Pro¹ X – state of production and delivery

[guest03847 9]

Also, @Casey, what about non-Qwerty layouts? Have they been produced, or are they not happening? I am asking, because I am reading in the IGG comments that someone (maybe more?) got sent a qwerty, despite backing/buying another layout?

Any news about all of the problems reported with the Pro1X? Are you working on it, or is it a "if youre lucky, youre lucky" kind of level at this point?

Also, what is your reaction to those who feel its weird and unfair that youre selling of devices left and right at a fraction of IGG prices?

And whats the reasoning behind offering paid import taxes for people buying of the fxtec store but not for backers, when, if anything, it should be the other way around?

Edited October 24, 2023 by guest03847

[SchattengestaIt 559]

Do I understand it right that people who ordered on the website are still waiting on their phone while indigogo supporters receive theirs? Not to mention that 'we' (website buyers) don't get any kind of newsletter anymore.

Also, the Pro1x is currently out of stock on the website. Has production stopped and will all buyers get their device eventually?

[Rob. S. 1,661]

21 hours ago, Nikolai said:

Hey @Casey, do you have any estimates for people who ordered a Pro1 on the website all these years ago? After all, we are buyers, not backers, so technically we don't even get Indiegogo updates.

I, for one, suddenly started to get them again at some point for my Pro1 Sept 2019 website order, after they had ceased with a later Pro1X IGG order having been fulfilled earlier, in August 2022.

[EskeRahn 5,460]

On 10/24/2023 at 11:26 PM, guest03847 said:

And whats the reasoning behind offering paid import taxes for people buying of the fxtec store but not for backers, when, if anything, it should be the other way around?

I think I can answer that part. If I remember correctly then at some point those with pre-orders were promised it would be with tax included (this might have changed for newer web-orders though). But I do not think such a promise were given on IGG. Hence the difference.

[BCole77 6]

Well I got my shipment email. Looks like my pro1x will be shipping out soon. Tracking from usps says waiting on package. I was an indegogo backer from November of 2020. Hopefully it gets here aoon.

[hling 7]

This time it happened. I got the email notification.  I got a tracking number. I got crazy tracking status updates that said otherwise, but I did receive the Pro1x I ordered through Indiegogo on Nov 3rd, about 10 days after I got email notification. I think though, I got one of those that has a depleted battery.  It won't turn on.  It does not show charging.  The red light flashed once when I plugged it in to charge.  No show of progress at all. If i hold down the power button continuously, that red light flashes once every 10, 11 seconds.  

What should I do? If this unit can be revived I might wait for my 2nd unit which I ordered through the website. If not, refund for both units?

So close yet so far. It felt good to hold the Pro1x in my hands, but will I ever see it in action....?

Thanks in advance for any input or help.

[EskeRahn 5,460]

13 hours ago, hling said:

What should I do? If this unit can be revived I might wait for my 2nd unit which I ordered through the website. If not, refund for both units?

Glad you finally got it, but sad that it is in a useless state...
Well the only known remedy is to disassemble it and charge the battery directly with a suitable circuitry. That is what FxTec is doing with returned units.

So sad that the road from production to delivery has been so long that this happens to several...

So the only options I see is to return it/them to get fixed, or to disassemble it and charge.

Rather than some fancy circuitry I have seen some suggest to use three 1.5A batteries coupled, as they have a limited power and thus are unlikely to damage the battery. But it will still require some handy skills, whether doing it yourself, or have a repairs-hop do it. Please be extremely careful around the fingerprint reader cable, it is short, and several have reported damaging it opening an Pro1&Pro1X when the two halves re separated.

Here some links from the FAQ thread:

Quote

Disassembly guides, see this @netman and official videos here and on Vimeo here

Also see these two

 

[SchattengestaIt 559]

Please don't disassemble new and intact phones if you don't have to. The Pro1 is easier to disassemble than other phones and it has a lot of potential for modifications (like I have two USB C ports) but it's not worth the risk damaging some components while opening it up.

I know it's sad but please let it get fixed by FxTec, even if it takes some (more) time.

[Hook 3,020]

The good news is, the warranty repair is just dealing with London, not HK, and there is no need for parts to be ordered, so it should be a fairly quick turn around once you get the support ticket set up with them and they receive the unit.  I've had two warranty repair episodes with them and both went well.  They are not quick with communication, but they will get the job  done.

@Casey

[guest03847 9]

Am I the only one that thinks it funny that despite supposedly removing DOA devices from stock just days before shipping, still several users report recieving DOA devices caused by battery depletion? Yes, fxtec are not only bad at communication, this sounds like deliberate untruth.

@Casey, feel free to proove me wrong. Also, waiting for your response to my last comment, whenever you are ready.

[jsreed5 31]

My Pro1 X just arrived about half an hour ago. Luckily, my device doesn't have a depleted battery, but it came out of the box at around 10 to 15 percent. I'm guessing some units were close to dying when F(x)tec checked them, and they fully ran out during transit.

[hling 7]

On 11/6/2023 at 11:21 AM, EskeRahn said:

Please be extremely careful around the fingerprint reader cable, it is short, and several have reported damaging it opening an Pro1&Pro1X when the two halves re separated.

Thanks @EskeRahn for your input.  I am weary of opening this brand new unit as I still remember opening the only working PocketEdge to replace the battery (hard to come by but I got it), and to come back and mess up the ON/OFF toggle. So then i have no working unit at all. 😞

 

On 11/6/2023 at 11:49 AM, SchattengestaIt said:

I know it's sad but please let it get fixed by FxTec, even if it takes some (more) time.

 

On 11/6/2023 at 12:43 PM, Hook said:

The good news is, the warranty repair is just dealing with London, not HK

Thanks, @SchattengestaItand @Hook, but I am in NYC, and London is still an expensive International shipping task.   I also still have another unit coming (or am I dreaming that it will ever come?). I just wish, that there's a way around the charging?  Maybe a giant Induction Charging block !?   

[SchattengestaIt 559]

Sadly, the Pro1 doesn't have inductive charging so that won't work. I don't see any other method to directly charge the battery without opening it either. Maybe let a phone shop do it if they cost less than sending it in?

You/the shop have to be careful with the fingerprint sensor and the power button (you can easily scrape the rubber coating away).

 

 

By the way, can somebody tell me how this problem is caused? Why does a depleted battery break the charging circuitry?

[EskeRahn 5,460]

1 hour ago, SchattengestaIt said:

By the way, can somebody tell me how this problem is caused? Why does a depleted battery break the charging circuitry?

I beleive they had answered that. The problem is that there needs a minimal amount of charge in the battery to have enough power to boot enough to have the charging activated.

AND combined with it not turning it self off early enough it is ALSO a future issue once it gets charged. So make sure it is never allowed to run flat....

[MonCon 125]

@hlingSorry to hear about your problem, I hope you get a quick local fix

@EskeRahnDoesn't the 'fastboot oem off-mode-charge enable' or 'fastboot oem off-mode-charge 1' discussed in this thread: 

alleviate the flat battery problem, (at least on stock android at the moment), or can you still end up in a chicken and egg situation where you can't charge to turn the phone on, and you can't turn the phone on to charge. 

@hlingUnfortunately of course you can't turn the phone on to change this setting if your PrawnX turned up flat. 

Or you could try giving it a kick up the bum with a fast charger: 

 

Edited November 8, 2023 by MonCon

[Casey 321]

On 11/6/2023 at 11:03 AM, hling said:

This time it happened. I got the email notification.  I got a tracking number. I got crazy tracking status updates that said otherwise, but I did receive the Pro1x I ordered through Indiegogo on Nov 3rd, about 10 days after I got email notification. I think though, I got one of those that has a depleted battery.  It won't turn on.  It does not show charging.  The red light flashed once when I plugged it in to charge.  No show of progress at all. If i hold down the power button continuously, that red light flashes once every 10, 11 seconds.  

What should I do? If this unit can be revived I might wait for my 2nd unit which I ordered through the website. If not, refund for both units?

So close yet so far. It felt good to hold the Pro1x in my hands, but will I ever see it in action....?

Thanks in advance for any input or help.

I'm very sorry to see that you received a depleted Pro1-X. If you'd like to carry out this repair by yourself, there are currently two ways to do this, but both would require you to disassemble your phone. We do not recommend doing this unless you have experience with electronics repair. As others stated, some components are very delicate and can be prone to break if not careful.

 

If you do wish to proceed by yourself, we have a detailed video tutorial on how to "jump start" your battery by taking apart your Pro1-X. A link of the video can be found here. You can either prepare a charger that has an output of 12V and to crimp the cable so you can have positive and negative ends to spark the battery connector. Or, you could purchase a universal battery charger and plug the battery connector onto a board to charge directly.

 

It is always welcome that you contact us for any repairs for your device via support@fxtec.com. We will help you with the RMA process and to ensure you get your device back asap.

[Casey 321]

On 11/7/2023 at 3:03 AM, guest03847 said:

Am I the only one that thinks it funny that despite supposedly removing DOA devices from stock just days before shipping, still several users report recieving DOA devices caused by battery depletion? Yes, fxtec are not only bad at communication, this sounds like deliberate untruth.

@Casey, feel free to proove me wrong. Also, waiting for your response to my last comment, whenever you are ready.

I wasn't able to 100% confirm that all units shipped out from the previous warehouse were working. Given the timeframe I had, it was quite impossible to check them one by one... Though, I understand your concerns and will reach out to those who did unfortunately receive a depleted Pro1-X and to offer support whenever we can.

[EskeRahn 5,460]

3 hours ago, MonCon said:

 

@EskeRahnDoesn't the 'fastboot oem off-mode-charge enable' or 'fastboot oem off-mode-charge 1'

AFAIK this flag helps the Pro1 better than the Pro1X, but personally have set it on my Pro1X too - I never understood why this flag is not set by deault on ALL phones. I see the Auto-on function as a really odd function that it is hard to imagine a use case for.

(Maybe auto-on could be usable for some with a handicap making it hard to use the powerswitch? But if so I guess they are unlikely to want a keyboard phone)

But some things in Android are just oddly opposite to what you would expect. E.g we do not get a warning of risking privacy information when enabling location services, on the contrary we get a warning turning it back off after usage...🙃

[EskeRahn 5,460]

A little foot note I'm not quite sure where to put.
Just noticed on a Pro1X (not Pro1), when in OFF state pressing the power/button briefly, will have the led blink briefly, green if full, I do not know if it will use other colours in a lower state.

So if a Pro1X will not boot, this might be helpful in telling whether it is a depleted battery or something else....

[denden 5]

8 hours ago, Casey said:

A link of the video can be found here.

In the video he says the red is negative and the black is positive. I thought it was the opposite (although I very well could be mistaken).

Is it different in different countries?

[MonCon 125]

2 hours ago, denden said:

In the video he says the red is negative and the black is positive. I thought it was the opposite (although I very well could be mistaken).

In my experience, generally red is +ve and black is -ve. 

I'd check the polarity with a voltmeter before connecting them. 

[claude0001 1,341]

17 hours ago, MonCon said:

Doesn't the 'fastboot oem off-mode-charge enable' or 'fastboot oem off-mode-charge 1' discussed in this thread: [...] alleviate the flat battery problem, (at least on stock android at the moment), or can you still end up in a chicken and egg situation where you can't charge to turn the phone on, and you can't turn the phone on to charge.

Contrary to popular belief, that setting cannot protect you from the battery depletion bug.

As @Sean McCreary clarified in some other thread, Android devices are not really "off" during "off-mode-charging". The charging screen is just a different runlevel of the operating system.

The bottom line is that the Pro1X's Linux kernel has to be up and running in order to actively switch the power source from the battery to the USB charger. That won't happen "on its own". So also with off-mode-charging enabled, there has to be enough remaining battery juice for an initial boot of the OS, otherwise the device is bricked.

[MonCon 125]

@claude0001

Thanks for that, I vaguely recalled discussion about needing to boot the OS (or at least the kernel) in the background to begin charging, but I couldn't find the thread, so in the end I thought my recollection was wrong, or I'd dreamt it.  

So with offline charging enabled (if you can, I can't get it to work on my PrawnX), maybe there's just enough juice left in your battery to boot just the kernel but not the full OS?  But the hardware can't dumb charge the battery on its own without the kernel, so regardless anything else, if the battery is depleted to totally flat then you have an expensive but very pretty paperweight.  

For what it's worth, on my PrawnX I have set up 'Easer' to generate audible alarms that increase in volume as the charge level approaches zero.  I have also considered enabling a shutdown (at, say 10% charge) with 'ACCA', but I'm not sure whether I'll just create a similar problem at a higher setpoint (as the OS boots, then ACCA starts up and shuts down the device).  

Meanwhile, offline charging, Easer or ACCA won't help any poor folk who receive a PrawnX with a flat battery out of the box. Gutted.

[claude0001 1,341]

@MonCon

I've experienced a "battery depletion event" once with the Prawn-X. As documented here:

The battery voltage, as measured with an external voltmeter, was "0.000 V" indeed. So booting into whatever runlevel of Android would not have been physically possible any more.

In that situation, the only way forward is to charge the battery using some external power supply, as documented in my post above. I guess this is also what F(x)tec are doing if you send in your device for repair.

[PrimeOS 1]

Hi everyone,

I am trying to change my shipping address (order #61794) from shipping address in 2021 to the billing address in 2021, but it seems I cannot find a link on the website in my account that allows me to do that. Can anyone explain how to notify FxTech about a change in shipping address ?