Enlarge / We don't have to rely on megacorp obelisks to operate the things we buy. We don't have to learn their language. We can break free. (credit: PonyWang/Getty Images)

For many people, an automated smart home is about little things that add up to big conveniences over time. Lights turning on when you pull into the driveway, a downstairs thermostat adjustable from your upstairs bedroom, a robot vacuum working while you're at the grocery store—you put in a bit of setup work and your life gets easier.

What most smart homes also include, however, is a voice assistant, the opposite of a quiet, unseen convenience. Alexa, Siri, Google Assistant: They demand that you learn specific device names and structures for commands, while they frequently get even the most simple command astoundingly wrong. And they are, of course, an always-listening corporate microphone you're allowing inside your home.

There are ways to keep that smart home convenience while cutting out the conversation. Some involve your phone, some dedicated devices, but none of them involve saying a device's name. Here's an overview of the best options available.

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Enlarge / Repairs to phones and tablets like those made by Samsung could be possible for up to five years after they leave the market, if an EU proposal is implemented. (credit: Getty Images)

European Commission regulators have suggested that smartphones and tablets sold there offer 15 different kinds of spare parts for at least five years, as part of a broad effort to lessen their environmental impact.

A draft regulation of "ecodesign requirements for mobile phones, cordless phones, and slate tablets" posted on August 31 notes that phones and tablets are "often replaced prematurely by users" and are "not sufficiently used or recycled" (i.e., junk-drawer-ed) at the end of their life. The cost is the energy and new materials mined from the earth for new phones, and unrecycled materials sitting in homes. Extending the lives of smartphones by five years—from their current typical two- to three-year lives—would be like taking 5 million cars off the road, according to the Commission's findings.

The most notable proposed fix (listed in Annex II) is for phone makers and sellers to make "professional repairers" available for five years after the date a phone is removed from the market. Those repairers would have access to parts including the battery, display, cameras, charging ports, mechanical buttons, microphones, speakers, and hinge assemblies (including for folding phones and tablets).

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The Librem 14 is our dream laptop and we know many of you are looking forward to getting yours. In our last post we talked about some of the final tweaks we made that resulted in shipping being delayed until January. The bad news is that we won’t be able to start shipping Librem 14s until February, but the good news is that everyone will be getting our (as of yet unannounced) extended battery option by default! Read the rest of the article for details.

Supply Chain Challenges

If you talk to anyone in manufacturing they will tell you that this has been a particularly challenging year for the supply chain. Whether you are talking about toilet paper, N95 masks, rubber gloves, or semiconductors, the global pandemic has made supply chains less reliable, and lead times and shipping times incredibly unpredictable. We already ran into supply chain challenges with the Librem 14 earlier when Intel announced CPU shortages, and most recently when we were preparing the first run of production Librem 14s we hit another issue: we couldn’t get the 3-cell batteries we were planning to use until after Chinese New Year! If you are familiar with manufacturing in China, you know that the entire country essentially shuts down for weeks, so this is far from ideal. However it turns out we could get our 4-cell extended battery in time.

The Librem 14 Extended Battery

When we first designed the Librem 14, it was with a 3-cell battery and second M.2 storage slot. Later on, we evaluated having the option to include a 4-cell extended battery increase the capacity by 33% with the expense of covering up the second M.2 storage slot. Because of that, we decided at the time to make the 3-cell battery the default, and offer the 4-cell extended battery to customers as an after-market optional upgrade.

These recent events have caused us to re-evaluate that plan. We realize most customers will probably never use the second M.2 storage slot of their laptop, but they would appreciate having the extra battery capacity. So we are going to default to the 4-cell extended battery on Librem 14 orders, unless the customer fills both M.2 slots, in which case we will fall back to the 3-cell battery.

For existing orders with both disk slots populated, this would mean your order gets delayed until March when we get 3-cell batteries, but if you don’t want to wait, we will work with you if you want to modify your order (simply contact our support team with your order number). For everyone else, we will start shipping their Librem 14 with the 4-cell extended battery in February.

Thank you so much for your patience while we finish up the Librem 14. Hopefully the surprise upgrade to an extended battery will help take some of the sting off of the extra wait!

The post Librem 14 Update: Shipping Starts in February with Extended Battery appeared first on Purism .