almost not using the “power” button anymore.
Do you also have these issues?
I will try /e/ when I find the time, this would probably help. Thanks for sharing @Patrick1
BSOD sounds annoying indeed. Well, no I’ve never experienced something lethal as this.
Battery contact problems may occur after some time, often here an advice is mentioned to use a slim part of cardboard or paper to fix the battery in it’s compartment.
Once in a while my screen shows some kind of pattern partially or fully which after some short time or moment goes away again.
But the display stays responsive anyway. It could be some kind of grounding problem as I read about others here back in the days, that the grounding pads on the displays backside are of not so high conductive quality and resistance problems occur after some time. Cleaning them once more could only help up to a limit. But other than that there is no sign of lethal behavior up to now.
Maybe cleaning contacts or dis-/reassembling parts could help with your issue. While switching OS the device will be wiped, one never knows what software issues rise over time.
As I mentioned above I also had to revert back to /e/ Android Q as the latest Android R OTA update(s) rather causes massive troubles than fixed things on my device.
Generally flashing /e/ OS relying on the provided online help procedure goes pretty well using TWRP to side-load the OS (speaking of Linux as counterpart).
The time consuming thing that remains is setting up the device from scratch as a backup won’t help here.
Anyway good luck.
I have 2 pieces of paper to hold my battery firmly in place.
At the back and at the bottom. The one at the bottom ‘pushes’ the bottom upwards to the connetors.
Hey Mine’s still in use too, and having the same issue. Tbh, though, it started happening after it fell from my pocket and “exploded” on the road while cycling, last summer… I could put all the pieces together thanks to its awesome design
I wish it lasts some more, although I’m afraid it is on its last year. Too bad all new Fairphones are so big! But still, I wouldn’t buy anything else.
I changed from my FP2 (which I got in 2017) to an FP4 in 2022 because of random reboots (also with the battery wedged in at the bottom), sluggish app response and ending of Android security upgrades.
Recently I tried to revive it as a fallback device, but the response is now even worse (waking from blank screen, reaction to touch input, apps run very slowly,…). Tried to dismount the display and clean the contacts, removed the micro-SD memory card, performed even a factory reset - but to no avail.
It seems that there is a communication problem with some HW component as the IO writes take up a large fraction of the CPU time even when no foreground app is running:
adb shell top -m 1 -n 1
User 6%, System 4%, IOW 85%, IRQ 0%
User 4 + Nice 0 + Sys 3 + Idle 2 + IOW 54 + IRQ 0 + SIRQ 0 = 63
PID USER PR NI CPU% S #THR VSS RSS PCY Name
18480 shell 20 0 11% R 1 4544K 1572K fg top
My FP2 turns 8 today, and it is still working well. It’s still my only Android device, but I don’t use Android much anymore.
Last year I was lucky to get a second hand Librem 5 phone for a very good price, and it turned out that’s the perfect smartphone for my use cases. It runs a Debian based OS. And since I use Debian on all my devices that’s a perfect fit. It gets all the (security and other) updates Debian gets, so I’m hoping to be able to use it for the next 10 years or even longer.
I’ll continue to use my FP2 as backup phone as long as it is working (hopefully a few more years).
Great to see other people here with an 8-year-old FP2
Hi, my FP2 is also 8 years in use and although it has/had quite a few small issues it still is my daily driver. During it’s lifetime it had a new case, bottom module and battery. Sensors are not working anymore but I can live with that. Only very occasionally the screen has a weird fit of distortion but this is remedied through a reboot. I think the secret of this longevity is the fact that I never wear the phone in the pocket of my pants.
I’ve been using it for years now with Lineage OS, now version 18.1. Alas support for this has now reached the end of line and the FP2 can not be upgraded with version 19. Does anyone know if there is an alternative OS through which I can use the phone safe for another period of time?
I have not noticed any word on /e/OS dropping support for the FP2 and it recently received the same /e/OS 1.20 update that other devices have received as well. However, so far I was under the impression that /e/OS for the FP2 was based on LineageOS for the FP2, so it remains to be seen if an /e/ developer will keep feeding security updates into /e/OS for the FP2. Info about Fairphone FP2 - FP2
The current /e/OS 1.20 is at security patch level January 2024, so 1.21 should be at February 2024, which still included Android 11.
After that it should get interesting, as the March 2024 Security Bulletin dropped Android 11.
Sadly, I dropped my FP2 on tarmac and smashed the corner and the microphone never worked again. No longer a useable phone. So it’s been delivering stored on itself and streamed music (its Wifi connection works fine) via cable to my HiFi ever since.
, I somehow would feel bad knowingly having it ripped apart just for spare parts, but sure that’s not much of a difference as feeding the recycling realm.
