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401 points Bluestein | 2 comments | | HN request time: 0.422s | source
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squarefoot ◴[] No.44363502[source]
All phones eventually become obsolete, but their guts could be used in so many ways. I'd love for example if someone made an enclosure acting also as multi port docking station so that old phones with unlocked bootloader (Fairphone being one of them) could be reflashed with a different operating system then used as mini PCs, media players, IoT wall terminals with bigger screens or other uses. Seeing all that perfectly good electronics going into landfills because planned obsolescence says so just irritates me. Can we do that at least for unlocked ones? Framework did something similar for their laptop mainboards, minus the docking station.function as they already have more ports than a phone. Any chances that this could be doable with Fairphone hardware?
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1. rini17 ◴[] No.44364145[source]
You can connect any peripherals including keyboard and mouse using usb-c hub. There are hubs that support external power available already so you can simultaneously charge the phone. I do sometimes use my fairphone with external keyboard case that way. Yes I would like higher quality one that better fits the phone, but I think that would be niche/bespoke expensive product.
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2. Tijdreiziger ◴[] No.44364615[source]
Theoretically, it should be possible to design and 3D print such an enclosure, akin to existing video game console mods like the ‘Switch Pro’.

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Nintendo-Switch-Pro-kit-transf...