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DongleHider+ Framework Laptop Expansion Card
- pjerem 3y agoIt’s when I see such things that I think Framework laptop is into something.
- DaSHacka 3y agoMy X230 has essentially the same thing (well, two actually; one from the old Bluetooth connector [0] and one poaching the connector from the docking pins), nice to see the same concept being hacked onto more modern laptops [0] https://files.catbox.moe/ezqhuq.jpg https://files.catbox.moe/ezqhuq.jpg
- fragmede 3y agoWoah that's cool. did you make that yourself?
- hypercube33 3y agoI have some think pads so I went looking - it's either an official or third party addon for one or a few models for wifi USB dongles or something you can get.
- ornornor 3y agoWhat did you search for?
- DaSHacka 3y agoThe pic I sent is of a USB mod from aliexpress replacing the normal Bluetooth connector, you can find information about it by searching "x230 internal USB" or something similar. Its quite a popular mod as modern WiFi cards have integrated Bluetooth anyway, so there's no need for the old dedicated Bluetooth radio.
- DaSHacka 3y agoI bought it off aliexpress (and the image wasn't mine, I didn't want to open my laptop) but they're pretty inexpensive (~$5). I imagine it wouldn't be too difficult to make one yourself, the connector communicates over USB so its just a matter of connecting the right pins to a proper female USB connector
- wutwutwat 3y agohttps://www.virustotal.com/gui/url/a7d41af146c193701c25910edb3a421333e698709a48b0464756796fd393e8b1/detection https://www.virustotal.com/gui/url/a7d41af146c193701c25910ed...
- ale42 3y agoLooks like a false positive
- poizan42 3y agoThe page also fails to load in firefox with SEC_ERROR_UNKNOWN_ISSUER
- radlad 3y agoWorks fine here on Firefox/macOS.
- wutwutwat 3y agoSomeone posts a link which has multiple virus scanners reporting the image as being malicious, and you thought that it’s fine to download that file to your machine and open it? It loading fine has nothing to do with if it’s malicious or not, that’s kinda the whole point of malware and viruses.
- processunknown 3y agoMultiple is a stretch when one scanner marks it as malicious and one marks it as suspicious and all the rest report it as fine. It’s very likely a false positive.
- crtasm 3y agoIt's a jpeg.
- 3y ago
- zevv 3y agoI recently made something similar to make use of the unused WWAN M.2 slot in my laptop: https://i.imgur.com/xGXl4Xt.jpeg https://i.imgur.com/xGXl4Xt.jpeg Crack the logitech dongle out of the USB casing and solder on the converter PCB.
- BonoboIO 3y agoNICE! How did you get it to a working physical thing? Any place somebody like me can buy this?
- zevv 3y agoYou just send the design files to a PCB manufacturer and receive the boards on your doorstep a few days later. 5 of these PCB's cost me $6 or so.
- surteen 3y agohttps://www.ebay.com/itm/255949891266 https://www.ebay.com/itm/255949891266
- zevv 3y agoRight, please use this one instead of my crappy design, this PCB seems comes with a DC/DC converter to properly power your dongle with 5V instead of 3V3.
- cl3misch 3y agoCould you share PCB files for that? I don't have experience with designing PCBs myself, but with the files I should be able to just order them from PCBWay.
- zevv 3y agoHere are the original kicad files https://github.com/zevv/m2-to-usb https://github.com/zevv/m2-to-usb Please do check for yourself if this all makes sense, and I will not take responsibility for any fried laptopts or dongles. Note that the power supply for the dongle is too low: USB is supposed to deliver 5V, but on the M.2 only 3v3 is available. I decided to just give this a try and my Logitech dongle seems to be perfectly happy at this voltage. This might not be the case for others.
- RockRobotRock 3y agounrelated, does bluetooth work well with the MX Master 3s?
- slmkbh 3y agoI use the 2S and the 3 over Bluetooth (Windows 10 and Linux (Pipewire/pulseaudio)) and they generally work well. But on Linux I sometimes get lagging sound on my bt headphones, when I use the mouse heavily, and on Windows I get a rubber band effect on the mouse when I use a headset for calls, but not music. ymmv
- LeonM 3y agoI have been using a MX Master 3 (non-S), and an MX Anywhere 2S for the past few years on a daily basis, on multiple devices (Windows, MacOS and Linux). Bluetooth has been working flawlessly every time. I don't think I have ever used the unifying receiver dongle. This is why I don't understand the DongleHider+ here. If you don't want the dongle, why not just connect via Bluetooth?
- nzach 3y agoIn my experience you can't use more than 3 bluetooth devices at the same time. Currently I have a headset, a mouse and a keyboard. To add anything else I would have to remove something else. Last year I've built a simple 3-key macro pad using an esp32 connected via bluetooth. When I tried to use 4 devices at the same time I had a pretty bed time. I don't know this for sure, but I suspect if you have someone else sitting by you side and also using 3 devices I think the interference could cause some strange behaviour.
- skyyler 3y agoBattery life and responsiveness.
- tomaskafka 3y agoIt doesn't work well anywhere due to BT protocol lag and low refresh rate.
- rob74 3y agoNice idea, but... for the cost of the PCB + components, the 3D printed case and the time (or extra cost) for soldering the components and the dongle onto the PCB, you could probably get a pretty decent Bluetooth mouse?
- whatisyour 3y agowhat about bluetooth headset?
- fl0id 3y agoBut it would still be Bluetooth…
- lmz 3y agoProbably better than Unifying... https://github.com/mame82/misc/blob/master/logitech_vuln_summary.md https://github.com/mame82/misc/blob/master/logitech_vuln_sum...
- fl0id 3y agoI care less about vulns, more about it actually working properly first. And for that, Bluetooth is bad. And pairing is pain.
- CuriousCosmic 3y agoYeah but it'd be pairable and most of the wifi cards that framework ships with all have internal bluetooth. i.e. you'd no longer need a dongle.
- jwells89 3y agoIs it even possible to buy a mainstream laptop without Bluetooth now? Maybe absolutely bottom of the barrel bargain basement sorts of laptops, but probably even those come with it considering how an Intel AX210, a good recent WiFi+BT card, can be had for $15-$20 retail and I’m sure is even cheaper for OEMs (plus, even cheaper crappier chipsets exist).
- ale42 3y agoIs the dongle working correctly even if a USB3 device is plugged in? I had to move mine away from USB3 ports because the RF noise produced by them when active was jamming the receiver. I remember reading about it as a known problem, but maybe just of old versions of the dongle?
- rickdeckard 3y agoI'm curious about the RF-interference there. After all, the small antenna of the dongle is now _inside_ the laptop, and very close to high-bandwidth USB data-lines. (And possibly other sources of interference, depending on the expansion port it's connected to. If I use a right-hand mouse and the card is in a left slot, the signal would more or less have to travel through the entire laptop...)
- Tomdarkness 3y agoI'd be curious about this as well, I have one of these Logitech dongles and if I plug a USB3 device in the port next to it (say a SD card reader or external drive) the logitech device, my mouse in this case, becomes basically unusable due to the interference.
- greggsy 3y agoI use a short usb extender to get around this issue with my Bolt receiver, but the regular Unifying ones tend to be fine.
- Zetobal 3y agoFerrit beads also work quite well.
- hypercube33 3y agoIntel NUCs (I didn't note what models) have these same issues and I suspected it was something to do with the USB3 ports interference
- juujian 3y agoWhat's between the extension card and the framework laptop body? The dongle holder is 3d printed, so then RF Signal should escape relatively well compared to metal, no?
- rickdeckard 3y agoI don't know where it would escape to without interference. In the direction of the outer module edge is a USB-port (with a large metal grounding) which possibly transfers high-frequency USB-data, in the other directions is the metal body and the laptop PCB (with its own RF-interferences bouncing inside of the chassis). WiFi, in comparison: I don't know the exact design of the framework laptop, but on others the (two) Wi-Fi Antennas are usually placed on top of the display, to be as far away from the PCB (and the users' hands) as possible.
- teeray 3y agoPCMCIA is reborn
- teddyh 3y agoThe PCMCIA card standard was renamed to “PC Card” in 1995.
- kotaKat 3y agoIt still boggles the mind that in 2024 that Logitech still doesn't release a USB-C Unifying dongle.
- ajsnigrutin 3y agoProbably a marketing ploy to make you buy the more expensive "dongleless" bluetooth mice.
- greggsy 3y agoTBH, it just makes good business sense to tie people into the Unifying and Bolt ecosystems, which makes me think they’ve hit a technical or patent snag somewhere.
- tomaskafka 3y agoThey are much worse, as BT has inherent lag compared to dongles.
- nine_k 3y agoAn USB-A dongle can hide snugly.in the connector, and be mechanically strong. You can drop a laptop with it into a backpack without fear. An USB-C dongle would have to stick out. It would be easy to break off (damaging the port along the way), and more hassle to carry separately. I wish laptops had a recessed area for USB-C dongles, like, well, Framework does.
- SpaghettiCthulu 3y agoWhat dongle have you seen that can "hide snugly in the connector"? Any that I've seen just stick out.
- myself248 3y agoYubikey Nano, for one.
- laweijfmvo 3y ago
- crote 3y agoFun fact: this is possible because on both hardware level and protocol level USB 1.1/2.0 is essentially completely detached from USB 3.0+. The hub is only in the path of the 2.0 data lines, the 3.0 lines go straight from the laptop to the outside connector.
- afandian 3y agoDoes this mean that the outside connector lacks 2.0?
- danpalmer 3y agoWould be great to see a similar project for a Yubikey, perhaps exposing the tiny metal surface next to a usable USB port. I don't like always having my Yubikey (nano) sticking out of a port, I'm always paranoid about it being knocked off and breaking in the socket.
- tekknolagi 3y agoThere's Tomo.im (Somu) for that
- danpalmer 3y agoIs there a typo in this? I've done some searching and not found anything. tomo.im resolves to GitHub Pages but isn't linked to a site.
- BeefySwain 3y agoI believe this is what they are referring to: https://www.crowdsupply.com/solokeys/somu https://www.crowdsupply.com/solokeys/somu
- mlok 3y agoGP probably means https://tomu.im/ https://tomu.im/ and pointing to Somu https://tomu.im/somu.html https://tomu.im/somu.html
- danpalmer 3y agoThanks (to both of you who pointed this out), I am completely unfamiliar with Tomu so missed this typo. Yeah the Somu looks like it would be better, but my current laptop only has USB-C and it doesn't look like there's a similarly flat implementation for USB-C. It's also still an important and fragile part sticking out from the laptop body so I think one embedded in an expansion card would still be good! Also I've got a Yubikey very similar to the Somu, so I don't think this is a Tomu/Somu exclusive concept. The benefit of Yubikey specifically is that they're approved for certain types of specialist access – at work I am required to use a specific implementation, not just any U2F/FIDO key.
- giancarlostoro 3y agoI wonder if this means I can do the same with other similar unifying dongles.
- digging 3y agoWhile we're here, (slightly off-topic) has anyone had success replacing the touchpad on their Framework? It's... the worst I've ever used.
- vaylian 3y agoWhat is the issue with it?
- digging 3y agoThe buttons are difficult to press, it's especially difficult to right-click, and tapping the pad to click rarely works.
- nrp 3y agoIf you are in Windows, make sure you have installed the Driver Bundle: https://knowledgebase.frame.work/en_us/bios-and-drivers-downloads-rJ3PaCexh https://knowledgebase.frame.work/en_us/bios-and-drivers-down... If you’re having physical click issues, reach out to support for a replacement module.
- user_7832 3y agoOn a tangential note, is there any chance of having a system app to allow advanced touchpad controls, like what Synaptics offers? The windows precision trackpad is nice but misses a lot of convenient options like one-finger/infinite scroll that my HP Probook had. For context this image shows some of those options - https://synaptics-pointing-device-driver.en.lo4d.com/screenshots https://synaptics-pointing-device-driver.en.lo4d.com/screens...
- digging 3y agoNot on Windows but Ubuntu. I guess I'll reach out, didn't feel defective but perhaps it is. I prefer physical buttons though so I was considering replacing the whole thing anyway.
- j45 3y agoThis is great. Once Framework can ship with optimized battery drivers for Linux I'll be a buyer again. Framework has a real chance to increase the dent it makes if it takes some software cues from other manufacturers.
- zem 3y agoit took me a long time to figure out what was going on. sharing the results of googling: - logitech has a "unifying" line which allows a small receiver [https://www.logitech.com/en-us/products/mice/unifying-receiver-usb.910-005235.html https://www.logitech.com/en-us/products/mice/unifying-receiv...] to multiplex a bunch of wireless peripherals, using a single slot - the doohickey in the OP is a little widget that goes inside the framework laptop, and has a USB A slot on the outside - it also has room to plug in the unifying receiver, connecting it to the same input the USB A slot is connected to. the receiver then goes inside the framework, and does not take up an external port - as /u/crote points out, "Fun fact: this is possible because on both hardware level and protocol level USB 1.1/2.0 is essentially completely detached from USB 3.0+. The hub is only in the path of the 2.0 data lines, the 3.0 lines go straight from the laptop to the outside connector."