No notification LED and no replaceable microphone in FP4

There is a slight difference. In the case of FP3, the LED has already been used to indicate charging. On FP4, the LED isn’t used for anything at all.

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That’s almost exactly what I asked them. I will post the answer here.
Furthermore, I also asked the developers of iodéOS (LineageOS-based) if they could implement the LED functionality in their operating system. :blush:

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Maybe relay the question to LineageOS as well, if it’s implemented there, then all derivatives will inherit that feature as well. Who knows, maybe Fairphone will cherry pick that commit as well. I still can’t think of any reason why they don’t implement this LED light…

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I would do it. But is there already any (official) developer at all who plans to maintain LOS on FP4?

Me neither. I really don’t get it.

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I don’t know either, but in this picture there’s a name for the FP3 development. Maybe he knows?

AFAIK yes, @dk1978 is also working on the FP4 build, although he’s not alone. But perhaps just first post in the FP4 and LineageOS topic?

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most of the distance-sensors i know have two optical parts:
one is the IR-LED that emitts light -
the other the receiving part (photocell or similar)
for the cover-glass it is essential that there is no cross-talk between these two.
so you need a cover-glass that has two areas…

and if the light-sensor is an extra part i count tree windows.

sunny greetings
stefan

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I’m not sure if this is true. My Pixel 3 has a sensor that’s both a proximity and light sensor at the front. Check the schematics here. So these can be combined or separate.

If the schematics of the FP4 say there are ambient light sensor, proximity sensor, LED on the device, then I suppose those are there. Perhaps also in that order from left to right, or from right to left when reading about some experiments people did.

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Hey there, @Razem @s-light

Sorry it took a while to realize about this thread :slight_smile:

I just want to confirm that there is no LED at all in the FP4 core (that you would see from the front of the device.

The only LED light is the one that serves as a flash by the rear camera. We do not rule out doing something with this in the future, but we can’t promise anything at the moment.

I hope this helps. Thanks!

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Hi @mikiballester, thanks for joining the conversation. I do wonder what the 3 holes are at the front of the device. Knowing what they are should clarify any doubts. Because in the spec sheet it does list a LED for the core module while the camera module lists a flash. See screenshot below for clarification, note the small red rectangulars. So to me it does look like the core module has a LED, listed in the same row as the items that are at the front of the phone such as the ambient light sensor and proximity sensor. And then of course the flash is listed for the camera module, which is at the back.

What was the reasoning behind removing the notification LED by the way? A camera flashlight cannot really replace its functionality. It’s at the back of the phone, so you cannot read the notification that’s on the screen. It’s also super bright, that’s not ideal, and having it flash every 2 seconds (because that’s what a persistent notification does) would drain your battery as well. And talking about batteries, a notification LED is ideal to indicate the charging status or alert you about a low battery. A camera flashlight cannot substitute that.

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Anyhow, no LED means there is no.

Discussion in this regard can therefore be ended, as it leads nowhere. Even if it will be difficult to accept for one or the other.

Only a feature request for upcoming models can be set.

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Technical specs say there is a LED, Fairphone employee says there is no LED :slight_smile: I think there is still room for some questions and answers, like the ones in my previous comment :nerd_face: You’re free exclude yourself if you’re satisfied with the information provided of course.

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Hi @UPPERCASE,

You are referring not to the specs but to an article that points to the pricing of our spare parts at the repair center. There was a mistake in that article that has already been fixed. If you are curious, the 3 windows at the front panel of the display are for the light, ambient colour and proximity sensors. That helps regulate your FP4 display.

Thanks!

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Thanks for getting back to me. I still find it a bit strange that one other employee clearly said there was a LED, but just not part of the user experience. But it wouldn’t make any sense that FP installed a LED and by no means wants to enable it, so I guess there is no LED.

The spec sheet is now indeed updated without listing the LED, but also not this color sensor you mentioned. Could you update that as well?

I also do wonder why a notification LED was not included. If you could please answer that last question, then the community has all the information and we can refer to this thread when people bring up these questions again. That prevents speculation and long discussions.

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@mikiballester 's answer is slightly different from the answer I recently received from support:

Hi
To be clear: the Fairphone 4 does not have an LED that is visible. So no, there isn’t an LED there to be used.
However, you could look into third-party apps that simulate a notification LED. These actually show notifications on the display but provides the same effect as an LED. Please be aware though that such apps cause heavy battery drain.
If you have any further questions please let me know. I am happy to help!

So there is an LED on the core module that is not visible?

I really miss that there is no complete teardown yet where you could see details of the core module. I’ll have an FP4 in my hands soon and I will take the opportunity to teardown the core module :upside_down_face:

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hi there,

I am Head of Product Management. We and our engineering team have been designing and working in the engineering of this phone. So you are getting first-hand information.

@UPPERCASE the list you refer to is not a spec sheet. Is a list of prices and there were several mistakes that we have fixed. It could be that we used a same template as for FP3 and some items were legacy. Led was not included as a design decision like many other decisiones were made. We simply did not think that it was adding enough functionality, we gained some space on the PCB and it was one component less to use.

@HolosericaCaligo There is no LED in the core of the phone as I already explained. I will make sure that customer support also knows this. We used to always have a detailed teardown done by iFixit, but this time around they made a video where fewer details are shared. It is not in our plan to provide our own teardown at this moment.

Thanks for your attention!

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OK, thanks for last clearing words
Discussion is hopefully ended now

equal if the decision is good or not, i like, that we have direct contact to the developers. thats a cool Advantage

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C‘mon @mikiballester, it’s the internet! You can not convince people just by pure facts. :grimacing::grimacing::grimacing:

I’m following this topic for quite a while now with amusement.

Next steps will be further speculations about Fairphone’s true intentions.

I mean, Fairphones plans are too obvious, don’t you think? :nerd_face:

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Not everyone is susceptible to facts, that’s true. As far as I can tell there wasn’t yet a clear answer from FP if there was a LED or not and why it was removed. That has now been cleared up, thanks @mikiballester!

I updated this wiki with a list of design decisions. Getting answers straight from the source with the technical reasoning prevents these long discussions with a lot of speculation. Discussions will still take place, of course, and that’s fine. But at least the community now has a reference of why FP took these decisions. So finally the community doesn’t have to guess and argue about that anymore :slight_smile: I suppose that’s already 75% of the discussion in this thread.

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