Hi guys -

We've recently been compiling a list of dream 'other half' demands collated from community suggestions over here: http://jollatides.com/2013/10/03/oth...ts-prioritise/

The first thing you'll notice is that not only is the list extensive, but also there are quite a few *unfeasible* suggestions there.

The idea is that we were going to put this out as a survey to future Jolla owners/potential owners so Jolla/3rd party manufacturers could prioritise.

After speaking with Shane over at our blog, we came round to thinking it would be a good idea if before making the survey live that we get a feasibility test done to make the survey more realistic.

Joerg has kindly given us his view on the matter and I have already added his view below where OK= probably feasible, maybe with limitations; NAK = not feasible, usually due to bandwidth of I2C.

So here's the list to date and if anyone cares to add anything else regarding feasibility or provide some more insights (in lieu of full technical data from Jolla), I would really appreciate it!

We've also had further final confirmation from Jolla's chief engineer that HDMI/MHL is definitely not possible using the other half.



1. Camera: (Must be much better than stock camera, With Xenon flash, SD card support, HDMI out) NAK

2. Windscreen mount: (with inbuilt wireless charger and fm transmitter) OK

3. Extra storage/battery/connections: (eg. 200GB flash; 3000mah) OK

4. Portrait Slider keyboard: Full Qwerty/Azerty/Qwertz/Cyrillic etc variants OK

5. Landscape Slider keyboard: Full Qwerty/Azerty/Qwertz/Cyrillic etc variants OK

6. Landscape Slider gamepad: OK

7. Wireless charger: (just simple normal sized back plate with wireless charging inbuilt) OK

8. Presentation: (laser pointer, IR, Full SD, Extra battery) OK

9. Multimedia: (Full SD support, Better Speakers, IR, FM TX, Battery) NAK

10. 7″ Tablet Dock: (7″ tablet half with place to connect handset on rear to transform phone into tablet) NAK

11. 10″ Tablet Dock: (10″ tablet half with place to connect handset on rear to transform phone into tablet) NAK

12. PC Dock: (With all connections needed to connect monitor/mouse/keyboard eg. 3 x USB, 1 x HDMI, SD Card Slot) NAK

13. E-ink display: Additional low power e-ink display. OK

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. OK

15. Solar charger: trickle solar charger on rear. OK

16. Medic Half: (ECG, blood pressure, pulse, temperature and other vitals you can think of.). OK

17. Waterproof half: (two parts make the phone water resistant (IP-7/8) but still make the phone work a 100%). NAK

18. Scanner half: Scan documents on the go (nicer then a pic in some cases.). OK

19. Security half: Fingerprint scanner/ drawpad for signing stuff. OK

20. 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. OK: almost NAK

21. Rugged Outdoor half: with rangefinder, thermometer, altitude meter and barometer. (Maybe even communication radio) OK

22. Magnet half – for quick and convenient holding in for example the car. OK

23. Extra processor – additional processor half to add extra cores for more raw power preferably stackable to take advantage of eg. gamepad; media half etc. NAK

24. Flip up 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. OK

25. Micro projector half: to project photos, videos, documents, presentations anywhere. NAK

26. 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. OK

27. Recording studio: Phantom powered analog XLR-i/o with 24bit/96khz quality, ADAT-i/o, 2 x MIDI I/O. OK?

28. Expansion-half: PCMCIA and express-card slot with extra battery. OK

29. 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. OK?

30. Alcohol-tester half: Inbuilt breathalyser. Calls for a taxi automatically to your GPS location when you are too drunk to drive a car yourself. OK

31. Pirate-half : 1Tb USB drive, readable by the OS. NAK

32. Home integration half – home entertainment, environment/thermostat(Nest), home security. OK

33. Marine half: with compass, echo sounding input, radar input, barometer, high sensitive GPS and detailed chart. NAK

34. Military half: with night vision cam, rangefinder, ballistic calculator (I would say that this half is not useable in the army at all, but pretty cool stuff..) NAK

35. “Ambience”: white translucent “other half” with led to display the screen ” Ambience” and notifications by flashing. OK

36. “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…) ; OK

37. Camping Half = large battery + solar panel + 2x full size USB sockets to charge other (small) devices with such as a GARMIN. OK - USB only for charging

38. Night Out Half = slots for credit card + door key + paper currency. OK

39. Sport Half = Big Battery + GPS chipset & ANT+ chipset to pair with a heart rate chest straps. OK

40. Diabetic Half = blood sugar tester + contacts to touch to measure your heart rate and blood pressure. OK

41. Extra directional antenna: in the another half for rural area users and those who travel a lot. I find it very annoying when my N900 just suddenly drops 2G/3G connection when using wifi-hotspot in our summer cottage if the field strength below certain level. NAK

42. Privacy half – Prevents any app to send any information before user confirmation. OK

43. Makeup half – Outside: plain mirror, inside: magnifying mirror with led-lights on sides. OK

44. 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. OK

45. 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. err... OK

46. Arduino half: An Arduino communicates to the Jolla via SPI and the back of the half is a breadboard with Arduino pins (ans SPI) 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! OK - (no SPI)

47. Battery half: Simple battery half with many colour options. Ideally option to be stackable so could benefit from other ‘other halves’. OK

48. DTV/DAB Receiver: Antenna connector for Digital TV and DAB radio receiver inbuilt. Could also have HDMI out for playing to screen. NAK

49. Satellite Phone: Satellite phone half for eg. emergency calls where there is no network coverage (would be very costly though) OK

50. Fingerprint scanner: Add an extra layer of security only unlockable with a pre-determined fingerprint (or nipple!) SEE no.19 – the same concept. OK

51. Car diagnostic half: To link up to car/van/truck and communicate with onboard computer. OK

52. 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. OK

53. 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! OK

54. SD card reader/writer half (Photophile half): Insert SD card from eg. DSLR to share via bluetooth with friends/family/work etc. With extra battery. OK

55. DSLR/SLR lens attachment + APS-C mirrorless sensor half: Attach common lens systems from Nikon; Canon; Pentax etc to work with inbuilt camera and give your handset the option to handle the big lenses like a pro with an enlarged APS-C mirrorless sensor! http://imgur.com/XQcgZJ0 http://imgur.com/N83V7mm NAK

56. Camera Grip Half: (large shutter button, wrist strap, tripod fix and sliding lens cover, with programmable functions). Can be used with or without the Camera Half (nr. 1). 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. OK

57. 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. OK

58. Retro Rotary Dial half: Because “Dialling” by selecting names from a phone book is soooo 2012! OK

59. Robot other half: A tiny robotic other half? Something a bit like romotive’s Romo would be nice. http://romotive.com/ OK

60. GKOS Keyboard Half. A special chording keyboard for full aphanumeric text entry; see http://gkos.com

61. Senior Other Half: with t-coil output and alert button. OK

62. AAA battery half: This other half allows you to fit easy to find AAA batteries to power the Jolla in times of need. OK

63. Dedicated phone button and camera button half: provides additional buttons to answer/end calls and to start camera and take photos. OK

64. 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/ OK

65. Integrated Stereoscopic Digital Still and Digital Video Camera” Half. NAK

66. Full-size PC keyboard other half: with dock for Jolla phone, with USB to connect peripherals. Internal battery and space for mass memories inside. OK- (only with USB plug for Jolla device)

67. N900 other half: Adds slider QWERTY, IR, FM TX, TV out, kickstand and other features we miss from N900. OK - no TV out

68. Portrait Stand Half: A very neat fold up portrait stand for your Jolla. OK

69. 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. OK

In my opinion possible, SD would be dead slow of course, and rather not practicable, but i2c should have enough bandwidth for compressed audio at a quality that's sufficient for small speakers and FM TX (e.g. 96kbit/s ogg). Makes the OH of course quite a bit more complex.

Perfectly possible by putting an optical beam splitter in the OH

MIDI possible, uncompressed audio not, if it's compressed it may have still some value as a mobile recording tool, like the micro BR series from Boss. But would be VERY bulky with XLR connectors.

I suggest replacing nr 60. with this:
60. GKOS Keyboard Half. A special chording keyboard for full aphanumeric text entry; see http://gkos.com
Please also correct the color codes around OK etc; now I can see leaked COLOR="rgb(154, 205, 50)" etc

That's edited for you sir!

The argument that the I2C bus is the only interface for the Other Half is false and limiting. There are also wireless options. And how the Other Half interacts with the main phone can be varied depending on your needs. Anyone can stick two separate things together using glue or tape and have a multifunction device but making them integrated and elegant is more difficult.

In an early list there were many "other halves" which would have HDMI for video devices. But because the interface between the phone and OH cannot handle the required speeds, the HDMI were dropped. Most needs of HDMI can probably be filled by using Wi-Fi connection between the Jolla phone, TV set, and mass memories. Probably the easiest way to get the video shown by TV set and monitor is to use the Chromecast "video stick" which plugs in to the HDMI connector of the TV set and communicates with phones over Wi-Fi connection. But can it show the same contents as the screen of the Jolla phone? I hope that soon is tested how the Android application for the Chromecast "video stick" installs and works on Jolla. And if it does not, how to solve the "video-out from Jolla" issue.

Because Wi-Fi-connected memory drives are readily available on the market, we can expect them to work with Jolla phone, can't we? This depends on how the external memory is seen by applications, such as the File Manager of Jolla. Apparently a demanding integration task will still remain, if it is going to provide something similar to Apple TV which contains a hard drive, and for which the phone works mainly as a remote control and one of the data sources.

OH number 66, the Full-size PC keyboard OH is explained to contain "Space for mass memory inside". That is the "tape and glue" that is mentioned in the previous reply: instead of keeping around mass-memory devices, it may be best to hide some of them in another, large accessory, maybe together with an AC power supply.

If you're referring to video-out/playback via Wifi it should be doable, similar stuff was proven as technically feasible for the N9, as a way to get round it's measly video-out abilities.
Although no commercial solution (that I'm aware of) become available, as there wasn't a large enough user-base or guaranteed future one.

If you're referring to Wifi connected external HDD's then yes, of course, but that has nothing to do with the OH...
If you're referring to eMMC, mSD, or similar with built-in Wifi that can be placed into a OH, I'm not ware of eMMC having embedded Wifi, but there are such mSD devices.
Of course, as I've explained to you before, simply adding such modules to a OH doesn't solve the problem completely...

I don't see how that's relevant at all, lower lever stuff has to work before File Manager can....

It's not entirely clear what you're saying here, but if it's what I suspect, this sort of functionality is already achievable for the N9, & there's no reason to think it won't be the same for Sailfish.

No it makes sense to keep a discrete OH that's purely about storage, some folks may be interested in extra storage but may not be interested in a full-size PC keyboard, or vice-versa.
It'll be clunky, as it'll interface with the main half via the phone's external USB2 or (possibly) Wifi, but if there's enough demand hopefully someone will devise something mildly elegant/practical.

If SPI would be preffered for some reason, there could be i2c to SPI bridge. Though I think Arduino has i2c too, so why not to use it.

There could be same kind of OH for Raspberry Pi also.

Half this stuff is so stupid. Why not just make a half that has pure i2c bus and power connections that can be used to plug into other devices like a SD card reader etc.. it just seems so stupid to have a million and one phone backs for something that could easily be achieved with USB OTG. Or in this case i2c OTG.

And what about camera without HDMI - only xenon flash and good optics (optical zoom)? Feasible or not?