5 ms·

Pinephone Keyboard Update

55 points by TheUnelisted 5y ago

xbar 5y ago
Very promising. Psion-killer?
- TheUnelisted 5y ago
  I sure think so. Less a killer though and more of a real continuation of it. Not to say the Gemini, Astro Slide, etc isn't continuing it, but Planet Computer's devices run Android and not mainline Linux like the PinePhone does (sure you can run Linux, but only with an android kernel).
  - easton 5y ago
    Also this won't cost $300-500 like all of those others do, which of course means you get a slower phone but since this is probably more of a Linux tinker toy so far, not too bad.
lukevp 5y ago
That keyboard seems incredibly thick. Does it have an extra battery or something? Or is that just for key travel?
- jraph 5y ago
  Yes, it has a big battery.
  - TheUnelisted 5y ago
    6,000 MaH
- megous 5y ago
  It has battery with twice the capacity of the one that's in the phone itself. That's a bit crazy :) In total this combo will have ~33Wh.
jraph 5y ago
I was considering getting one of these keyboards when they are available. I was actually looking forward to it. It would make typing texts way easier and the big battery compensating the weak one in the Pinephone would be great. It would probably be the main selling point for me. It would also make a nice protection for the phone. However, I read someone today rightly pointing out that: - the screen (and the notification led) would be hidden when the keyboard is closed, which won't help noticing new notifications. - it might not be always convenient to use the phone on the go, holding the phone with one hand - it would render making calls quite awkward So now, I'm not sure anymore. It's probably fine to use as a PDA, not quite as a phone, and that's what I use the Pinephone for. I think what I really need is a better battery and a case. A physical keyboard would be really good too, but not if it makes using the Pinephone as a phone harder than it is already. I gess I should buy a spare battery (since the Pinephone has a removable battery!) or a power tank, and a case. Do you know if phones in general, and the Pinephone in particular, recognize that they are on battery and enable their energy-saving features while connected to a power tank? I would not expect them too, and this is a main reason I avoid them. That, and the fact that it seems incredibly inefficient that they charge their own batteries from the power tank, when we know that a battery gives back at best 50% of the power used to charge them. At least I guess I could ask the Pinephone not to charge itself and to enable its power saving features by running a script, which would probably be good enough. I'd expect that to be hard to do on Android by the way.
- TheUnelisted 5y ago
  With a Bluetooth headset i think it would be okay for calls, and infact the keyboard might make it much nicer for texting. As for notifications: You can't see notifications from apps on the PinePhone anyways unless you disable suspend, as the crust suspend firmware only detects wakeup events from signals sent by the hardware. So while the modem can send a signal to wakeup the device when there's a call or text, and the RTC (Real Time Clock) can wakeup the Phone when there's a alarm going off, there's currently no solution for waking it up when say you have a new Telegram or Matrix message while in sleep. More than likely people will figure out a way to solve that in the future with custom wifi chip and modem firmware that can handle push server wakeup events. With that said though, the 6,000 MaH battery this keyboard addon will have should make up for that. You could disable suspend and have all the apps constantly watching for new messages and sending notifications, and probably wont have to worry about battery life even still. This is exactly what i will be doing personally. The only problem i forsee is how big and bulky this is, meaning it will probably not be feasible to use one handed, and it also will be heavy in a pocket.
saagarjha 5y ago
As I understand it, the keyboard is a bottom half and a top case, which means that the seam (https://i.imgur.com/3uedtMo.jpg https://i.imgur.com/3uedtMo.jpg) is entirely in the control of the keyboard. If that is the case, why the the corner radii differ? It seems somewhat sloppy to have the edges meet at different places like that.
- megous 5y ago
  It will be easier to open, perhaps?
megous 5y ago
Someone needs to optimize the kernel console rotation on arm64 with some neon. :)
s3r3nity 5y ago
Nice to see we've come full circle back to Blackberries =)
- Black101 5y ago
  And Blackberry is pretty much out of the phone business as far as I know.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
heavyset_go 5y ago
Cool. I'd kill for a Pinephone with a Fxtec[1] form factor, though. [1] https://www.fxtec.com/pro1x https://www.fxtec.com/pro1x
mastrsushi 5y ago
Why aren't people making touch interfaces for dragging together shell scripts? Mobile Linux should make use of the modularity of the Unix Environment, along with today's smartphone technology. A big part of NextStep's design was an OO environment in a Unix OS. Those ideas later helped create the most successful Unix consumer operating system, macOS. Command line on a smartphone is uninspiring. There needs to be something that reflects on today's technology. Like how NextStep reflected on GUI and OOP.
- linmob 5y ago
  You could start it, and I would be happy to tell people about it :-)

55 points by TheUnelisted 5y ago

xbar 5y ago

Very promising. Psion-killer?

TheUnelisted 5y ago
I sure think so. Less a killer though and more of a real continuation of it. Not to say the Gemini, Astro Slide, etc isn't continuing it, but Planet Computer's devices run Android and not mainline Linux like the PinePhone does (sure you can run Linux, but only with an android kernel).
- easton 5y ago
  Also this won't cost $300-500 like all of those others do, which of course means you get a slower phone but since this is probably more of a Linux tinker toy so far, not too bad.

lukevp 5y ago

That keyboard seems incredibly thick. Does it have an extra battery or something? Or is that just for key travel?

jraph 5y ago
Yes, it has a big battery.
- TheUnelisted 5y ago
  6,000 MaH
megous 5y ago
It has battery with twice the capacity of the one that's in the phone itself. That's a bit crazy :) In total this combo will have ~33Wh.

jraph 5y ago

I was considering getting one of these keyboards when they are available. I was actually looking forward to it. It would make typing texts way easier and the big battery compensating the weak one in the Pinephone would be great. It would probably be the main selling point for me. It would also make a nice protection for the phone. However, I read someone today rightly pointing out that: - the screen (and the notification led) would be hidden when the keyboard is closed, which won't help noticing new notifications. - it might not be always convenient to use the phone on the go, holding the phone with one hand - it would render making calls quite awkward So now, I'm not sure anymore. It's probably fine to use as a PDA, not quite as a phone, and that's what I use the Pinephone for. I think what I really need is a better battery and a case. A physical keyboard would be really good too, but not if it makes using the Pinephone as a phone harder than it is already. I gess I should buy a spare battery (since the Pinephone has a removable battery!) or a power tank, and a case. Do you know if phones in general, and the Pinephone in particular, recognize that they are on battery and enable their energy-saving features while connected to a power tank? I would not expect them too, and this is a main reason I avoid them. That, and the fact that it seems incredibly inefficient that they charge their own batteries from the power tank, when we know that a battery gives back at best 50% of the power used to charge them. At least I guess I could ask the Pinephone not to charge itself and to enable its power saving features by running a script, which would probably be good enough. I'd expect that to be hard to do on Android by the way.

TheUnelisted 5y ago
With a Bluetooth headset i think it would be okay for calls, and infact the keyboard might make it much nicer for texting. As for notifications: You can't see notifications from apps on the PinePhone anyways unless you disable suspend, as the crust suspend firmware only detects wakeup events from signals sent by the hardware. So while the modem can send a signal to wakeup the device when there's a call or text, and the RTC (Real Time Clock) can wakeup the Phone when there's a alarm going off, there's currently no solution for waking it up when say you have a new Telegram or Matrix message while in sleep. More than likely people will figure out a way to solve that in the future with custom wifi chip and modem firmware that can handle push server wakeup events. With that said though, the 6,000 MaH battery this keyboard addon will have should make up for that. You could disable suspend and have all the apps constantly watching for new messages and sending notifications, and probably wont have to worry about battery life even still. This is exactly what i will be doing personally. The only problem i forsee is how big and bulky this is, meaning it will probably not be feasible to use one handed, and it also will be heavy in a pocket.

saagarjha 5y ago

As I understand it, the keyboard is a bottom half and a top case, which means that the seam (https://i.imgur.com/3uedtMo.jpg https://i.imgur.com/3uedtMo.jpg) is entirely in the control of the keyboard. If that is the case, why the the corner radii differ? It seems somewhat sloppy to have the edges meet at different places like that.

megous 5y ago
It will be easier to open, perhaps?

megous 5y ago

Someone needs to optimize the kernel console rotation on arm64 with some neon. :)

s3r3nity 5y ago

Nice to see we've come full circle back to Blackberries =)

Black101 5y ago
And Blackberry is pretty much out of the phone business as far as I know.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

heavyset_go 5y ago

Cool. I'd kill for a Pinephone with a Fxtec[1] form factor, though. [1] https://www.fxtec.com/pro1x https://www.fxtec.com/pro1x

mastrsushi 5y ago

Why aren't people making touch interfaces for dragging together shell scripts? Mobile Linux should make use of the modularity of the Unix Environment, along with today's smartphone technology. A big part of NextStep's design was an OO environment in a Unix OS. Those ideas later helped create the most successful Unix consumer operating system, macOS. Command line on a smartphone is uninspiring. There needs to be something that reflects on today's technology. Like how NextStep reflected on GUI and OOP.

linmob 5y ago
You could start it, and I would be happy to tell people about it :-)