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Comment by _hhff | Hacker News Reader

My team built the OS on a custom fork of Android (https://www.sanctuary.computer).

I would say ask me anything but I’m in the middle of the Australian outback with virtually no mobile signal...!

What I can say is that working with Eink is rudimentary - we had to build everything from a custom kernel driver all the way up to the view layouts and UX. We expected Eink would give us sophisticated SDKs, but unfortunately a lot of wheels had to be reinvented. I have huge respect for the team behind the Yota Phone!

I’ve written a tear down of how it all works that I’ll be sharing soon on our company twitter if anyone is interested.

(not sent from a light phone)

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Congratulations on the launch of Light Phone 2.

I like the premise of E-Ink as smartphone display for anyone who uses the smartphone display for text, light static graphics consumption. I'm seeing more manufacturers trying to bring cheaper E-Ink smartphones to the market[1][2].

I understand the philosophy of Light Phone and thereby it not having Internet browser; but, HN on Kindle Oasis has always been a pleasant experience to me if the linked article website uses standard web development practices(cough TechCrunch).

[1]https://www.gizmochina.com/2019/10/24/hisense-a5-with-an-e-i...

[2]https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/kingrow-k1-the-healthy-ph...

Thank you! And yes - including a browser was a big debate, but ultimately we wanted to ensure minimalism and restraint was enforced on the software level.

A browser means instagram, facebook and email are all readily accessible. A lot of users like our device because it’s impossible to get to those platforms...

That said - grids of instagram selfies rendered to a 2.84” Eink screen would surely be an interesting art experiment, ha!

It is a wise SW development decision, I see the browser development on Alt-SmartPhone OS like Ubuntu Touch being its Achilles heel; by removing Internet browser you've created more value for your target audience and saved yourself from the perils of browser development!

Neat! Are you a person who can provide hints about how to the Directions feature is powered?

The battery life must be immense right? AT least one advantage there? How long does it last.

According to the website's FAQ, 1-3 days.

Yup, we generally prefer to underpromise on battery life.

So you can get 3+ days of usage?

Well they're using Android so... Probably not much. Display isn't that important to battery life (unless you're using it all the time.)

Yup, exactly. I would have liked to use something like KaiOS, but we had a short deadline and that would have meant porting/rewriting a bunch of Qualcomm drivers for the snapdragon on KaiOS.

We also couldn’t preempt the new features we’d like to add (directions, find my phone, etc), so full android felt like a safer option all things considered.

Yep, Android was the right choice. You'd still be coding the OS stuff by now I'm sure.

If you go this direction in future, take a look at ofono.

There are QMI as well as AT/RIL drivers in the works.

The screen helps a lot, but because the device runs full Android (we have a complete Wifi and Bluetooth stack) there’s only so much we can optimize.

In very passive use (using airplane mode liberally), it can last 7+ days but realistically most users will see it last between 3 - 7.

Some more work can go into antenna tuning, however. We support two different markets (North America and Global) which have different bands. In areas with poor mobile service, devices usually spend a lot of battery power searching for signal. We’re hoping to improve on that in a future FOTA update!

About a day and a half, making a few calls and texting a bit. So effectively I have to charge it every night.

Given it's running Android underneath, does Android Auto work with it when connected to a compatible car head unit? Having no Android Auto nav and phone integration is one reason I wouldn't pick a device like this.

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