Other Half: Lets Prioritise!
Okay guys I’ve been busy running through some old articles to collate some of the most popular ‘other half’ ideas with the intention of eventually putting the ideas to a vote.
With so many possible ideas for the other half (virtually limitless), this would be a good exercise to prioritise on the needs of people, and most of these ideas have come from you guys so thanks for being such an inventive lot!
I’ve listed your ideas below and I would invite you to add any other ideas you have in the comments if I’ve missed something so I can add them before the end of the weekend.
After that, we’ll have a poll next week to narrow it down to the top 10 from this batch and after that run a final vote on the top 10 to see what people think.
Okay here’s my list so far that is subject to change (the first few are inspired by Caprico’s great concept renders below):
The Other Half: Sky’s the limit!
- Windscreen mount: With inbuilt wireless charger and fm transmitter)
- Extra storage/battery: eg. 200GB flash; 3000mah
- Portrait Slider keyboard: Full Qwerty/Azerty/Qwertz/Cyrillic etc variants
- Landscape Slider keyboard: Full Qwerty/Azerty/Qwertz/Cyrillic etc variants
- Landscape Slider gamepad: Gamepad for playing your favourite emulators
- Wireless charger: Just simple normal sized back plate with wireless charging inbuilt
- Presentation: Laser pointer, IR, Extra battery and storage
- Multimedia: Better Speakers, IR, FM TX, Battery
- E-ink display: Additional low power e-ink display either fold out or slider.
- LCD fold out display: Doubles as screen protector when closed like clam shell. Extra fold out touchscreen which could be used for eg. full sized touchscreen keyboard
- Solar charger: Trickle solar charger on rear
- Medic Half: ECG, blood pressure, pulse, temperature and other vitals you can think of.
- Waterproof half: Two parts make the phone water resistant (IP-7/8) but still make the phone work a 100%. Possible but needs some clever engineering so might be costly.
- Scanner half: Scan documents on the go (nicer then a pic in some cases.)
- Security half: Fingerprint scanner/ drawpad for signing stuff.
- Dual Sim Half: Dual sim half adds an extra sim slot where you can integrate second GSM radio and use it to make calls and send messages and cellular data. With extra battery.
- Rugged Outdoor half: With rangefinder, thermometer, altitude meter and barometer. (Maybe even communication radio)
- Magnet half: For quick and convenient holding in for example the car
- Flip up landscape screen cover/stand: like an extra “door” that protects the screen when not in use, like a book. Doubles as a stand, but transparent so you can still view screen.
- Bicycle handlebar mount: With wireless charging capability via pedal power or electric bike battery. Charging via an external battery or dynohub & something like B&M’s USBWerk. A waterproof top cover would also be handy.
- Recording studio: Phantom powered analog XLR-i/o with 24bit/96khz quality, ADAT-i/o, 2 x MIDI I/O.
- Expansion-half: PCMCIA and express-card slot with extra battery
- Audiophile half: Transform your phone into the best sounding portable audio device. The other half includes a dedicated DAC and Amp combo, capable of outputting the most pristine sound, and also capable of driving full sized cans, to super sensitive IEMs. Of course, it also includes extra battery for those long listening sessions.
- Alcohol-tester half: Inbuilt breathalyser. Calls for a taxi automatically to your GPS location when you are too drunk to drive a car yourself.
- Home integration half – home entertainment, environment/thermostat(Nest), home security.
- “Ambience”: white translucent “other half” with led to display the screen ” Ambience” and notifications by flashing.
- “Fashion”: costumization for persons, artists and companies (name, logo, colours, design) and/or access to specific features or online services (payments, bank, music, games, movies, news, guidance, encryption, files, storage…) ;
- Camping Half: large battery + solar panel + 2x full size USB sockets to charge other (small) devices with such as a GARMIN. USB for charging only.
- Night Out Half: slots for credit card + door key + paper currency
- Sport Half: Big Battery + GPS chipset & ANT+ chipset to pair with a heart rate chest straps
- Diabetic Half: Blood sugar tester + contacts to touch to measure your heart rate and blood pressure
- Privacy half – Prevents any app to send any information before user confirmation
- Makeup half – Outside: plain mirror, inside: magnifying mirror with led-lights on sides
- Infrared controller: so you could just slip the cover on, select your primary tv, video etc. brand(s) and model(s) and use your mobile as an remote controller. For tv there should be possibility to choose which online source to use as tv guide. In Finland iltapulu.fi is great.
- Polaroid-half. it will be cool to print out your photos immediately. actually you can sell some films by this half because it is hard to find films for polaroid cameras
- Arduino half: The back of the half is a breadboard with Arduino pins broken out to easily connect any kind of hardware to the phone. A great hobby electronics half. If the Arduino IDE can run on the Jolla you have a full electronics development platform in your pocket!
- Battery half: Simple battery half with many colour options. Ideally option to be stackable so could benefit from other ‘other halves’.
- Satellite Phone: Satellite phone half for eg. emergency calls where there is no network coverage (would be very costly though)
- Fingerprint scanner: Add an extra layer of security only unlockable with a pre-determined fingerprint (or nipple!) SEE no.19 – the same concept
- Car diagnostic half: To link up to car/van/truck and communicate with onboard computer.
- LED/laser light show half: LED’s pulsate and also could project laser light show to the beat of music/video or other sounds. Added bonus – extra speakers.
- Racecar/F1 half: Control 2 engines via i2c, headlight LEDs, engine sounds, EPIC. Maybe even use the camera with some software to track a line!
- Camera Grip Half: Large shutter button, wrist strap, tripod fix and sliding lens cover, with programmable functions. Slide lens cover open to activate camera, protects camera lens when closed. Lens slider could be programmed (like in N900) to eg. turn flashlight (LED) on or start other programmable functions.
- Secure encryption half: A hardware assisted encryption ASIC to provided end to end secure encryption to keep governments and criminals out of your private business.
- Retro Rotary Dial half: Because “Dialling” by selecting names from a phone book is soooo 2012!
- Robot other half: A tiny robotic other half? Something a bit like romotive’s Romo would be nice. http://romotive.com/
- GKOS keyboard half: A special chording keyboard for full aphanumeric text entry; see http://gkos.com
- Senior Other Half: with t-coil output and alert button.
- AAA battery half: This other half allows you to fit easy to find AAA batteries to power the Jolla in times of need.
- Dedicated phone button and camera button half: provides additional buttons to answer/end calls and to start camera and take photos.
- Surveyors(spatial)/pro golf (distance finder) toolbox half: that includes a good GPS chip, ultrasonic distance measuring laser distance finder, thermal infra-red reader (with s/w for user defined object emissivity) and powerful laser pointer. A chip like the u-blox LEA-6 will allow < 1m accuracy and with a simple base station, Real Time Kinematic will be possible (30mm) using the opensource (c++) http://www.rtklib.com/
- Full-size PC keyboard other half: With dock for Jolla phone, uses handset micro usb to connect peripherals. Internal battery and space for mass memories inside keyboard.
- N900 other half: Adds slider QWERTY, IR, FM TX, kickstand and other features we miss from N900.
- Portrait Stand Half: A very neat fold up portrait stand for your Jolla that also covers the screen when not in use.
- Transparent back card holder half: Turn the back of your Jolla handset it to a windowed sleeve for storing/showing your driving license, ferry pass or others.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Like I said, have a scan through and if you see something missing or would like to correct something, just let me know in the comments. This is the list (so far) that will be put to the first vote next week – I know there seems to be a lot of ideas here because I tried to include as many as possible from you guys but don’t worry we’ll narrow it down later.
After the first preliminary vote, then we’ll go to the final poll on the final 10 shortlist.
Thanks! 🙂
9/10 UPDATE: With some help from Jolla, Joerg, Shane, Egon and the Maemo community I’ve edited the list down a bit from the original to get more realistic concepts. Just going to run a few more crosschecks with some people and then we’ll put it to a vote! 😉
Sorry I forgot to put original image source: @capricotwi04
sub.
Qwerty HW and Radio FM!!!
Just to repeat so it doesn’t get lost in the older comments – if no-one has objections I will setup the survey shortly:
Ok guys, based on the responses so far, I have started to compile a survey that will go live probably at the end of the weekend (or could go up tonight/tomorrow?).
I’d just like to ask you all a few questions/points in the meantime:
1/ I have thought allowing 5 choices is a good number per person with the initial survey. Do you think 5 is enough and would you prefer min 1 max 5 or that everyone must choose 5 by default ? (I prefer the latter – everyone must choose 5 options)
2/ I will make the survey a sticky and most probably put a voting end date of 31st October. Do you think that sounds okay ? After that date, results will be published. The survey could of course run for any amount of time but I thought a timeframe of around 3 weeks would be better ?
3/ The survey will be restricted by computer so after you vote that’s it.
4/ There are (so far) 60 possible options of which you will get a chance to choose 5 options each. After that, the top 10 will be put into a shortlist poll where you will vote your number 1 (or could make it more) favourite from there – does that sound ok ?
That just about covers it – let me know what you think! 🙂
Sounds good. But perhaps dhould you leave also a blank field with new ideas that weren’t on the longlist.
@Polarbear: Do you mean like an ‘other’ option where people can specify there own OH ?
I have found a way to add a blank field ‘other’ option, but the only drawback would be that it is unlikely to find it’s way to the shortlist as most people will probably choose fairly random things.
I can obviously include this option, but am thinking it might distract and not really provide useful data in the end.
I rather prefer that if someone has something they want added they can mention in the comments and I’ll add to the main list.
Actually as the list is already quite extensive, I think we should start finalising now so any more ideas speak now or forever hold your peace! 🙂
I think one of the options should cover missing n900 features (maybe just add to the hardware keyboard).
Keyboard, IR, and FM.
Good idea – I’ve added the N900 half no.67
Hey, great list so far. Just in the interest of fairness, please make the survey a multi-selection poll. Because you want to find the top 10 and this way you’ll get finer results.
The survey would allow a choice of 5 options – do you think it is enough ?
Being that the alternatives are 65, I wonder if 5 is enough.
I thought a little bit about it and reached a conclusion. Altough my first thought was 10, that would probably create a little bit too much entropy, but, still wanting to give the best ideas the best chance, I would tend to agree that 5 is not a bad number, altough, I might make it 5 minimum, and 7 maximum (if that is possible)
Minimum 5, Maximum 7 would be possible but then the voting per person has some variance (which might not be a problem but yeah). The reason for choosing 5 was that I think a lot of people might struggle to pick more than 5 and also in terms of ownership I figured a maximum of 5 other halves was the most people are likely to want to own on average ?
I was tempted to make it minimum 5, maximum 10 at one point being that there are so many options but in the end went for a simple ‘average’ approach. Maybe we could just fix it at 7 compulsory choices ?
Let me know what you think ?
I agree with everything you just said, and exactly because some people might struggle to select more than 5, and not wanting to have spurious votes just to make the minimum, I would rather have minimum 5 with a 7 max, instead of a required 7, even if there will be increased variance. But that’s just my opinion, I believe the results will have greater quality, represent more closely what people really want. And 7 is not that far away from 5, that’s why I chose it, if we were talking about 10, the variance might be worrisome.
What do you think?
It’s really nice to have your input thank you so much iber because this has been a dilemna as obviously I want to get the most useful results from this exercise and not to waste these efforts.
Obviously the way I have approached this is not from a personal POV as otherwise I would want at least 10 choices lol. But instead one that will provide a nice average and also be simple for anyone to understand/fulfil. The last thing I want is people getting confused and not completing the survey.
I like the idea of min 5 max 7 (personally) but worry that it could add a level of unknown or just additional unnecessary confusion for a) figuring out the final results and b) for the people trying to complete the survey.
For example, does it matter that some people would only vote for 5 but others for 7 = inconsistencies ?
PS. Are you from Portugal btw – iberian lynx? A few years ago I did some research on the dwindling habitat of this endangered species = very sad 😦
About the votes, the difference between one person voting 5 and another 7, because it wont be possible to vote twice on the same idea, it will have a democratizing effect, slightly decreaseing the value of the most wanted, and slightly increasing the value of one or two good ideas which don’t exactly fit the top-5. That’s my feeling anyway (I have not made any in depth math prediction here, so I might be wrong). I would be in favor of this, as I feel we’ll have a richer set of results.
P.S. Indeed I am, hehe, the nick was in homage to those cute little endangered wild cats, and you’re the first person to recognize it, so thank you, and cheers 🙂
I think 5 choices will really make people think through their priorities and be simpler overall. Like I said, I agree with you actually, but for simplicity sake feel this will really target the winning OH’s.
I haven’t checked the status of the Iberian Lynx recently but remember reading that their population decline was directly related to the declining cork plantations. The fact we use plastic corks in wine bottles now is a huge problem. Everyone must buy wine with real corks to help the Iberian Lynx (and other species)!!
I don’t think cork production should be a problem, because Portugal is still the largest producer in the world. There were problems, but a team of specialists is facilitating mating, with the lynxs from the spanish lands, and taking care that the population increases now instead of decreasing.
http://phys.org/news/2013-06-celebration-iberian-lynx-caught-camera.html
Here’s the original article I read (wow must have been a long time ago!): http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/2609157.stm
Why not run the vote on something like the Condorcet Internet Voting Service? It uses a Condorcet method (like Debian’s leader elections) and will allow everyone to fairly express as many or as few preferences among the options as they have time to fill in (i.e. you can just list your top 5, and it’ll rank everything below that equally as 6th preference, or you can rank your top 10 and your bottom 3, etc).
@Conrad
Good idea, I was thinking the maemo.org election process/system might be a good approach. Joerg (who commented here already) would be best placed to comment on it’s suitability…
Yes, your plans for the survey sound good 🙂
Some OHs have some redundance. For example these:
10. 7″ Tablet Dock: (7″ tablet half with place to connect handset on rear to transform phone into tablet)
11. 10″ Tablet Dock: (10″ tablet half with place to connect handset on rear to transform phone into tablet)
I suppose that when collecting the results, you will take this redundance ito account, so that the score of nr. 10 and nr. 11 are summed and the sum is given to a “new” candidate (Tablet Dock). IMHO it’s the “tablet dock” that matters here, not its size. But the two candidates nr. 10 and 11 are useful to keep in the list, so that their mutual popularity can be found: if the “Table Dock” scores enough to be among the top 10, then you can check whether 7″ or 10″ screen size is preferred.
This is only an example of several other candidates which have redundant features: batteries (nr 3 and 47), color (nr 36 and 47), etc.
Hi Egon, thanks so much for your feedback. Yes you got it – the idea is to see which tablet dock size is more popular and then we can make it into a single option for the shortlist. 😉
if we know the top ten list of the other half, will be see the top ten design of the other half?
Sorry I’m not sure I understand your question eeeec.
An other half that have slots for regular AAA batteries would be amazing. When the battery runs out, you could buy regular batteries from any market or shop near by and keep the phone running 😀
That is a great concept Oskari 🙂 and I’m really tempted to add it but would it not be easier to carry some spare batteries being that the Jolla 2100mah batteries are interchangeable?
Also, I’m not sure if how long eg. 4 x AAA batteries would last and if the voltage would be correct etc ?
But like I said I love the idea so might add that anyway. 🙂
Sure, It would be easier and I’d probably use that as my main source of spare power, but so many times I’ve forgotten to charge those spare batteries… With some kind of AAA -OH you can get spare power anywhere, which is very very critical in many situations, e.g when the battery is empty and you have to call someone to get a ride home.
Anyway, It’s a wild idea but I see some potential in it 😀
Ok you convinced me 🙂
Okay okay, so every smartphone has the shaving app, which just makes the sound of a shaver to scare people. BUT WHAT IF it has an actual shaver on the back! Makes the joke one hell of a lot more serious AND you could totally shave yourself with your phone!
hmmm… and thinking about it, there are lots of fart apps maybe we should just have a whoopee cushion “other half” to give our friends a nice surprise too… ;-p
No, that is ridiculous.
It was a joke after all. 😉
Is anyone else noticing a weird issue with some of the comments?
Every 2nd one (?) seems to not come through properly via email, can’t even use the shortcut in the email.
I prefer PC dock. Or could the other half include keyboard, second processor and additional memory? All in one. By docking on your phone has become a computer.
I guess that the designers of each half will consider adding the features of other halves. My estimation is that in the center of a sliding-HW-Qwerty-keyboard half there may be found enough space for a battery, connectors etc, because the sliding rails will require some space on the left and right edges. I agree on your vision that some kind of personal computers will be formed by equipping the Jolla phone with certain “halves”, such as the landscape sliding Qwerty (nr 5), or a tablet “half” (nr 10 or 11). Therefore, perhaps a separate PC half will not be needed in the list.
Another kind of personal computer would be formed, if a more or less full-size Qwerty keyboard (that of laptops or netbooks) were combined with the Jolla phone. The keyboard would then work as a stand for the phone, like the existing more or less full-size (foldable or not) Qwerty keyboards (Stowaway, etc). But our other half would be quite different from the existing keyboard accessories – like you suggested, there might be extra memory and battery, as well as many connectors in the “fu ll-size keyboard half”, such as an HDMI connector for full-size desktop display panel, which together with the full-size Qwerty keyboard and Jolla phone would form your personal computer. I would call it “Full-size PC half”.
Perhaps the 7″ or 10″ tablet can be upgraded with the “Full-size Qwerty keyboard half” to quite a similar PC.
That’s completely unrealistic for the type of data/power interface we’re working with (I2C etc).
Some folks here seriously need to get a reality check with their ideas…
I think that we should not throw away the idea of a kind of PC which would consist of the other halves, All the world is already experiencing the transition from conventional PCs to “dispersed communication and storage devices”: the networks formed by cloud services, WiFi hubs, smart-watches, WiFi cameras, smart googles, AppleTV etc, which communicate or will communicate with smartphones, television and other home entertainment sets. In the above comment I have intentionally omitted the processor, justs because of the limited data/power interface of the OHs. The “PC” in a “Full-size Qwerty OH with mass memory” would comprise a big battery and memory devices like external hard drives which already are available with USB or WiFi interface. Or a DVD/CD drive (or just a frame for one). The main purpose of the “Full-size Qwerty OH with mass memory” would be to provide housing for the loose OHs and cables. To hide and reduce the amount loose OHs and cable spaghetti, even a mains charger could be inserted into the “Full-size Qwerty OH with mass memory” (there would be a curled AC cable, like those used for razors). When traveling the “Full-size Qwerty OH with mass memory” would be practical to reduce the risk of forgetting or dropping an essential OH or cable. At home and office it could be completed with a large desktop screen. This OH would be one of the ways to solve the challenges that I wrote in the comment of http://jollatides.com/2013/10/03/other-half-lets-prioritise/comment-page-1/#comment-10304
Its purpose is not to replace the Sliding Qwerty or tabloid OHs but to complete them.
A physical button to answer an incoming call, and another one to trigger the camera.
I second this. The dedicated camera button on the N95 was handy for photos on-the-go.
Also, if that physical button for answering calls could also be used to trigger the actual phone feature (number pad) – that would be useful too.
Added for you polarbear. 😉
Thanks a lot 🙂
Wow, that’s a long list. Only have time to quickly scan through right now, but I just wanted to say – Thanks for taking the time to actually put that list together! 🙂
I miss the qwerty in today smartphones 😦 Uh ho maybe thats why I havent bought a new smartphone since 2007 (incl. 770, n810 internet tabelts). They were classified as a smartphone back then. Probably the entire Symbian S60 were. Today everyone is speaking of when should I buy I smartphone. I clearly state that I used to have some of the top range business and smartphone since the end of the 90 s and they just stare at me as I was retarded person. ops. I just going on bla bla here. sorry Give me my other qwerty half NOW.
Landscape Slider Keyboard!!
Larger battery…
…and better camera! 🙂
Many interesting proposals, but i must be a choice for the other half technically achievable and marketable.
Here is what I would choose :
15 – Solar charger
5 – Slider Keyboard
9 – Multimedia : loud speaker
3 – Extra storage/battery/connections
1 – Camera
Thank you to jolla_tides 😉
Thank YOU Yves. Some nice choices there – be sure to vote on the full survey when it goes live after we’ve finalised this list! 😉
of course, thanks to you 😉
2 ideas, first a surveyors(spatial)/pro golf (distance finder) toolbox half that includes a good GPS chip, ultrasonic distance measuring laser distance finder, thermal infra-red reader (with s/w for user defined object emissivity) and powerful laser pointer. A chip like the u-blox LEA-6 will allow < 1m accuracy and with a simple base station, Real Time Kinematic will be possible (30mm) using the opensource (c++) http://www.rtklib.com/ . Has been ported to android(java) but is a c++ library.
This may also make jolla the choice for dones with a library like http://www.gpstk.org , this is c++ making it a natural fit for sailfishos.
The second idea is a extension of Diabetic Half mentioned above, but includes more medical tools such as ECG (some approved cases for iPhones exist) and ir thermometer.
Added first choice and see option 16 for your 2nd choice. 😉
Camera grip OH, with a large shutter button, wrist strap, tripod hole and charging-state indicator LEDs, much like the camera grip of Lumia 1020. Perhaps also an extra battery can be built in. Also a memory card adapter can be considered. The camera grip could be used with or without the super-camera OH, that of my http://jollatides.com/2013/10/03/other-half-lets-prioritise/comment-page-1/#comment-10331 comment, for example. For many Jolla owners the camera grip OH would be a must, because they do not want to miss the critical seconds trying to find and press the tiny shutter button. Also in the comments from other people a large shutter button was suggested, and in a comment was suggested to use the big shutter button as a call-answering button.
Now I found the 2 comments where the shutter button was suggested; please see http://jollatides.com/2013/10/03/other-half-lets-prioritise/comment-page-2/#comment-10389 and its parent comment. Thanks, polarbear and notanegativespace for the idea which I brainstormed a bit further.
Because there can be also a lens cover on the Camera Grip Half, my suggestion is to replace list item nr. 56 with sonething like this:
Camera Grip Half (large shutter button, wrist strap, tripod fix and lens cover, with programmable functions). Can be used with or without the Camera Half (nr. 1).
Hi Egon – thanks for the input – that’s amended to include in no.56. 🙂
What i would LOVE to see is a GamePad-Half, that is not a Landscape Slider. I don’t think this would be comfortable to hold in longer sessions.
So I would prefer to put the buttons to the screen sides to make the phone look like a PSP.
What do you think?
A very good point recently raised at TMO:
http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?p=1378692#post1378692
I don’t see a use case where you hold only the screen without touching the OH, so you hold them together in your hand anyways (since these are the two half of your device 😉 ).
So I don’t think this is an issue since the OH just needs to be able to mechanically hold the lightweight device itself.
Never be too assumptive about how people will use/hold a device, esp. given some of the form-factors that are being touted for the OH. This is an area that should be treated VERY seriously/carefully, so far, it doesn’t look like it is, I hope that’s not true.
Yes, the stress on the clips which hold the halves together can be very powerful (I assume that the mechanical connection would be quick and easy to use; no screws). Not exactly by the forces caused by the weight of the halves but by the hits (the phone + halv(es) being hit accidentally against a solid object), or vibration. Think about the suggested “windscreen mount half”. It may be durable alone with the phone, but hardly with relatively heavy OHs. Besides, there are regulations which require very durable construction, just in case of a vehicle crash. And please take into account the other tests done by phone manufacturers. For example, in a test the phone is dropped a certain height (60 cm if I remember correctly) hundreds or thousands of times. I assume similar tests are required for all or most combinations of the halves. Sometimes even a resonance can break the mechanics quite easily.
One solution for the windscreen mount would be: do not attach the mount as an other half, but in the ordinary way: just put the phone or the phone+OH combination into the windscreen mount so that it is kept by the clamps that press the long sides of the phone and the OH. In any case, it is not realistic to expect more than 1 or 2 halves to be stacked on the phone. If there are 2 OHs, they would be stacked on each other (“coupled in series”) – an example: phone + sliding keyboard + camera grip. But is it durable enough, especially if you attach also the Camera Half (onto the Camera Grip, or “in parallel” with its clamp which press the long sides of the phone and/or an OH)? My estimation is that there will not be many types of OHs (in the same meaning as in the topmost picture of this page):
– most OH-accessories may be connected with the phone by using USB and other cables, an OH working as a kind of adapter, attached to the phone mechanically). If there are more than 4 OHs, sooner or later you’ll long for an “installation plate” onto which you could fix them, or hide them in a “full-size Qwerty keyboard accessory”, for example
– several accessories in the OH list have so different form factor and size that the mechanical issues must be solved in a way which is different from that of OHs. For example, the Jolla phone could be inserted into a tablet accessory (à la Asus PadPhone), with a lot easier-to-solve mechanical stress issues
– only a few adapters would attach mechanically to the phone (Colour and “Angry Bird” halves, sliding keyboard might be among them)
I’ve described these mechanic and interconnection issues in my comment of
http://jollatides.com/2013/10/03/other-half-lets-prioritise/comment-page-1/#comment-10304
TL:DR version?
What about an “Integrated Stereoscopic Digital Still and Digital Video Camera” Half?
Thanks – that’s added. 😉
For the camera, implement the Stanford-Nokia Frankencamera. It allows you to load your own image processing programs and it can run Python natively. This may follow for any camera other half, but the Frankencamera may have its own additional capabilities.
David – That definitely sounds like something to consider if anyone makes a camera OH.
If you have any more great ideas or maybe one I missed, let me know asap because I’m going to wrap this up quite soon now. Thanks! 🙂
Perhaps you could combine with “12. PC Dock” some of the features which I described in http://jollatides.com/2013/10/03/other-half-lets-prioritise/comment-page-2/#comment-10458
You could add to nr. 12 something like “… with extra battery and space for mass memories built in a full-size Qwerty keyboard.”
Or, perhaps a new “62. Full-size Qwerty keyboard with dock for Jolla phone, with USB and HDMI connectors, battery and space for mass memories inside”.
FYI Egon, I’ve added that as no.66. 😉
Perhaps the word Qwerty in front of keyboad could be added to these candidates:
Portrait Slider keyboard: (With HDMI, USB OTG)
Landscape Slider keyboard: (With HDMI, USB OTG)
Reason: most voters may not have followed the full debate about Qwerty and numeric 12-key keyboards.
Naturally “Qwerty” in the candidate name refer to the whole keyboard concept, so that it comprises also the Qwertz, Azerty, Cyrillic variants, in addition to the language-specific variants of Qwerty layout.
To avoid comments like “I prefer Azerty to Qwerty” or “Russian keyboard is needed, too”, perhaps you could add there something like
“…. USB OTG), Qwerty comprising also Azerty, Qwertz and Cyrillic variants”.
Thanks again Egon – amended as suggested. 😉
An Other Half with a clear credit card slot where a public transportation pass or work id or a car toll transponder could reside so you would have those things whenever you went out.
Anything that requires high spedd data transfer are not possible with i2c(other half bus)..
..
Why wait for a vote?
http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?p=1378929
An other that makes your phone fly. So it can fly to me when someone phones to me when I am too far away to pick it up. Well I don’t know should it fly to your hand because you might lose your fingers. There might be solutions that don’t destroy your fingers. One possibility is that the phone lands to a suitable surface or it hovers in front of you so you can take a video call. Some of that might be too Sci-fi or all of it.
Hi,
First, this is a wonderful and exciting idea!
May I make a suggestion that may help the overall approach?
Many of the proposed other halves must have components in common. Also some of them may not be practical with the current rev hardware.
It is worth nothing that if we do a good job here, Jolla will have a much better idea of possible future products; woudn’t that be nice!
For example:
battery, camera,cpu,memory etc… are all components that have a very large number of combinations.
Whereas keyboards is a much smaller set.
finally, in other posts here it was noted that the “i2c” link may be a bit slow for extra memory, but extra memory or sdcard for a camera may be highly desirable , for example.
I mention this idea since I think Jolla being a small company really needs to get a focus on perhaps 3 high quality add-ons to have a chance of getting quantity up.
Of course with 3D printing and open specs, the real power may come from kickstarter, universities or other “groups” that could bring something to the discussion.
The Nokia 808 for example spurred a project to make a confocal microscope- I cannot tell you how cool that is!!!! They built “the other half”
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2013-09/17/nokia-imaging-add-on ,their publication gives the details.
Keep up the good work!
Cheers
P.
More than 10 suggested OHs would contain an HDMI connector. But how can the phone feed it, if there is only the I2C interface between the phone and the other half. In some comments here and in Maemo Talk has been reminded about the limited capacity of the I2C interface.
+1
It seems some are finally waking up to this, that’s a start…
Could a wireless connection be used to transfer data between the phone and the OH? Like WiFi is used between iPhone and AppleTV, and the corresponding home entertainment hubs of Samsung etc. In those system video and other data are saved primarily in the hub, and smartphones have the role of entertainment-data sources rather than video players. HDMI cables are used to connect the hub to TV sets etc.
If yes, HDMI does not need to be dropped from all OHs which now contain HDMI.
I forgot optical link. It would be ideal between the phone and OH: no electrical connection needed, and provides high capacity. And it would be definitely impossible to spy or crack 🙂
Ok if we are sure HDMI is 100% impossible utilising the I2C bus connection, what about TV/AV out (like in N900/N9) or MHL ? Would either of those connections be possible alternatives ?
I guess that using a TV/AV out would not be ideal, because you would need an extra cable with a plug which you insert in the TV/AV jack of the phone – do you mean such a connection? And for video quality perhaps the TV/AV out would be the weakest link (WiFi – TV/AV – HDMI). If the TV/AV plug is on top of the phone, the cable would not look good when the phone is kept on a dock station. Bu the way, is the USB connector at the bottom, and is it possible to use it in desktop stands and dock stations, so that you insert the phone into the stand and do not need to worry about the USB plug?
sigh….
As I already said @jollauers:
If I were you, I’d start a thread at talk.maemo.org,
there’s some very technically clued-up people there.
They’d be able to help OH creators & you quickly whittle-down which OH’s are 100% doable, which ones “might” be doable, & which are 100% infeasible.
You could use the existing thread, or start another in that sub-forum if you feel that’s more practical (can edit the OP etc):
http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=90180&page=23
From what I recall about the spec, no, I doubt either of those interfaces would be doable.
Someone outlined the spec in detail (not just a Wikipedia link), I can’t recall specifics, check-out TMO.
Ok thanks Shane – I’ve also posed the question to Jolla who should also have a clear idea on this. I’ll wait until I have the final answer before finalising the survey either way.
Have you started a thread at TMO or posted there?
Jolla will likely give you too vague/generic answers.
Rather than what is feasible, today the list of suggested OHs tell more what is wished or needed (by ourselves and/or potential customers). So, I think the HDMI can be left as a feature of the OHs even if we do not get exact information about the high-bandwidth interface between the phone and other halves. HDMI may not be crucial in OHs like Sliding Keyboard Half. If a better way is not found for the first Jolla phone, the video can be fed over Wi-Fi to OHs, and can be fed further to TV set and monitor with HDMI cable. It sounds silly to use Wi-Fi to an OH, perhaps over the distance of a couple of millimeters. Perhaps a coaxial cable or optical link interface can be provided, at least in later Jolla phone models. But like other entertainment hubs, which can be kept behind a TV or monitor screen, also an “Entertainment Hub Half for Jolla” can be kept remote from the phone and would contain HDMI connectors, hard disk, Wi-Fi and extra space for small “remote OHs” etc. It would mean that the “66 Full-size PC keyboard other half” would be dispersed to two units: (1) a “Full-size Qwerty keyboard” with USB etc connectors (one for mouse) and a dock for Jolla phone, and (2)”Video hub” – a third half 🙂 which could be kept hidden and would have HDMI connectors for TV, monitor etc, and a hard drive. Data connection between the phone and video hub would be done over Wi-Fi, and between the phone and the full-size keyboard connection would be done with i2C or USB. USB, because it would be nice to put the phone into the dock on the full-size keyboard, so that its Micro-USB plug matches with the Micro-USB connector on the bottom of the phone. The dock should be designed so that the phone can be put into the docking stand without removing its OH, such as the “Sliding keyboard Half”. In that case the Full-size Keyboard would not be a genuine other half. But I want it to be kept in the list. Perhaps nr 66 need to be split to two OHs, the above mentioned (1) and (2).
No, it’s madness, sure create a “fairy floss land” list were people can let their imagination run wild…
But it’s FAR MORE important to have one that only has ideas that are 100% feasible with the current implementation.
@ Shane: Like I said that will come when we get down to the shortlist of 10.
This makes little sense, you should break-it-up into feasible & non-feasible FIRST.
Then whittle the feasible list down further, based on what users vote for…
The infeasible list can be whittled further later, once more is known about any successor.
Or voted on before then & submitted to Jolla, to give them an idea of the OH abilities people are expressing most interest in.
It’s difficult to know what is feasible/unfeasible at this early stage and I don’t have time to go thru 69 different OH’s. These are the “dream concepts” as supplied by the community…. some are pipe dreams yes but once we can gauge what everyone else wants we can start looking at the practicalities. For instance some concepts may not be 100% possible with all the features listed, but something could still be produced that retains most of the features and compromises on a feature that is impossible. The survey will go up shortly with a disclaimer with words to this effect.
In fact it’s not difficult to know for most of them, most of them can be sorted into 1 of the 3 main piles based on the info. we have.
If you proceed as is it’s likely you’ll end-up with many in the final list that are infeasible, & many not in the list that were, hardly a good situation.
As I said, it makes sense to take this list to the maemo.org community, it can help you break it all down properly.
I take your point Shane and agree – I’m just limited by time and as we don’t have full technical details I thought this would be a nice way to get the ball rolling. I’ll see what I can do…
Just allow some more time for yourself, there’s no need to rush, take it to maemo.org & then we can begin the process.
At some point you’ll need to lock the list, & THEN we can start breaking it all down, it shouldn’t take too long…
Exactly Egon – these are the demands that we received from the community. Once we have the shortlist, obviously we can then tweak or amend details to reflect the reality.
1 – Camera for good photos
3 – extra storage for long trip outside home
5 – wide keyboard for making programs and documents
6 – gamepad for relaxing outdoor
17 – waterproof for summer holidays on the beach
25 – projector for see videos and photos out of display
26 – bycicle mount with dinamo recharger for mountain trip on bicicle
33 – Marine for mountain trip
34 – military for softair
37 – camping half – the best – make phone immortal with the sun
these is the best half in my opinion, if they were made buy them all
I might be late.
I’m late, because I write after the weekend.
😥
What about a compromise between these two features
(1.)Slide-out landscape QWERTY with touchscreen and
(2.)Touchscreen only?
Two touchscreens, for different purposes:
Both, as well as the phone’s display and the keyboard, should be just the mere touchscreens surfaces (* 2 pcs) and part of the same body of phone.
If instead of the physical (western) QWERTY-keyboard of the phone, there could be, just touchsreen based
“a input/feed – touch display”, it could enable then use of many types of characters such as: Chinese, or Hindi language characters, or Russians characters, or Japanese characters, via same input-touchscreen display and in same device. As well you could use that same screen as a game controller of the game console..
..This leads to a situation where, application developers are able to design more versatile applications, if the device has two touch screens. Application could have then, better UI & UX.
(Generally, general mobile phones battery life, have to get to better level)
————————————
So my idea was, two touchscreens,
for different purposes:
one normal touchscreen and other slide-out landscape
input-touchscreen.
See no.14: “LCD fold out display: (doubles as screen protector when closed like clam shell) Extra fold out touchscreen which could be used for eg. full sized touchscreen keyboard”
a QWERTY keyboard other half with an as large as possible battery so that centre of gravity is in the other half
with a 2nd µUSB connector so it is possible to charge both batteries @ the same time
« I2C busses come in three speeds: Standard speed (100Kb/s), Fast speed (400Kb/s), and High speed (3.4Mb/s)» — http://www.chronovu.com/help/docs/get-started/software-user-interface/i2c-busses/
guess that pretty much rurles out a 41 MP camera ¦-))))
Not if it has it’s own chip
I wonder why they mentioned a collaboration with Philips (the inventors of i2c?). Perhaps there is a way to get higher throughput from a “super” mode for the bus.
This is pure speculation.
The wireless transmission idea would seem doable.
Extra battery would seem the most important. A weeks standby for a smart phone would be pretty outstanding.
P.
Just a thought – something to emphasise the Finnish origin and (hopefully) the winter release date. An other-half which ‘measures’ solar activity and predicts displays of the aurora… Someone, somewhere could do it but it’d be fun if Jolla did it themselves.
Jolla could provide a way for custom other half shells by 3-D printing techniques. 3-D printing is capable of making sophisticated steel turbine blades. A shell is a casing that fits with the first half and may have holes, etc. 3-D printing may be a more flexible way to provide custom shells. The shells could also have ways to add appendages.
Provide the following:
– A variety of pre-designed shells to buy or have made directly from the design
– Templates for modifying, possibly in software that can work with 3-D printing which would be either open source, web based, or commercial
– Straight forward design in 3-D type software made by guidelines provided by Jolla
– Web site URLs for connectors, and parts and suggestions for these parts
– Web site URLs for relevant 3-D manufacturers
– Instructions for assembling parts into the shells in a detailed way similar to Make magazine which came out in 2005 and is a part of the maker movement. This assembly would be a general way to secure parts.
– Recommended test procedures for the assembled other half. This would include recommendations for equipment.
This is a step beyond the Arduino bus where the parts are pre-designed in. Manufacturers notes and pre-developed small boards for the I2C or SPI devices may compensate for this. “Driver” software may already be available for some devices. Devices may not be so complicated that drivers are needed.
You are asking too much.
For one, this is not how it works with ‘community effort’, if you want pre-designed 3D models with parts and software pre-set you should buy Lego Mindstorm. Designing 3D models is not very hard, but is you do not have the skills to do that, you should not persue the dream of making your own 3d-printed models.
Secondly, Jolla has 80 employees. And your asking them -besides developing a completely new os AND a new phone, all from the ground up- to make you a kit? Let them have the time to develop their software, build their hardware, gain ground on the mobile market and if they have the time, disclose the minimal amount of info you need for new feautures!
Trial and error is the way to go! Just try to make one of the ideas in the list! Order some solar panels and voltage regulators, learn how an e-ink display works, or if you are really enthousiasic, design a 3d modeled backcover for your current phone! Practice makes perfect, not waiting for idiot-proof parts.
http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=91535
While joerg’s a major contributor & widely respected member of the maemo/meego community.
It’s still better to run the list past several respected members of the community…
Lock the list where it’s at now, the no’s already high enough, then start a thread or use the existing one.
Folks needn’t explain why a OH’s doable, but where they feel it’s not, they should provide a brief rationale.
Same for the OH’s they think “might” be doable….
^woops, posted in the wrong spot, sorry.
Such a initiative still has merit, it helps Jolla determine which OH’s are the most appealing to prospective new buyers/users.
The only flaw with the process so far, is that there’s not been a proper vetting process of; “feasible”, “possibly feasible”, & “infeasible”.
Once that’s completed, the community can vote on a “feasible” list of OH’s, & from that determine which OH’s are the most popular.
This can then be submitted to Jolla….
+1
Jolla could just make a shell. It would be sufficiently thick for hobbyist electronics devices and made of a material that would not interfere with devices like magnetometers or gps. An alternative could be a shell with holes for different types of connectors. Plugs would cover the unused ones. All work on designing and implementing an other half would be done by the user.
Hobbyist electronics devices might enable the development of a application other half in a couple of weeks or less. Many boards from these sites are very small.. An example is an I2C gyro, accelerometer, compass and altimeter board which measures 1.0″ × 0.5″ × 0.1″ (25 mm × 13 mm × 3 mm), weighs 1gm,and takes 2.5 – 5.5 v and 10mA. Pololu.com provides test software and C code might not be difficult to make or obtain. With only an I2C interface, apparently gpio and possibly other things can run from it. Parts could be attached by something like Velcro and daisy chained into the I2C bus with connectors for exchangeability.
Although many problems could emerge, the main idea is the other half might be flexible in the devices it supports using a shell and hobbyist devices to avoid design engineering of parts. Python in Meego/Mer would make the software development easier.
+1
terse and tacky ( “ok”: probably feasible, maybe with limitations; NAK: not feasible, usually due to bandwidth of I2C)
1: NAK
2: OK
HDMI: NAK (for all to follow)
USB: NAK (for all to follow)
3: OK–
4: OK
5: OK
6: OK
7: OK
8: OK
9: NAK
10: NAK
11: NAK
12: NAK
13: OK
14: OK–
15: ÖK
16: OK!
17: NAK
18: OK
19: OK
20: OK—- (almost NAK)
21: OK
22: OK
23: NAK
24: OK
25: NAK
26: OK
27: OK?
28: OK-
29: OK?
30: OK
31: NAK
32:OK
33: NAK
34: NAK
35: OK
36: OK
37: OK (USB charging only)
38: OK
39: OK
40: OK
41: NAK
42: OK–
43: OK
44: OK
45: err OK—
46: OK— (no SPI)
47: OK-
48: NAK+
49: OK-
50: OK
51: OK
52: OK
53: OK
54: OK—-
55: NAK
56: OK
57: OK–
58: OK
59: OK
60: ???
61: OK!
62: OK!
63: OK!
64: OK
65: NAK
66: OK- (only with USB plug for Jolla device)
67: OK- (no TV-out)
68: OK
69: OK
*SIGH* ok, that’s it, HTH
/jOERG
after though… a 2nd wi-fi antenna, to allow to be connected to several WLANs
top would be of course that the 2nd antenna keeps looking for a stronger WLAN (with known credentials) or, if configured, free as well.
obviously with 3.4 MB/s ( max speed for I2C) 2nd wi-fi would be limited to 802.11g thus maybe it would make sense to change over to the internal antenna as well…
2nd USB would still be nice to be able to charge a 2nd battery in parallel
While joerg’s a major contributor & widely respected member of the maemo/meego community.
It’s still better to run the list past several respected members of the community…
Lock the list where it’s at now, the no’s already high enough, then start a thread or use the existing one.
Folks needn’t explain why a OH’s doable, but where they feel it’s not, they should provide a brief rationale.
Same for the OH’s they think “might” be doable….
(correct spot)
Thanks so much Joerg – really kind of you to take the time to go thru (all of) those. I know some are crazy ‘dream’ concepts but at least it is a starting point so we can now start sorting the wheat from the chaff. Thanks again and love the Neo900 project you’re working on BTW! 🙂
Actually nr. 66 (Full-size Qwerty Keyboard Half) would be “OK”, if you JollaTides split it to two halves, the new one being the “Video hub”; please see the last line of my http://jollatides.com/2013/10/03/other-half-lets-prioritise/comment-page-2/#comment-10642 Thanks to Wi-Fi, the HDMI and hard-drive features of the “Video hub” would be feasible, like they in AppleTV + corresponding products of Samsung. Whether they should be implemented or not, is another issue, which is not topical at the current brainstorming phase.
“Actually nr. 66 (Full-size Qwerty Keyboard Half) would be “OK”, if you JollaTides split it to two halves, the new one being the “Video hub”
No it wouldn’t, because the maker of the OH would need more than just a “hard-drive” + HDMI.
Even If it was being streamed via wifi from the main half, the OH would still need the ability to process that incoming video stream. So another video DSP/chipset would be needed, this is starting to get into the realm of: “Why would any ODM bother for such a tiny potential customer base?” I’d say it’s: “feasible, but very unlikely…”
Jeezus this commenting system blows, especially in FF… >.>
9/10 UPDATE: With some help from Jolla, Joerg, Shane, Egon and the Maemo community I’ve edited the list down a bit from the original to get more realistic. Just going to run a few more crosschecks with some people and then we’ll put it to a vote! 😉
You haven’t had the thread going at TMO for very long at all…
You may need to PM some of the “big hitters” directly to get them involved.
Where the hell is the poll?
what?
@Artisn – We are just making some final tweaks to the list before putting up the survey. Thanks for your patience!
@JollaTides
PM some of the folks at TMO, bump your thread, there’s ways to make it more lively! 😉
Solar charger
Multimedia
Extra storage/battery
Camera
Fingerprint scanner
I like a Other Half for the “Internet Of Things” with sensors for air quality pm10, temperature, humidity, enviromental audio noise, and so on; that create a feed on Xively (former Cosm). https://xively.com/
Also a connection for all type of sensors will be nice.
Landscape Slider keyboard and battery for me. Possibly good camera as well.
1. I want a QWERTY keyboard just like Nokia N-97mini with extra battery and an IR post, for turning the phone into a universal remote controller, in the other half.
2. A great lens and an extra battery attached with the other half. The lens should be powerful enough to capture the pictures just like in the Nokia Lumia 1020 or the Nokia 808 pureview.
Hey, I saw this. Some nicely drawn ideas for the Other Half
https://twitter.com/YvesPE/media
Nowadays phones are mobile computers. HDMI and USB ports to connect USB and Keyboard will be a good addition for text edition, programming or serious email, browsing and productivity. It would be much better to have a wireless display and Bluethooth keyboard input so there are no cables at all and less ports on the phone. Unfortunatelly wireless display is not so popular yet, but if you can come up with a cheap accesory for wireless display it would a round solution. I think a Finnish startup company is developing one.
USB and HDMI output s are needed for bit perfect audio / video output from a digital palyer SW inside the Jolla. Then I could use the Jolla as my portable digital player and connect it to other quality audio HW boxes. Why a Jolla player ? Because a lot of DSP is available in pure music mode where the phone RF part is shut down and I can use the DSP power for crunching the music bits that are further sent to DAC/amplifier. Or I could use the spotify client inside Jolla phone and send the bits further to my DAC/amplifier. Or I watch the netflix movies and send further the digital stream to my HDMI equipped TV or AV boxes.
The player also must support playing the content from local NAS storage
This is why Jolla must have USB/HDMI output to make it different !
Having usb/hdmi won’t make it different, that’s hardly a unique feature in the industry nowadays.
Physical vid-out that supports at least 1080p is mandatory IMO, but it seems they won’t have that, although 1080p via 802.11n should still be so-able, “just”…
Having physical video/audio out won’t be possible with a OH, unless that OH has all the necessary video/audio processing components, which will raise the cost significantly.
Plus it’ll unnecessarily duplicate what should’ve already been provided by the phone, but if we’re lucky, “maybe” someone will implement it, unlikely though…
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So whatever happened to that vote?
1. I think the Rugged other half should contain a LED Torch and perhaps the Extra Battery Half.
2. I think the Portrait QWERTY should half either an optical trackpad or a rear-mounted touchpad (very nice for light scrolling and precision).
Where is my “Touchpad half”! The one which could be used for scrolling web pages without blocking the view with a finger in front of the display.