For me it’s the notification light you used to find on older phones, was particularly good to know if your phone was charged without picking it up
this post was submitted on 28 Dec 2023
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Kinda surprised that no one has mentioned the FM tuner. For reasons I never really understood, a lot of companies continued to build the hardware into phones but then wall it off with firmware.
My first MP3 player had one, my TV had one, there were even watches and lots of other devices that had one. People still listen to radio, so why don't they give us a tuner?
Mostly because they needed a wired headset to act as the FM antenna since it needs a decent length to capture FM compared to the much higher UHF and GHz frequencies that the mobile network uses.
Wouldn't you be able to use the coil for wireless charging as a pretty okay antenna?
Imagine blowing out your phone speakers because you put your phone on the charger while listening to the radio.
Typically speaking, it’s a bad idea to use power sources as an antenna. Because power pushes a lot more amps than something like a radio signal.
I mean, we have incredibly simple circuits that can limit amplitude.
My point is that any sort of radio would be immediately drowned out by the massive amounts of EM interference as soon as you tried to charge.
In fact, professional audio devices often have to take extra precautions to avoid their power cables from becoming accidental antennas; Anyone who used a cheap set of computer speakers back in the 2000’s and 2010’s will know the distinct buzzing pattern that preceded a text message or phone call. That’s because cheap speakers would use unshielded power sources, and simple circuitry which didn’t bother to isolate the amplifier from the power.
You could just not allow the user to use the FM tuner while wireless charging
You probably want the NFC antenna for that instead of Qi coils
Data sellers probably paid them to turn it off.
Mostly because they needed a wired headset to act as the FM antenna since it needs a decent length to capture FM compared to the much higher UHF and GHz frequencies that the mobile network uses.
They solved the ,issing FM tuner by pushing DAB+. (Yeah, + so users can't record from radio)
If the phone has a headphone jack, it probably has that FM tuner.
It is commonly a thing in budget mediatek devices
https://lemmy.world/comment/6283262
Are you sure the hardware is still there? I only ask because given the number of hackers out there, I'm surprised someone hasn't come out with a patch or something to make it more ubiquitous.
A lot of it isn’t there anymore….
But because it was a hardware thing, the patch would involve rooting your phone, something most people won’t do.
I don't know if they still have it, but this was a well-known problem for a long time.
It's not strictly there as a separate feature. Modern radio chips in phones are universal programmable radios, they can catch and process any wavelengths if you install correct code into them and plug a correct antenna. The same radio chip processes your 5G, Bluetooth, WiFi and everything else.
What phones are missing are FM antennas and radio firmware with FM support. This FM support is a paid feature for phone makers, so they don't add it.
i think I recall that the Bluetooth hardware is essentially an FM tuner. Just needed a wired headphone to use as an antenna. My Moto Stylus 2022 still has it.