06-02-2021, 02:10 PM
(05-30-2021, 06:00 AM)mouffa Wrote: I was more or less aware of these dimensions but I didn't thought the case was so much developmental.
It was a bit of the opposite for me. I was expecting more trouble in some areas. Though, I've had some trouble in areas I didn't expect, like recording sound. But was mostly expecting more trouble.
(05-30-2021, 06:00 AM)mouffa Wrote: i-phone 6 follows a similar approach of everything being in a different IC, namely, Audio, GPS, Wi-fi, baseband modem, sensor controllers, power controllers, screen controllers etc and indeed the battery doesn't last long but you get through the day without heavy use.
Didn't know that about the i-phone 6.
For the PinePhone, one of the issues presently, from what I understand, is not shutting off unused cores when it is away as well as powering other peripherals unnecessarily. Also, supposedly the alternative firmware for the modem helps a bit. So, there is some room for battery life improvement. But it might not be that much. I can get mine to go over 20 hours, but awake usage very quickly drains things.
(05-30-2021, 06:00 AM)mouffa Wrote: I think the most value I get out of Pinephone is the dramatic advance on my knowledge on Linux and hardware due to the problems that I face.
It sure does that.
(05-30-2021, 06:00 AM)mouffa Wrote: I want to develop a program that can print a keyboard on the terminal framebuffer and senses the screen so that you can logout the GUI and have a working phone that the battery lasts long enough to go through the day without missing calls.
That could be pretty neat. Would reduce the load on the GPU quite a bit in addition to the CPU, which would help. Might even be able to get away with running only one core most of the time when it is awake.
(05-30-2021, 06:00 AM)mouffa Wrote: LED - I considered removing the case to check the spectrum of the LED but I don't want to destroy the sticker on the screw and "void the warranty" for the moment. On commercial phones the lens's grating is very fine and starts from the centre with a dot (degenerate circle), Pine's leaves a large area in the centre uncovered and has a small number of thick rings.
The large center are with no rings actually makes a decent amount of sense. The lens is needed to focus the light so it goes forward. Light already going forward from the LED doesn't need any steering since it is already going in the right direction. As one goes to the edges, the light needs more bending and the curvature of the lens increases. Then the rings begin to avoid the lens becoming ludicrously thick. Depending on how wide a beam is acceptable, one could even just leave the center region flat and it be good enough.
As far as investigating the LED further, it is probably easier to lookup exactly which LED is used, lookup the datasheet from the manufacturer and hopefully there will be a picture of the light it emits cast on a surface and the pattern will probably be noticeable. If not, one could buy the LED and a driver and hook them up and test it. The parts would be fairly cheap, though one would need some protoboard if one doesn't have some already and an SMD breakout if the LED is SMD (or solder wires to the pins and just have it stand up).
(05-30-2021, 06:00 AM)mouffa Wrote: Now I am mostly excited with the modem and whether it can be hacked to a level that you can control it out of specifications and use it like a software defined radio to research the cellular network.
That would not be possible without a lot of reverse engineering. The radio is interfaced by Qualcomm blobs that would have to be reverse engineered before the radio could be driven by user designed software. And the hardware itself may limit what can be done. One would need a good faraday cage to do that reverse engineering testing in, and then a radio license out of the cage unless one can get it to operate in a band where a license is not required.
