Linux-based 4G phones with Google Assistant sold for $7 in Indonesia

Having spent a couple of years building apps for KaiOS (which is really Firefox OS), I can say that it&#x27;s probably the easiest development platform out there - mostly pure web; with some proprietary extensions.<p>I wish Firefox OS hadn&#x27;t thrown in the towel so early. These devices are selling millions of units every month.

We&#x27;re likely approaching the day when it&#x27;ll be more cheap to attempt to build an open Linux phone from scratch rather than keep waiting for a manufacturer to listen to a few thousand techies who don&#x27;t want their personal data chewed by proprietary OSes. That milestone will almost certainly be marked by the availability of cheap 3&#x2F;4G modems (I&#x27;d be perfectly fine with 3G if it was the only option). We&#x27;re not there but chipsets are becoming cheaper with every portable router or dongle sold, so it&#x27;s a matter of time. Cheap and small SBCs, displays, batteries and 3D printed cases are already here waiting for the 3&#x2F;4G chipset to be added.

Apart from the Google tie-in, I&#x27;ve been wanting a KaiOS phone ever since they were announced. I actually miss the days of my Nokia E71; a stripped down but modern feature phone with battery life measured in days instead of hours would be a blessing.<p>Unfortunately these are not marketed at all in the Western world and probably wouldn&#x27;t work on domestic carriers.

Not only does GNU&#x2F;Linux appear to be unkillable, it always seems to take over every single market niche overlooked by larger, established players promoting fully or partially proprietary stacks. And in many cases, these niche markets end up being quite large or even mainstream. Amazing.

KaiOS offers a decent package.<p>But unfortunately, there are many things missing yet.<p>- decent crypto base - decent set of apps (with contraints on user&#x2F;input interfaces) [ as of now, there isn&#x27;t an email app available yet! ]<p>And pretty much every phone vendor&#x2F;TelCo is building a walled-garden and an appstore on their own, considering the licensing possibilities offered by KaiOS. Every TelCo will block sideloading of apps and restrict users from offering a full fledged KaiOS experience, as it turned out in the Android world.<p>Jio runs Jio AppStore. &gt;&gt; Please note: while the JioPhone runs on KaiOS, its app store is managed by Reliance Jio and called the JioStore. For this reason, we can’t guarantee the below apps will be available on the JioPhone, nor does it mean apps available on the JioPhone are available in other countries.<p>From <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.kaiostech.com&#x2F;meet-the-apps-available-on-kaios&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.kaiostech.com&#x2F;meet-the-apps-available-on-kaios&#x2F;</a>

It&#x27;s a stretch to call these &quot;Linux-based&quot; phones. The kernel [1] comes from an old Android fork of Linux 3.10 which is nearly 6 years old. Android kernel code is largely incompatible with mainline Linux which is the reason there are very few phones that can run actually run mainline (real) Linux.<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;kaiostech&#x2F;kernel_msm-3.10" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;kaiostech&#x2F;kernel_msm-3.10</a>

I have the version two Nokia 8110 banana phone with KAIOS. First, web dev isn&#x27;t good enough for me. I need crypto libraries on the device. Second,unless I&#x27;ve yet to discover how to turn it on, no predictive text input. Third, it ships with Google apps which, combined with the fact that you cannot uninstall apps on KaiOS makes the phone a novelty at best. More like a waste of €60 (none of these issues are obvious before making a purchase).<p>&#x2F;Edit - battery lasted two weeks between charges.

Interesting, I had completely missed KaiOS; apparently it&#x27;s a successor of FirefoxOS, based on some common components.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=16461016" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=16461016</a>

JioPhone, which runs on KaiOS has managed to bring WhatsApp to KaiOS[1].<p>That was the most requested feature on JioPhone 1, when it was released &amp; people were ready to put more money into next cheapest android smartphone to have it. Now, WhatsApp is available on both JioPhone1 &amp; JioPhone2.<p>Obviously it is packaged standalone version of WhatsApp web. WhatsApp team has been very successful in bring consistent performance of their apps on all platforms they support, so I assume it works well.<p>[1]:<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;blog.whatsapp.com&#x2F;10000649&#x2F;WhatsApp-for-JioPhone-on-KaiOS" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;blog.whatsapp.com&#x2F;10000649&#x2F;WhatsApp-for-JioPhone-on-...</a><p>Edit : typo

Very nice project. KaiOS also runs on jio phones and they are selling really well in India. Besides 4g these phones also have wifi support. Kai os phones are the only feature phones(I know of) that provide wifi capabilities.<p>By the way I&#x27;ve got a question for people who&#x27;ve used Kai OS &#x2F; firefox os. To use google apps like youtube&#x2F; maps etc do you need to log in like in android?

I can’t even imagine the environmental &#x2F; labor horrors that must be involved to allow for a phone to cost $7 retail.

Wow, #1 on home! By the way, do you have any idea if Wiz&#x2F;JioPhone&#x2F;... are shipped by any seller to Europe? Would love to hack one of those

The article says it supports WhatsApp, but the KaiOS publication clarifies it does not. In many countries, that&#x27;s a no go.

Probably worth mentioning GerdaOS (<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;gerda.tech&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;gerda.tech&#x2F;</a>), the first try to bring custom ROMs to KaiOS phones.

Why isn&#x27;t something like that in EU offered&#x2F;possible? I would like this

I saw an interesting YouTube video about KaiOS a while back: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=OA_g2bQgOXY" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=OA_g2bQgOXY</a>

Any word on US availability? There are plenty of people who don’t need an entire iPhone, or can’t comprehend one due to age or other handicaps. It’s good to have choices.

I don&#x27;t understand why the Google Assistant has to be thrown in. Beside me not liking the idea of Google Assistant processing my request, I don&#x27;t really believe that it&#x27;s a feature that many need or even request.<p>Of cause I&#x27;m in a non-English speaking country, so that may change the usage, but I don&#x27;t know anyone who uses Google Assistant, Siri or Cortana and only two people who use Alexa, which technically isn&#x27;t even available here.

I couldn&#x27;t understand why they were subsidising the phone, I googled a bit and found this article saying the original article is a lie:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;beebom.com&#x2F;fact-check-google-wizphone-indonesia&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;beebom.com&#x2F;fact-check-google-wizphone-indonesia&#x2F;</a>

I am Indonesian. Its been 4 months since they announced the phone on December, and they are still not available anywhere. I am not sure whats the hold up but there is no other update

Does anyone know if there are plans of these phones selling in the US? This one-thousand dollar madness of smartphone need to be stopped.

This is useful. Are they on Amazon or eBay yet? A backup phone for when you don&#x27;t want to lug around a mini-tablet is useful.

How I wish these cheap 4G SoC kits could be sourced easily like the ESP8266 or the Raspberry Pi.

A closed-source Google-developed OS for feature phones. Obviously it&#x27;s the best spend DoD money so far. Just 20 millions. You need to track poor people too.

I&#x27;d buy a few of these for my kids.

WebAssembly is going to make Linux phones rock. Can&#x27;t wait.

How do I get one?

Another instance of google propping up puppet competitors.

How difficult would this be to add GIPO to?<p>This crushes the Raspi3 for the value.

It will probably require a plan. Walmart tried selling a $10 prepaid smart phone and they were all bought up by tinkerers. A $10 phone means lots of hobby and maybe even some commercial projects get a cell phone mounted as a touchscreen interface.