The only concrete information is that they raised $18m. Nothing about what they will be working on other than laptops.
> After five years building laptops, what might Framework add to the portfolio? Patel won’t say — I only get the barest hints, no matter how many different ways I ask.
> He won’t even say if they’ll make less or more of a splash than laptops. Framework might choose an “equally difficult” category or might instead try something “a bit smaller and simpler to execute, streamlined now that we have all this infrastructure.”
Obviously $18m isn't enough to do a credible modern phone that's modular. Google couldn't bring one to market after investing probably at least an order of magnitude more in Project Ara. Plus the OS would be an even bigger challenge. So it must be something simpler and leverages some of their existing investments and know-how. But since this is VC money, the addressable market also needs to be big enough to be interesting. I'm thinking a modular version of the Steam Deck.
I have a steam deck and I'm already pretty satisfied with it though. It's reasonably repairable, the devs seem to listen to the community, and it's already a linux-based device I can essentialy do whatever I want with.
They're letting my imagination run away with me. Imagine:
A tablet form factor with a documented electrical interface for magnetic attachments (like an MS Surface style keyboard) that can run Android or Linux, or be repurposed for embedded or IoT touch interfaces.
A NUC or Raspberry Pi type device with a beefy AMD SoC inside, with optional battery support. Maybe it's thin and light enough that it could have snap-on touchscreen and gaming attachments that Lego together into a custom Steam Deck.
A solid TV without any built-in advertising junk, maybe running Android. The chassis, display panel, controller board, CPU board, and remote control can be purchased separately, of course.
A sleek and repairable smartphone where you can even replace the stock Android with Linux, where all the peripherals are documented and have open drivers, so with the right software you can have a Linux phone that doesn't suck.
How about they just make the laptop available to the other 75% of the world's population?
When they launched three years ago I was super excited and told everyone about them, I really believed in what they were doing. Granted it wasn't available in my country but surely they'd work on that right?
Three years later, not only have they failed to expand their geography meaningfully, but they've been utterly silent on the topic, there's no roadmap or sign of interest from them, and they go as far as to delete posts on their forums about forwarding laptops to unsupported countries.
They just don't care about the rest of the world it seems.
It's hard to not become bitter as the years march on. We will never have Framework where I live, it seems. Guess I'm being petty but I'm slipping into the "fuck this company" camp.
Same for me. I can easily see some Chinese competitor figuring out distribution and simply crushing them if they don't have a global brand, Oppo-style.
Welp, this prompted me to start Googling. Turns out there are at least two other companies out there which are aiming for the same market segment (a repairable, upgradeable laptop that's Linux friendly). They're sell laptops called the StarBook and the PrimeBook Circular. StarLabs will sell me a StarBook in my local currency online today.
The process of saying goodbye to Framework has begun, before they ever even allowed me to say hello...
The funny thing is that virtually all of these small laptop makers I've seen will sell a laptop to someone pretty much anywhere in the world, simply with caveats that you need to make sure you get the right power adapter (not that this is really an issue anymore now that USB C charging exists), you won't have local warranty service etc. Framework is the only one that seems to hate 75% of the human race and actively prevent them from buying its product.
I got curious and searched up your examples. While the StarBook looks like the most compelling alternative to the Framework laptop with coreboot and good repairability they don't seem to feature any modular ports, which is arguably what sells the Framework laptop for some people. Even for me, the thought of being able to swap out a USB-C charge port for a SD card reader is very appealing.
The other one, the PrimeBook Circular, doesn't appear to be on sale anymore? Their website is gone and an empty parking page loads.
I hope kind of all in one nuc device that can be a hackable: router,local media + backup, smart speaker, smart TV, wireless charger pad. Currently you have to buy separate device and update each time there is wifi 6, wifi 6e or wifi7 spec bump. Also most of the time no reason to have a dedicated smart tv and smart speaker if speaker can be just magnetic attachment
That's a good list. Would be interesting if they followed in the footsteps of Pine (Pinephone, Pine64, Pine book) but with higher quality products. Would imagine Fairphone would be an inspiration as well.
If I had to pick any one of those things specifically, it would be the NUC. MiniPCs seem fairly popular these days. But many of them come from Chinese companies with varying degrees of quality and support. Seems like there's an opening. Especially since Framework already sells a MiniPC of sorts: the CoolerMaster case + mainboard.
Something with a premium case, customizable ports, and upgradeable RAM + SSD, would be a perfect fit for what they're already doing.
God, I'd buy a Framework TV, easily. There just aren't any good options out there otherwise, if all you want is a damn TV and not a whole "smart media centre" that will either show you extra ads out of the box or be updated eventually to do so.
If they would do a small low-power SBC it would be great if it could be used as an alternative main-board for a Framework laptop. Fill out the remaining space with additional battery.
After 5 years working towards a 3rd product line doesn't seem that crazy. Specially because as he points out, lots of the design people don't have to continue to work on those products.
The question is, are those existing product lines profitable now and in the future with the work done in the last 5 years? And if they take the foot off the gas now, how will their laptop business look like in ~3 years?
I've seen too many carrot on a stick situations fueled by continuous VC money, until the whole thing implodes to be 100% behind this without questions.
I hope this is one of the good examples where things work out.
They are not designing their own processors so they can't massively accelerate producing better laptops. Because of their philosophy they are constant on more models or doing to many changes to those laptop lines.
They are not really 'taking the foot of the gas', there simply isn't a great way for them to sell more of those product lines. Their industrial designers aren't gone make those lines profitable.
But yes, if their current laptop line isn't profitable, just adding new product lines likely isn't gone safe their business.
yes, if they really wanted to be part of a socially responsible open/repairable hardware economy they might rather start building a buyers cooperative with fairphone and others...
From the article: "Today, Framework has about 50 employees, and it plans to expand to 60 before the end of the year, with “a bit of additional team growth” in 2025."
This amounts to $1M+ per new employee, which can get you pretty far. If the prototype of their new product looks promising, they may receive additional funding for production or form a joint venture.
Framework, please partner with Fairphone and bring their phones to market in the USA! Get their phones onto the major US cell providers' certification lists and start selling them here!
Yes, there's already that Fairphone Murena partnership which brings the Fairphone 4 to the USA but it's loaded with a 3rd party ROM which is very non-ideal for a general Android phone audience who do expect the Google stuff to all be there and it only works on a subset of T-Mobile's network.
AFAIK they largely fixed that problem on their backlogs and have been picking up steam since about a year ago though I doubt they won't have some problems with firmware at launch for the next few launches.
"We haven’t opened ordering in your region yet, but we’re looking forward to getting there!"
This is definitely illegal inside the European Economic Area, but I guess they are not aware of that. It is allowed not to ship to a specific area in some cases, but not refuse to sell entirely based on the country.
If there is someone from Framework Computer Inc. reading this message: you do not need to comply with any local law if you are not targeting a specific country inside the European Economic Area; you just need to follow the EU rules. Therefore, it does not make any sense to prevent people from a specific EEA country to buy your products (and that is illegal as well). Please fix it! :)
See the KB article[1]. You’re supposed to find a freight forwarder in a EU country that they “support”, select that as your country and ship there (and thence wherever you actually want to). The only allowance is that they will deign to not actively decline your payment or cancel your order if you pay with a credit card from another EU country (unlike everywhere else in the “unsupported” world[2]). I guess that’s probably legal?..
(I don’t know if they actually mean EEA when they say EU, or if they actually mean EU. That may be important given you’re in Norway.)
Thanks for the links :)
They should use EU/EEA actually, since the very same rule apply to the whole EEA. Given what they have written, I guess they would be glad to amend the page.
I'd be interested in buying Oxide compute for my homelab, but they only sell by the rack. It would be great to see them build a scaled down version of their product that runs on consumer grade hardware. This would give people interested in Oxide an easy way to run their Hubris OS on a supported platform. Since Oxide doesn't sell to consumers, Framework would be a great partner to resell something like this as retailers.
Obviously, this isn't a mass market product, but it could be a profitable side hustle for Framework if they aren't the ones putting work into developing the product. For Oxide, this would be a marketing ploy rather than a revenue stream. The idea is to sell these to the kind of person who would run Proxmox for their homelab or small business, with the ultimate objective of building familiarity so these people have the confidence to push for Oxide at their day job or to their big business partners.
I was talking to someone the other day and saying I think Oxide or a similar company should reintroduce the mini computer category. Either a dorm fridge sized unit or an 8 or 12u enclosure that mounts into a normal rack. But I don’t know how their power backplane can scale down that small and still be economical, whether their sales and support pipelines can afford such small customers as a 12u unit. I know a lot of small and growing companies could use that much server until they grow but small companies can be an opportunity cost.
What I see is that their full rack is so tall as to complicate delivery, its power and thermal draw so high, that I think they would be better off with a model one third or one half the height, and if the empty rack (all compute and storage modules pulled out) is light enough to lift by hand or with easily transportable equipment, designing them to stack like shipping containers gives you a better situation.
Interesting, I’m curious what you have in mind: what concrete product would Framework be selling (1/2/4U server? Laptop? NUC? Tower?), and how does the involvement of Oxide distinguish the product?
> It would be great to see them build a scaled down version of their product that runs on consumer grade hardware.
I don’t quite follow this: I thought “compute and storage by the rack on custom hardware for better integration” is Oxide’s product? If you take that away, what is left?
> This would give people interested in Oxide an easy way to run their Hubris OS on a supported platform.
My understanding is that Hubris runs on the microcontrollers that are part of the Oxide control-plane; ignoring the why, where would this run on consumer hardware? Is the user going to see it, or is it just a case of, for example, some of the fan controller uCs now running Hubris instead of whatever they would run otherwise (probably bare-metal Arm in some manufacturer-proprietary framework)?
As it happens, Hubris is already open source, so you can build/hack on it right now if you want to.
What I have in mind is a platform to run virtual machines at home. This is definitely a niche product, but there's a significant overlap between nerds running kubernetes at home and people who have influence over what server products to buy for their datacenters.
The form factor would be towers or NUCs, or something you could put under your desk without it sounding like a vacuum cleaner. The CPUs in Oxide racks are AMD, so, presumably AMD-based compute rather than ARM. The idea is to have a system that's as analogous to an Oxide rack as reasonably can be, but on a smaller, cheaper scale.
Yes, Hubris is open source, but much of Oxide's value proposition is hardware integration. So the hardware would be at least vetted, if not completely designed from the ground up by Oxide and Framework.
To be clear, I'm not making the argument that this product would be a slam dunk success for Oxide (or Framework). The benefits that I'm purporting might not be worth the cost of development. In the history of computing, a lot of the infrastructure development has tended to be bottom up rather than top down. Server racks are the descendants of PC's, not mainframes. This could be a way for Oxide to have something that aligns in that direction.
Once you get away from the “rack” as the unit and go back to a tower/NUC, I don’t think Oxide has anything special to add, but I may be wrong since I haven’t used their product.
A Dell (using them as an example since I’m familiar with PowerEdge) server/tower/NUC is pretty well integrated; the Oxide value add, as I understand it, is that your entire rack is integrated as opposed to being your own assembly of PDUs/servers/switches/etc.
Perhaps their management software (for spinning up VMs, managing storage, etc.) is high value, but I’m not sure how that works when you lose the rack-level integration and go back to a tower/NUC.
What do you see Oxide as adding at the tower/NUC level that takes you beyond the integration of a traditional tower/NUC from a vendor like Dell? I have seen similar excitement for “hobbyist Oxide” on other threads, but I’m still not completely sure what this actually means and how it would distinguish itself from existing sub-rack commodity hardware.
A sibling comment mentions smaller racks, which is certainly something I could get behind, but that’s not the same as towers/NUCs (or maybe that’s exactly what you mean: something that looks like a tower/NUC but is really a mini-rack with multiple miniaturised computers/switches/etc. inside?).
> The CPUs in Oxide racks are AMD, so, presumably AMD-based compute rather than ARM.
These don’t run Hubris though; the x86 cores are running Helios [0], Oxide’s flavour of Illumos (i.e. Solaris) that includes a bunch of binary blobs that aren’t even available, let alone open-source: they plan to make these “public” at some point, but it’s not clear whether this means source-available.
Based on the chips directory in the repo [1], they’re targeting a mix of NXP and ST parts, which are Arm, and the user isn’t likely to see them or care what firmware they’re running: I don’t think replacing the firmware with something running on top of Hubris is a value add, or even particular interesting for the hacker/hobbyist at all, in the sense that they’re a tiny cog in a much more complex system, and if you’re interested in hacking on something like that then it’s much easier/cheaper to do it in isolation rather than trying to do in-circuit debug on the part that’s keeping your server from catching fire (but that’s just my opinion!).
I own a Framework 13. It’s slightly overpriced but I would take it any day over a MacBook. It runs Linux perfectly fine with no driver issues and is in general pretty high quality.
FWIW, Fedora Asahi works impressively well. In fact it can already be a nice daily driver if you dont need external displays, integrated mic or touchID (they are working on all of this but they started with the hard work).
I’d recommend anyone interested to at least try it (it’s really easy like one command to run and doesn’t break anything) because it’s already a nice experience.
My only interests are in repairability, upgradability and ability run a Linux distro. If it meets those reqs, I'd then look at price and firmware openness. I've soldered on a GPU chip to my Thinkpad t480 and it was fairly easy. If I can do something similar with either of them I'd be interested.
My framework 13 does exactly what I want. It is a small relatively light Laptop with great Linux support, very nice display and good selection of ports.
I wouldn't buy a MacBook for software reasons, the Framework takes many design elements from it though.
We got one, and we love it. My daughter dropped hers and bent the case. We ordered a new case (which, admittedly, was a significant percentage of the price of a new laptop) and had it repaired within an hour of delivery.
I bought it primarily for the 3:2 screen after getting a Surface Laptop, which was such a lemon that it spent more time in transit for service than in use before I got rid of it. Have since swapped out every component but the screen, antenna, and chassis; the old Intel mainboard, wifi, and audio card are now in the standalone Cooler Master case driving a projector as a media center and server.
My work provides a M1 MBP; it's fine, but I usually bring my Framework when I want to get actual work done on the move. The Framework works with my external display but suffers from screen flicker on the M1.[1]
I can't claim to love the Framework laptop, as I have not yet gotten to try one, but I would like to love it; the feeling is more aspirational than sacrificial.
It's a solid laptop. If I was running x86, it would be my daily. I use my framework for field work and it's great. 30 hour battery life idle on the 11th gen at min brightness (Windows)
For me getting a new laptop is coupled with getting a new job, and I never want to spend the first month on the job debugging drivers. Self-inflicted FUD has been the only thing keeping me in the mac ecosystem.
I miss the crappy laptop with Xubuntu that I had in university. If framework keeps it up I'll eventually move back.
It's hard to find a decent laptop PC theses days.
Dell firmware is crap.
I have 2 HP in the family, both batteries died overnight, same for the spare batteries.
Lenovo laptop wasn't nice either.
Si this time I bought a framework, I hope it will be better.
I thought 13" would be too small but it's all right, i was used to thick screen bezels.
ThinkPad is made by Lenovo, when I see how bad the Lenovo laptop of my dad is, I don't think I will buy a Lenovo one day.
Does anyone have experience with Framework as a "small business supplier" ? I mean, how do they do if you try to get employee laptops through them, with 100 units/year or less ? How are their repair/lease-to-fix options in such a setup ? If you're a small business that does, or tried to, use framework laptops, what would you say on your experience?
Good! Here's an easy one, build a TV with no crap, no apps, no smart, no anything, literally just a screen. But make it gorgeous, solid build, OLED, 65+, etc...
Framework's USP is not making simple products, it's making repairable and customisable ones. I don't think there's anything to do there with a TV – there aren't bits you want to replace unless you make it a smart TV where you can replace "the smart" or "the TV" in it independently. You could make the I/O modular, but there's also no reason to not just include a ton of I/O on a TV because it's already huge and HDMI sockets are cheap.
The other issue here is that if you remove the crap/apps/smart/etc, you have to charge more, because TVs are typically subsidised by the post-purchase revenue flow that you can get from those features. Most people won't pay more for a TV that lacks features, that's a very niche market of HN commenters, and Framework have been explicit in wanting to move to less niche markets.
That was my first thought also. OTOH, Framework's business model is "we're going to charge you more to get that thing you actually wanted without locking you into stupid business models."
I would absolutely pay a premium for a decent TV without all the advertising crap that pops up every time I turn on the TV.
I'm not sure that is the business model. Framework laptops are more expensive, but not by much. They compete well with Macs and the high end laptops they are aiming to replace.
On the other hand, TVs can be bringing in quite a significant amount of their revenue post-purchase, like $100/year.
FireTV-based TVs in my experience work okay most of the time, but occasionally it switches to the FireTV software by default and I have to fiddle around to get it to default to showing HDMI-1. Also, I'll bet the power usage is much higher than for a simple monitor.
Since Framework calls itself a consumer electronics company, it seems broader than being a 'computer company'. Under consumer electronics they could make almost anything, including home appliances, like microwaves, dishwashers, coffee makers. Or home entertainment like speakers or televisions.
They should just copy what CWWK does and create boards stuffed with insane amounts of tech. ASRock/ASUS/SuperMicro can't cope with what is CWWK able to do these days.
I’m eagerly anticipating a Snapdragon X Elite mainboard. Complete pipe dream, but a few years down the line I would love an electric car designed to be as repairable as a framework laptop. Knowing I could easily do maintenance, upgrades, and software updates would be amazing.
If all the parts had extremely solid Linux support, I wouldn't even be mad. They could have gaming-focused builds for Proton users, and partner with Valve so Steam gaming works out of the box with silky smooth frame rates. Something you could point suffering Windows gamers to that Just Works.
Kudos for breaking ground on letting outside investors into a Series A [0], but it seems weird to just grant that voting power to the CEO. Can't tell if it's the CEO using that to reduce the dilution on his voting power due to the raise or a practical way to try to balance outside investment against the chaos of a hundred individual investors - if it's the latter it would make me feel better to proxy those voting shares to an investor & have the ability for the members to be able to vote to undo the proxy (especially interesting that the details of the proxy voting agreement aren't even posted so you can't make a determination a priori to applying). The former feels a little dishonest & a way for the CEO to make a cool 1M under his name without putting his own money on the line.
Of course, I also don't have experience with this kind of setup. Am I reading too much into this & this is fine?
Uhh how about a desktop tower case that takes in some number of their laptop logic boards and provides networking? Think like the “turingpi” motherboard but with an eye towards repurposing old logic boards.
I could see purposes being local storage HA arrays (small scale media firms), perhaps some computational applications (local testing), k8s. Could be a boon for academics who otherwise might be priced out. Like 2k for the tower, less than 1k (old refurb) to 2k per blade. Might be doing something interesting for around 10k.
Any company with a solid product would be able to expand into other product sectors based on the profit margins from that main product.
The only thing investment does is abrogate control to “investors” who care only about profit. Once investors get their claws into an altruistic company, that altruism must take second shrift (if any presence at all) to short-term quarterly profits at any cost, including long-term viability.
I mean, vampire/vulture capitalism has become absolutely endemic for a reason.
The only concrete information is that they raised $18m. Nothing about what they will be working on other than laptops.
> After five years building laptops, what might Framework add to the portfolio? Patel won’t say — I only get the barest hints, no matter how many different ways I ask.
> He won’t even say if they’ll make less or more of a splash than laptops. Framework might choose an “equally difficult” category or might instead try something “a bit smaller and simpler to execute, streamlined now that we have all this infrastructure.”
Obviously $18m isn't enough to do a credible modern phone that's modular. Google couldn't bring one to market after investing probably at least an order of magnitude more in Project Ara. Plus the OS would be an even bigger challenge. So it must be something simpler and leverages some of their existing investments and know-how. But since this is VC money, the addressable market also needs to be big enough to be interesting. I'm thinking a modular version of the Steam Deck.
I have a steam deck and I'm already pretty satisfied with it though. It's reasonably repairable, the devs seem to listen to the community, and it's already a linux-based device I can essentialy do whatever I want with.
They're letting my imagination run away with me. Imagine:
A tablet form factor with a documented electrical interface for magnetic attachments (like an MS Surface style keyboard) that can run Android or Linux, or be repurposed for embedded or IoT touch interfaces.
A NUC or Raspberry Pi type device with a beefy AMD SoC inside, with optional battery support. Maybe it's thin and light enough that it could have snap-on touchscreen and gaming attachments that Lego together into a custom Steam Deck.
A solid TV without any built-in advertising junk, maybe running Android. The chassis, display panel, controller board, CPU board, and remote control can be purchased separately, of course.
A sleek and repairable smartphone where you can even replace the stock Android with Linux, where all the peripherals are documented and have open drivers, so with the right software you can have a Linux phone that doesn't suck.
How about they just make the laptop available to the other 75% of the world's population?
When they launched three years ago I was super excited and told everyone about them, I really believed in what they were doing. Granted it wasn't available in my country but surely they'd work on that right?
Three years later, not only have they failed to expand their geography meaningfully, but they've been utterly silent on the topic, there's no roadmap or sign of interest from them, and they go as far as to delete posts on their forums about forwarding laptops to unsupported countries.
They just don't care about the rest of the world it seems.
It's hard to not become bitter as the years march on. We will never have Framework where I live, it seems. Guess I'm being petty but I'm slipping into the "fuck this company" camp.
Same for me. I can easily see some Chinese competitor figuring out distribution and simply crushing them if they don't have a global brand, Oppo-style.
Welp, this prompted me to start Googling. Turns out there are at least two other companies out there which are aiming for the same market segment (a repairable, upgradeable laptop that's Linux friendly). They're sell laptops called the StarBook and the PrimeBook Circular. StarLabs will sell me a StarBook in my local currency online today.
The process of saying goodbye to Framework has begun, before they ever even allowed me to say hello...
The funny thing is that virtually all of these small laptop makers I've seen will sell a laptop to someone pretty much anywhere in the world, simply with caveats that you need to make sure you get the right power adapter (not that this is really an issue anymore now that USB C charging exists), you won't have local warranty service etc. Framework is the only one that seems to hate 75% of the human race and actively prevent them from buying its product.
I got curious and searched up your examples. While the StarBook looks like the most compelling alternative to the Framework laptop with coreboot and good repairability they don't seem to feature any modular ports, which is arguably what sells the Framework laptop for some people. Even for me, the thought of being able to swap out a USB-C charge port for a SD card reader is very appealing.
The other one, the PrimeBook Circular, doesn't appear to be on sale anymore? Their website is gone and an empty parking page loads.
Sure, but Framework refuses to sell its laptop to most of the human race, so it's not even in the running for most of us
I hope kind of all in one nuc device that can be a hackable: router,local media + backup, smart speaker, smart TV, wireless charger pad. Currently you have to buy separate device and update each time there is wifi 6, wifi 6e or wifi7 spec bump. Also most of the time no reason to have a dedicated smart tv and smart speaker if speaker can be just magnetic attachment
That's a good list. Would be interesting if they followed in the footsteps of Pine (Pinephone, Pine64, Pine book) but with higher quality products. Would imagine Fairphone would be an inspiration as well.
If I had to pick any one of those things specifically, it would be the NUC. MiniPCs seem fairly popular these days. But many of them come from Chinese companies with varying degrees of quality and support. Seems like there's an opening. Especially since Framework already sells a MiniPC of sorts: the CoolerMaster case + mainboard.
Something with a premium case, customizable ports, and upgradeable RAM + SSD, would be a perfect fit for what they're already doing.
God, I'd buy a Framework TV, easily. There just aren't any good options out there otherwise, if all you want is a damn TV and not a whole "smart media centre" that will either show you extra ads out of the box or be updated eventually to do so.
If they would do a small low-power SBC it would be great if it could be used as an alternative main-board for a Framework laptop. Fill out the remaining space with additional battery.
>A solid TV without any built-in advertising junk, maybe running Android.
You can only have one of them, I guess, or is there an Android TV without ad junk?
NUC is commoditized by super cheap N100/N305 products from China.
Would love an open and dumb TV. A phone would also be nice.
I hope this is a good move, but I'm skeptical.
One of the biggest killers of companies is the lost of focus and doing other things good or bad is taking focus from one thing to another.
After 5 years working towards a 3rd product line doesn't seem that crazy. Specially because as he points out, lots of the design people don't have to continue to work on those products.
The question is, are those existing product lines profitable now and in the future with the work done in the last 5 years? And if they take the foot off the gas now, how will their laptop business look like in ~3 years?
I've seen too many carrot on a stick situations fueled by continuous VC money, until the whole thing implodes to be 100% behind this without questions.
I hope this is one of the good examples where things work out.
They are not designing their own processors so they can't massively accelerate producing better laptops. Because of their philosophy they are constant on more models or doing to many changes to those laptop lines.
They are not really 'taking the foot of the gas', there simply isn't a great way for them to sell more of those product lines. Their industrial designers aren't gone make those lines profitable.
But yes, if their current laptop line isn't profitable, just adding new product lines likely isn't gone safe their business.
yes, if they really wanted to be part of a socially responsible open/repairable hardware economy they might rather start building a buyers cooperative with fairphone and others...
I don't work in hardware development or manufacturing, but $18M seems pretty low for breaking into an entirely new category of consumer product.
Especially if you're going to do that without burdening their existing laptop team.
Am I wrong?
EDIT: I'm guilty of commenting without reading the article first. See comments below for the answers to my question. Apologies.
From the article: "Today, Framework has about 50 employees, and it plans to expand to 60 before the end of the year, with “a bit of additional team growth” in 2025."
This amounts to $1M+ per new employee, which can get you pretty far. If the prototype of their new product looks promising, they may receive additional funding for production or form a joint venture.
Well the article mention the 13inch development was paid with $9 million seed round. And $18 million Series A later on paid for the 16.
In the end it's twice as much as when they break in the laptop category.
We operate with extreme efficiency because we don't want to form a dependency on venture capital.
Framework, please partner with Fairphone and bring their phones to market in the USA! Get their phones onto the major US cell providers' certification lists and start selling them here!
Yes, there's already that Fairphone Murena partnership which brings the Fairphone 4 to the USA but it's loaded with a 3rd party ROM which is very non-ideal for a general Android phone audience who do expect the Google stuff to all be there and it only works on a subset of T-Mobile's network.
Hopefully with additional funding they're going to be able to expand to other countries as well. Currently they don't ship to most of the EU.
Hasn't Framework been struggling to ship firmware updates? It would be better if they use the money to patch up their fundamentals before expanding.
AFAIK they largely fixed that problem on their backlogs and have been picking up steam since about a year ago though I doubt they won't have some problems with firmware at launch for the next few launches.
Correct. See https://frame.work/blog/enabling-software-longevity
Just had a firmware update for my 13" AMD variant the other day. There are definitely still firmware issues to be solved in my opinion though.
Indeed.
For the last few years I've hated getting e-mail updates from Framework that announce their progress.
The emails implore to Order Now but alas I can not as my EU country is still not supported.
Plenty of businesses sell hardware across EU from a single EU entity.
Been waiting for it being available in Sweden for what feels like ages now. Sigh.
Note they have actually lifted the (illegal) ban on freight forwarding within the EU, if you’re willing to risk it. Only took, what, three years?..
Well, if I select Norway I read:
"We haven’t opened ordering in your region yet, but we’re looking forward to getting there!"
This is definitely illegal inside the European Economic Area, but I guess they are not aware of that. It is allowed not to ship to a specific area in some cases, but not refuse to sell entirely based on the country.
If there is someone from Framework Computer Inc. reading this message: you do not need to comply with any local law if you are not targeting a specific country inside the European Economic Area; you just need to follow the EU rules. Therefore, it does not make any sense to prevent people from a specific EEA country to buy your products (and that is illegal as well). Please fix it! :)
See the KB article[1]. You’re supposed to find a freight forwarder in a EU country that they “support”, select that as your country and ship there (and thence wherever you actually want to). The only allowance is that they will deign to not actively decline your payment or cancel your order if you pay with a credit card from another EU country (unlike everywhere else in the “unsupported” world[2]). I guess that’s probably legal?..
(I don’t know if they actually mean EEA when they say EU, or if they actually mean EU. That may be important given you’re in Norway.)
[1] https://knowledgebase.frame.work/eu-unsupported-SJByUb7a
[2] https://knowledgebase.frame.work/does-framework-support-frei...
Thanks for the links :) They should use EU/EEA actually, since the very same rule apply to the whole EEA. Given what they have written, I guess they would be glad to amend the page.
to be fair, you can always have the package forwarded (that's what I did)
it's obviously not perfect, though
Never used such services before, and I would dislike the extra hop in case it needs servicing under warranty.
agreed, the service point is a big one and should not be discounted
Since Nirav Patel appeared on Bryan Cantrill's Oxide podcast (https://oxide.computer/podcasts/oxide-and-friends/1632642), I've been hoping for a crossover product.
I'd be interested in buying Oxide compute for my homelab, but they only sell by the rack. It would be great to see them build a scaled down version of their product that runs on consumer grade hardware. This would give people interested in Oxide an easy way to run their Hubris OS on a supported platform. Since Oxide doesn't sell to consumers, Framework would be a great partner to resell something like this as retailers.
Obviously, this isn't a mass market product, but it could be a profitable side hustle for Framework if they aren't the ones putting work into developing the product. For Oxide, this would be a marketing ploy rather than a revenue stream. The idea is to sell these to the kind of person who would run Proxmox for their homelab or small business, with the ultimate objective of building familiarity so these people have the confidence to push for Oxide at their day job or to their big business partners.
I was talking to someone the other day and saying I think Oxide or a similar company should reintroduce the mini computer category. Either a dorm fridge sized unit or an 8 or 12u enclosure that mounts into a normal rack. But I don’t know how their power backplane can scale down that small and still be economical, whether their sales and support pipelines can afford such small customers as a 12u unit. I know a lot of small and growing companies could use that much server until they grow but small companies can be an opportunity cost.
What I see is that their full rack is so tall as to complicate delivery, its power and thermal draw so high, that I think they would be better off with a model one third or one half the height, and if the empty rack (all compute and storage modules pulled out) is light enough to lift by hand or with easily transportable equipment, designing them to stack like shipping containers gives you a better situation.
Meanwhile a 12u could probably go via FedEx.
Interesting, I’m curious what you have in mind: what concrete product would Framework be selling (1/2/4U server? Laptop? NUC? Tower?), and how does the involvement of Oxide distinguish the product?
> It would be great to see them build a scaled down version of their product that runs on consumer grade hardware.
I don’t quite follow this: I thought “compute and storage by the rack on custom hardware for better integration” is Oxide’s product? If you take that away, what is left?
> This would give people interested in Oxide an easy way to run their Hubris OS on a supported platform.
My understanding is that Hubris runs on the microcontrollers that are part of the Oxide control-plane; ignoring the why, where would this run on consumer hardware? Is the user going to see it, or is it just a case of, for example, some of the fan controller uCs now running Hubris instead of whatever they would run otherwise (probably bare-metal Arm in some manufacturer-proprietary framework)?
As it happens, Hubris is already open source, so you can build/hack on it right now if you want to.
What I have in mind is a platform to run virtual machines at home. This is definitely a niche product, but there's a significant overlap between nerds running kubernetes at home and people who have influence over what server products to buy for their datacenters.
The form factor would be towers or NUCs, or something you could put under your desk without it sounding like a vacuum cleaner. The CPUs in Oxide racks are AMD, so, presumably AMD-based compute rather than ARM. The idea is to have a system that's as analogous to an Oxide rack as reasonably can be, but on a smaller, cheaper scale.
Yes, Hubris is open source, but much of Oxide's value proposition is hardware integration. So the hardware would be at least vetted, if not completely designed from the ground up by Oxide and Framework.
To be clear, I'm not making the argument that this product would be a slam dunk success for Oxide (or Framework). The benefits that I'm purporting might not be worth the cost of development. In the history of computing, a lot of the infrastructure development has tended to be bottom up rather than top down. Server racks are the descendants of PC's, not mainframes. This could be a way for Oxide to have something that aligns in that direction.
Once you get away from the “rack” as the unit and go back to a tower/NUC, I don’t think Oxide has anything special to add, but I may be wrong since I haven’t used their product.
A Dell (using them as an example since I’m familiar with PowerEdge) server/tower/NUC is pretty well integrated; the Oxide value add, as I understand it, is that your entire rack is integrated as opposed to being your own assembly of PDUs/servers/switches/etc.
Perhaps their management software (for spinning up VMs, managing storage, etc.) is high value, but I’m not sure how that works when you lose the rack-level integration and go back to a tower/NUC.
What do you see Oxide as adding at the tower/NUC level that takes you beyond the integration of a traditional tower/NUC from a vendor like Dell? I have seen similar excitement for “hobbyist Oxide” on other threads, but I’m still not completely sure what this actually means and how it would distinguish itself from existing sub-rack commodity hardware.
A sibling comment mentions smaller racks, which is certainly something I could get behind, but that’s not the same as towers/NUCs (or maybe that’s exactly what you mean: something that looks like a tower/NUC but is really a mini-rack with multiple miniaturised computers/switches/etc. inside?).
> The CPUs in Oxide racks are AMD, so, presumably AMD-based compute rather than ARM.
These don’t run Hubris though; the x86 cores are running Helios [0], Oxide’s flavour of Illumos (i.e. Solaris) that includes a bunch of binary blobs that aren’t even available, let alone open-source: they plan to make these “public” at some point, but it’s not clear whether this means source-available.
Based on the chips directory in the repo [1], they’re targeting a mix of NXP and ST parts, which are Arm, and the user isn’t likely to see them or care what firmware they’re running: I don’t think replacing the firmware with something running on top of Hubris is a value add, or even particular interesting for the hacker/hobbyist at all, in the sense that they’re a tiny cog in a much more complex system, and if you’re interested in hacking on something like that then it’s much easier/cheaper to do it in isolation rather than trying to do in-circuit debug on the part that’s keeping your server from catching fire (but that’s just my opinion!).
[0] : https://github.com/oxidecomputer/helios
[1] : https://github.com/oxidecomputer/hubris/tree/020d014880382d8...
Do people love the Framework laptop?
Or is it a sacrifice made for philosophical reasons, compared to say an M-series MacBook.
I own a Framework 13. It’s slightly overpriced but I would take it any day over a MacBook. It runs Linux perfectly fine with no driver issues and is in general pretty high quality.
I feel like my MacBook is a sacrifice too: trading great battery life for a godforsaken OS.
FWIW, Fedora Asahi works impressively well. In fact it can already be a nice daily driver if you dont need external displays, integrated mic or touchID (they are working on all of this but they started with the hard work).
I’d recommend anyone interested to at least try it (it’s really easy like one command to run and doesn’t break anything) because it’s already a nice experience.
Why do you decribe Macos this way?
My only interests are in repairability, upgradability and ability run a Linux distro. If it meets those reqs, I'd then look at price and firmware openness. I've soldered on a GPU chip to my Thinkpad t480 and it was fairly easy. If I can do something similar with either of them I'd be interested.
I've had a framework for 3 years now and it just works.
Higher build quality than think pads and runs Linux perfectly.
This is coming from someone who had a franken 400/420t hybrid until 2019.
My framework 13 does exactly what I want. It is a small relatively light Laptop with great Linux support, very nice display and good selection of ports.
I wouldn't buy a MacBook for software reasons, the Framework takes many design elements from it though.
We got one, and we love it. My daughter dropped hers and bent the case. We ordered a new case (which, admittedly, was a significant percentage of the price of a new laptop) and had it repaired within an hour of delivery.
I bought it primarily for the 3:2 screen after getting a Surface Laptop, which was such a lemon that it spent more time in transit for service than in use before I got rid of it. Have since swapped out every component but the screen, antenna, and chassis; the old Intel mainboard, wifi, and audio card are now in the standalone Cooler Master case driving a projector as a media center and server.
My work provides a M1 MBP; it's fine, but I usually bring my Framework when I want to get actual work done on the move. The Framework works with my external display but suffers from screen flicker on the M1.[1]
1: https://www.benq.com/en-us/knowledge-center/knowledge/how-to...
I can't claim to love the Framework laptop, as I have not yet gotten to try one, but I would like to love it; the feeling is more aspirational than sacrificial.
It's a solid laptop. If I was running x86, it would be my daily. I use my framework for field work and it's great. 30 hour battery life idle on the 11th gen at min brightness (Windows)
I regret having a mac all the time.
For me getting a new laptop is coupled with getting a new job, and I never want to spend the first month on the job debugging drivers. Self-inflicted FUD has been the only thing keeping me in the mac ecosystem.
I miss the crappy laptop with Xubuntu that I had in university. If framework keeps it up I'll eventually move back.
battery-wise it's a sacrifice, but only because I run linux
wouldn't really be a problem if I were on windows
It's hard to find a decent laptop PC theses days. Dell firmware is crap. I have 2 HP in the family, both batteries died overnight, same for the spare batteries. Lenovo laptop wasn't nice either.
Si this time I bought a framework, I hope it will be better.
I compared Framework and the ThinkPad. The ThinkPad came out ahead. But Framework also doesn't deliver to where I live.
Main issue with Framework is that 13'' is to small and 16'' is to big.
I thought 13" would be too small but it's all right, i was used to thick screen bezels. ThinkPad is made by Lenovo, when I see how bad the Lenovo laptop of my dad is, I don't think I will buy a Lenovo one day.
Thinkpad and non-Thinkpad Lenovo's aren't built the same, don't base an opinion on Thinkpads off bad Lenovo gear.
Does anyone have experience with Framework as a "small business supplier" ? I mean, how do they do if you try to get employee laptops through them, with 100 units/year or less ? How are their repair/lease-to-fix options in such a setup ? If you're a small business that does, or tried to, use framework laptops, what would you say on your experience?
We do have a business program and are happy to answer questions you have on it: https://frame.work/framework-for-business
Good! Here's an easy one, build a TV with no crap, no apps, no smart, no anything, literally just a screen. But make it gorgeous, solid build, OLED, 65+, etc...
How about a TV with a slot for a Framework mainboard and maybe a drive bay or two?
Framework's USP is not making simple products, it's making repairable and customisable ones. I don't think there's anything to do there with a TV – there aren't bits you want to replace unless you make it a smart TV where you can replace "the smart" or "the TV" in it independently. You could make the I/O modular, but there's also no reason to not just include a ton of I/O on a TV because it's already huge and HDMI sockets are cheap.
The other issue here is that if you remove the crap/apps/smart/etc, you have to charge more, because TVs are typically subsidised by the post-purchase revenue flow that you can get from those features. Most people won't pay more for a TV that lacks features, that's a very niche market of HN commenters, and Framework have been explicit in wanting to move to less niche markets.
That was my first thought also. OTOH, Framework's business model is "we're going to charge you more to get that thing you actually wanted without locking you into stupid business models."
I would absolutely pay a premium for a decent TV without all the advertising crap that pops up every time I turn on the TV.
I'm not sure that is the business model. Framework laptops are more expensive, but not by much. They compete well with Macs and the high end laptops they are aiming to replace.
On the other hand, TVs can be bringing in quite a significant amount of their revenue post-purchase, like $100/year.
are TVs these days displaying ads over HDMI inputs or something?
what's stopping you from just getting any modern TV and not using the "smart" features?
FireTV-based TVs in my experience work okay most of the time, but occasionally it switches to the FireTV software by default and I have to fiddle around to get it to default to showing HDMI-1. Also, I'll bet the power usage is much higher than for a simple monitor.
Since Framework calls itself a consumer electronics company, it seems broader than being a 'computer company'. Under consumer electronics they could make almost anything, including home appliances, like microwaves, dishwashers, coffee makers. Or home entertainment like speakers or televisions.
They should just copy what CWWK does and create boards stuffed with insane amounts of tech. ASRock/ASUS/SuperMicro can't cope with what is CWWK able to do these days.
More discussion on the official post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40132360
I’m eagerly anticipating a Snapdragon X Elite mainboard. Complete pipe dream, but a few years down the line I would love an electric car designed to be as repairable as a framework laptop. Knowing I could easily do maintenance, upgrades, and software updates would be amazing.
it would be quite funny if it just ended up being basic desktop tower PCs
If all the parts had extremely solid Linux support, I wouldn't even be mad. They could have gaming-focused builds for Proton users, and partner with Valve so Steam gaming works out of the box with silky smooth frame rates. Something you could point suffering Windows gamers to that Just Works.
agreed, it's just not obvious to me what they'd be able to offer over a company like system76, for example
I want them to build a blade server, but it sounds like they’re pointed in the opposite direction.
Kudos for breaking ground on letting outside investors into a Series A [0], but it seems weird to just grant that voting power to the CEO. Can't tell if it's the CEO using that to reduce the dilution on his voting power due to the raise or a practical way to try to balance outside investment against the chaos of a hundred individual investors - if it's the latter it would make me feel better to proxy those voting shares to an investor & have the ability for the members to be able to vote to undo the proxy (especially interesting that the details of the proxy voting agreement aren't even posted so you can't make a determination a priori to applying). The former feels a little dishonest & a way for the CEO to make a cool 1M under his name without putting his own money on the line.
Of course, I also don't have experience with this kind of setup. Am I reading too much into this & this is fine?
[0] https://frameworkcomputer.typeform.com/community-round?typef...
How about a Framework inkjet printer? That would be nice.
Framework never has embraced COM Express modules. I have no idea why.
Uhh how about a desktop tower case that takes in some number of their laptop logic boards and provides networking? Think like the “turingpi” motherboard but with an eye towards repurposing old logic boards.
I could see purposes being local storage HA arrays (small scale media firms), perhaps some computational applications (local testing), k8s. Could be a boon for academics who otherwise might be priced out. Like 2k for the tower, less than 1k (old refurb) to 2k per blade. Might be doing something interesting for around 10k.
AI company, will now be known as AI Framework.
Any company with a solid product would be able to expand into other product sectors based on the profit margins from that main product.
The only thing investment does is abrogate control to “investors” who care only about profit. Once investors get their claws into an altruistic company, that altruism must take second shrift (if any presence at all) to short-term quarterly profits at any cost, including long-term viability.
I mean, vampire/vulture capitalism has become absolutely endemic for a reason.
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