I got in the last time more into privacy and actally are thinking about degoogeling my fairphone. A big reason for me to by the fairphone was the update garantie for major and security updates.
With some time looking through the forum I could discover, that it is planned to provide A15 for the Fairphone 4 and even the 3 and I understood the Week 48 update right, the FP4 is already under Development and Testing and will be probably released in early 2026.
The newer Fairphones get even sold with your OS, but if I see right, the updates garanties are just for android os and not /e/os. So I wonder if there are at least any plannings and roadmaps that say how long you plan to support a device, even if you can’t promise it.
Are there any plans for the FP4? It would be quite nice to find such kind of information on the supported devices site (Info about Fairphone FP4 - FP4 ).
Can I expect, that the FP4 will be longer supported by Murena with OTA Updates than Fairphone? I would like to still use my Phone for quite some more time. I just bought my second battery, so it wouldn’t be nice to switch now to /e/os and than be needed to switch back soon, because it’s not supported anymore officially from Murena, but still from FP. I know there are community releases as well, but I like to have a stable reliable system, so I not sure I want to use them.
I think to get more users from FP and other longlivity phones to /e/os it would be good to communicate transparent and easy to find plans about the support duration for major and security updates. For the community updates it isn’t possible of course, but for the official ota updates of the offical supported phones it should be possible to pridict the end of support right?
currently /e/ support android 13, 14, 15, for the FP3, FP4, FP5,
and only support android 15 for the FP6..
the end of android 11 security update was in march 2024
the end of android 12 security update was in march 2025
the end of android 13 security update is planned for march 2026
the end of android 14 security update is planned for march 2027
the end of android 15 security update is planned for march 2028
the end of android 16 security update is planned for march 2029
the end of android 17 security update is planned for march 2030
new android version support for the FP4 will be possible as long as the kernel version will be compatible with the future android version requirement (FP2 as not been ported to android 12).
Okay that makes a lot of sense. So if my FP4 doesn’t get another major update, I can expect max support to be march 2028 and with every new major update a year longer. And if my phone can get another major updates, depends on the compability of the kernal and the system requirements to the hardware, like the windows 11 case rose the requerement pretty high that a lot of computers got osoled.
But this just shows the possibilites and not the plans of Murena for offical support. How long can I expect a phone to be offical supported like my FP4? Are there any certancys?
I know the FP4 is already quite old and reaches it support promise of fairphone soon, so there will be quite some uncertenties for the stock os as well. So I could understand that there are no promisses made anymore at this point. I just want to know what to expact, before switching to your os. Are official supported phones usally supported until the official end of the android version, so that I can be expect to get security updates until 2028?
Also if I would buy the new FP6, I would get 8 years of support for the stock os, but I can’t find any promises for the /e/os. Having this big uncertanty would make it quite hard for me do decide buying the /e/os version, beside I really like the idea of a degoogled, privacy friendly phone.
With old I just meant in regards to the official promised support lifetime which ends next year.
I know the smartphone selector site, but I can’t find there any statements, about how long the plan to support phones. Just what is the actual newest Android version release. From which source do you have the statement, that the support FP4 as long, as it is technically possible? That would be really great. If that’s the case I wonder, why they don’t advertise their phones with that.
Ah okay. I did a bit research and found the following statement under impact
We aim to support devices much longer than their original manufacturers, as long as possible. This results in us regularly doubling the usage life of smartphones. This means people can keep using their older devices for a longer time. This is more sustainable, and it also makes a smartphone with up-to-date software more accessible for people with a limited income.
But does this claim also applies to Fairphones? They have the same sustanabilty approach and giving already why longer support times than usual manufactures. So can I expact that FP even outlive with /e/os the support of the stock os?
Your second statement seems to not be true. In the documentation ( Support ) von /e/ is the following written:
/e/OS is not dependent on LineageOS in deciding which devices to support or stop supporting. We already have several devices which are not on the LineageOS supported list. We plan to port more devices to work with /e/OS code.
Also I not sure that you claim “their promise is to support it as long as it is technically possible” is true. They are writing in the documentation the following:
We will have to stop support for some older Android version like Nougat. The reason behind this is
It is very difficult to support multiple OS versions at the same time
Security updates cannot be back-ported forever.
Please note the /e/OS experience is similar whatever version of Android is running in the background. You can check the list of supported devices here
That sound more for me that at some point the ressources of maintainer are the bottleneck and not the hardware.
They do for the commercial front. It’s just that when you reach into what the opensource community can do past the official expiry date things need explaining.
Since mid 2025 there’s EU regulation requiring OS upgrades(!) for “at least 5 years from the date of the end of placement on the market of the last unit of a product model”. If it’s sold new in the murena shop this claim exists +5 years past purchase. The FAQ doesn’t go beyond this (for good reasons). This regulation concerns the whole phone unit, system and any vendor parts.
“support” has nuance in Android world esp. the customrom scene. Traditionally the vendor parts are thought of supported if they work, but not necessarily if the part (think modem, camera) can receive a security fix. The code to those parts isn’t opensource.
ROMs like Calyx and Graphene changed that and are strict that the commercial expiry date is also their end of support, as vendor parts will no longer receive fixes.
A lot of users in this forum do use the device long past the vendor expiry as it’s possible to build system updates for much, much longer. For most this is a deliberate economic trade off.
That explains why they don’t make offensive advertisment if they just aiming for the bare minimum..
With your explation that it concerns the whole phone unit, system and parts they could at least for the FP4 give 8 years, like the vendor Fairphone.
Also I wonder why the can not make just a specfic claim for major updates or security updates like fairphone does, whithout the vendor dependencies.
It feels a bit contradicting that Murena just offers the bare minimum of 5 years for there own phones, while on the same time promoting longlivity on /e/os and treading it as one of their core concepts.
Thank you for your explainations, but I’m not sure what that means for the offical updates. Can Murena just offer offical updates for 5 years or as long as the vendor does or longer? What can I expect? For everything beyond the offical support I know I can expect nothing, because it now lays in the hand of the community and I can be thankfull for everything anyone participates to maintain the phone a little bit longer. (Edit: Not that I’m not thankful for the offical support, especially above the manditory 5 years. Just want to say a company should be predictable. The community not)
I’m not a hardliner that I consider my phone expired as vendor parts will no longer receive fixes, but it’s important for me to still get the newest security patches and also having a stable system.
I played around quite some time with Custom ROMs when I was younger and using my Samsung Galaxy S3, for a vey long time after end of support whith CyanogenMod, but nowerdays I’m not that experiment-friendly anymore and want a stable, reliable and more secure phone. In exchange for that I’m okay not having always the newest features.
imo Murena and Fairphone can be thought of synonymous. If Fairphone has an OEM agreement that yields another year of vendor support, I’m sure they make the firmware available to Murena. In effect their support until vendor end of life for Fairphones is past the 7 year mark.
I just want to make sure you understand that what is floated as “support” is different if you ask a foss enthusiast vs someone doing business procurement.
I’m sure the FP4 will still receive Android Updates in 2030 for the system side, but vendor support will likely drop well before that.