If you wear glasses you could try sticking the magnet to those I guess?
Saying so I had one of the original mod mics and it was great while it lasted, but I found the cable was damaged pretty easily which ended up with it in the bin.
They do have a wireless version with its own dongle, decent bit of kit despite the micro USB charging lol.
I wasn’t able to read the article, for those who are in the same boat it’s copied below. Sorry no images.
Edit: Saw the archived link, mybad 😅
The ‘European’ Jolla Phone Is an Anti-Big-Tech Smartphone
Julian Chokkattu
7 - 9 minutes
Jolla may not be a household name, but for more than a decade the Finnish company has positioned its Linux-based Sailfish OS as an alternative to the mobile software duopoly that is Google’s Android and Apple’s iOS.
Now, 13 years since it tried to cut through the market with the Jolla Phone—a device which remarkably received software updates through 2020—it’s back with a successor of the same name.
This time, the company is positioning its handset as the “European phone.” This bit of marketing caters to the growing distrust in US digital services and platforms that has arisen since Big Tech sidled up to the second Trump administration.
The new Jolla Phone (pronounced “Yolla”) costs €649, mimics the Scandinavian design of the original, and has secured more than 10,000 preorders since its preview in December 2025. Those orders are expected to begin shipping at the end of June. At Mobile World Congress 2026 in Barcelona this week, the company divulged more details about the phone’s hardware.
Alt Android
Jolla has had a turbulent history. After the company floundered the launch of its Jolla Tablet in 2015, it nearly went bankrupt and pivoted to licensing Sailfish OS to automotive companies and governments, including Russia. After the invasion of Ukraine, Jolla had to cut ties with Russia, and a corporate restructuring meant that Jolla’s assets were acquired by the company’s former management under a new company called Jollyboys.
Image may contain Electronics Mobile Phone Phone Computer Hardware Hardware Monitor and Screen
The new Jolla Phone.
Courtesy of Jolla
It got back into the smartphone game in 2024 with the Jolla C2 Community Phone, made in collaboration with a local Turkish company, and it was this experience that gave Jolla the courage to jump back into the hardware business with the new Jolla Phone. Unlike the C2, this device is completely assembled in Salo, Finland, where Nokia phones were manufactured more than a decade ago.
“Europeans want more European technology,” Sami Pienimäki, CEO of Jolla Mobile, tells WIRED. “People want to go away from Big Tech, and the other trend is that European people want sovereign tech—it makes it possible for our kind of company to have a position in the market.”
Building a smartphone from scratch was also much harder over a decade ago, but today, Pienimäki says the operation can be fairly lean without having to “pay too much up-front.”
The components are sourced from various vendors and countries. The MediaTek Dimensity 7100 5G chip hails from Taiwan; the 50-megapixel main and 13-megapixel ultrawide camera sensors are from Sony; the 8 or 12 GB of RAM is from SK Hynix in South Korea.
“There are Chinese components as well—we are totally open about it—but the key is that, as we compile the software ourselves and install it in Finland, we protect the integrity of the product,” Pienimäki says.
What makes Sailfish OS unique over competitors like GrapheneOS and e/OS is that it’s not based on the Android Open Source Project, but Linux. That means it has no ties to Google—no need for the company to “deGoogle” the software; meaning there’s a greater sense of sovereignty over the software (and now the hardware). Still, it’s able to run Android apps, though the implementation isn’t perfect. Another common criticism is that it’s not as secure as options like GrapheneOS, where every app is sandboxed.
There’s a good chance some Android apps on Sailfish OS will run into issues, which is why in the startup wizard the phone will ask if you want to install services like MicroG—open source software that can run Google services on devices that don’t have the Google Play Store, making it an easier on-ramp for folks coming from traditional smartphones without a technical background. You don’t even need to create a Sailfish OS account to use the Jolla Phone.
Jolla’s effort is hardly the first to push the anti–Big Tech narrative. A wave of other hardware and software companies offer a deGoogled experience, whether that’s Murena from France and its e/OS privacy-friendly operating system or the Canadian GrapheneOS, which just announced a partnership with Motorola. At CES earlier this year, the Swiss company Punkt also teamed up with ApostrophyOS to deploy its software on the new MC03 smartphone. Jolla is following a broader European trend of reducing reliance on US companies, like how French officials ditched Zoom for French-made video conference software earlier this year.
Murena CEO and founder Gaël Duval wrote in a statement emailed to WIRED that the company believes it has a different mission from the Jolla Phone as it’s trying to bring the existing mobile app ecosystem—minus the permanent data collection by Google and third-party trackers—without a learning curve for the average person. “We want to make privacy possible for the everyday person without the need for technical expertise or a development background,” he says.
The Phone
A common problem with these niche smartphones is that they inevitably end up costing a lot of money for the specs. Take the Light Phone III, for example, a fairly low-tech anti-smartphone that doesn’t enjoy the benefits of economies of scale, resulting in an outlandish $699 price. The Jolla Phone is in a similar boat, though the specs-to-value ratio is a little more respectable.
It’s powered by a midrange MediaTek Dimensity 7100 5G chip with 8 GB of RAM, 256 GB of storage, plus a microSD card slot and dual-SIM tray. There’s a 6.36-inch 1080p AMOLED screen, the two main cameras, and a 32-megapixel selfie shooter. The 5,500-mAh battery cell is fairly large considering the phone’s size, though the phone’s connectivity is a little dated, stuck with Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.4.
Uniquely, the Jolla Phone brings back “The Other Half” functional rear covers from the original. These swappable back covers have pogo pins that interface with the phone, allowing people to create unique accessories like a second display on the back of the phone or even a keyboard attachment. There’s an Innovation Program where the community can cocreate functional covers together and 3D-print them. And yes, a removable rear cover means the Jolla Phone’s battery is user-replaceable.
Pienimäki says that while the device doesn’t have FCC approval, you can theoretically import it into the US, and it should work with the major US carriers, though compatibility is rarely a given. Jolla is considering a separate US launch, though right now it’s focusing on the European Union, the UK, Norway, and Switzerland.
Antti Saarnio, Jolla Group’s chairperson, reiterates that the Jolla Phone will be a niche product. “Most of the people using Android or iOS will not switch, but we should treat this as a stepping stone for something new,” Saarnio says. The “path to real volume” will come from the mobile market breaking down into new form factors, powered by artificial intelligence.
He’s likely referring to Jolla’s Mind2, a privacy-focused AI computer, which is still in active development. It plugs into a PC and connects Jolla’s AI assistant to apps like email and calendar locally—no cloud access required. The chatbot-like interface lets you ask it questions about your data, whether you’re fishing for something from an email or a private message. While the new Jolla Phone won’t have any AI capabilities at launch, Saarnio says an integration will be an option users can enable later this year.
Jolla has street cred for supporting its devices for a long time, but we’ll have to wait and see how the fresh hardware holds up and just how much the company has polished the Sailfish OS experience, especially since it’s much easier today to get started with a deGoogled Android alternative.
You can play it on the original Xbox, there was a leak maybe 2020 of a prerelease / wip.
I should grab some screencaptures of the ingame, but I’m sure there are plenty out there.
We’re around $1000.00 AUD for two adults and two 20kg dogs.
Really want to reduce as much as possible however the current pricing in the supermarket is rubbish.
Largest thing for me would be Netflix, if that’s at least kept its probably another task to chalk up for me.
From memory lots of streaming services have reduced functionality when running custom roms on phones; but it’s been a hot minute since I’ve done such.
Not your traditional TVs but look and see if you can get some TVs aimed at venues / advertising. I can see an LG IPS display, 98 inch for sub 10k AUD including shipping (98UM5J-B).
Phillips, LG, Samsung and others offer commercial panels without the rubbish that consumer panels are infected with these days.
This is actually pretty minimal in Australia (as someone who has worked in Hospitality for 20+ years)
Very few venues actually require this to enter, the majority check at the door or once you ae inside the venue.
Edit: Some owners of multiple venues have rolled these systems out in the past that I’ve seen, generally ones that have seen a rise in patron issues. Its handy that if someone has caused issues in one place they won’t get allowed into another; but it’s not worth the privacy risk in my eyes.
Yeah the LEDs were always handy to have, and the coloured notifications on the trackball (nexus 1) with a third party app was super cool at the time. My trackball after a few years got pretty dirty and didn’t want to clean with chemicals in fear of damaging it.
Currently using a Nothing (3) which is somewhat similar with the small led display on the back.
Nexus one had the trackball, the hero had a sensor or did both? IDK it’s been some years since I still had my nexus one. Maybe I’m thinking of the HTC Desire with the sensor.
I do remember running the original version(s) of MIUI on my nexus one, ahh simpler times.
Or Grayjay, I found NewPipe / other frontends had their fair share of issues while I was using them. Their desktop app however I’ve not used as it was failing to build on my NixOS machines.
“From the ID 2all onwards, we will have physical buttons for the five most important functions – the volume, the heating on each side of the car, the fans and the hazard light – below the screen,”
Climate controls are one but sure, five most important functions. Honestly rip out the touch screen, implement buttons just as they had been previously then add the display; preferably with a decent HID as Mazda have done.
I’m still driving a mk6 golf and really can’t imagine not having easy access to those features.
Missed the self hosted install:
https://docs.aliasvault.net/installation/
Might investigate this further as I’ve wanted to move passwords to another solution and leave passkeys / 2fa via KeePass.
Man Xiaomi were simple to unlock but their process was shit. Had to request and give a reason why you wanted to unlock the phone, then wait for a code to unlock the device. Pixel and Nothing look to be pretty simple so that may be something to take a look at.
MIUI was a fantastic rom for my Nexus 1, used it for until I cracked the screen on that device. Sad its gone the way it has.
All their smart lights are tuya, or at least the ones that I have. The esp are swappable but are soldered to the boards and their a pain to open but can be done.
I purchased some of their downlughts to add another project to the pile and to feed my curiosity.
I’d dare say the easier method, from memory the p6 should have a charge limit in the stock firmware.
I’ve not an old Samsung s10+ kicking around with corrupted firmware, should really take a look at it and see if it can be up and running again. Not that I need more cores, ram, cameras or any additions to my equipment but just because.
It fassinates me that consumer hardware, and low power at that goes wasted so often. So many small form factor devices such as phones, with built in ups aren’t being leveraged. But I guess that comes down to proprietary binary blobs and developer work on a per device basis.
I might have to investigate what platforms mobile nixos supports and see if it’s cheap enough to dabble with.
Several minute delay? Have you considered running Frigate for your detections?
Meds have curbed lots of my ADHD life issues, I feel that post diagnosis and taking kiddie speed most days has made a massive improvement to my quality of life.
Having motivation to complete some basic life admin tasks or take on and complete projects has been such a massive improvement for me.
Understanding that getting a diagnosis in Australia took me over a year, and the process was costly. I’m sure in other areas of the globe it’s a similar process, and it felt to me like it’s not streamlined for someone with such a disability but for me the outcome is well worth the battle.
Looking back to who I was then and now, meds have opened so many doors and opportunities for me.
That’s an interesting way of looking at interactions with people.
The fact that we can be so detached and yet so involved, I don’t feel the guilt is justified.
Were not cut of the same cloth as lots of folks, and in order to cope with the sometimes difficult interactions we lead or drop a conversation to cope, letting us cope in our own way. Leaving them blind to what were actually experiencing.
Were trying to fit in and the guilt is on them not us, don’t feel guilt for being different.
Its a wild ride, since being diagnosed i’ve more embraced it than hidden it, but it has opened my eyes to who I am and how awful some people are.
Yeah it’s a pain to install however. One of our dogs had a chomp on the wife’s set, took me quite sometime to disasemble the headphones just to install it.
Honestly if you can get something to wrap over / stitch over the top go that route. The XM4 are fiddily as fuck to tear down just to replace the headband.
Oh those are a clip on version. FML might have to get that to replace the black band on the grey set of headphones.